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“Why the monument? In a city which has come to symbolize temporal power, the monument, with its reference to Egyptian obelisks, and the pyramids, is itself the striking symbol of a different level of power, one not necessarily tied to men and governments, but to unconscious understanding of the cycles of life, from hourly movements to the passage of centuries, millenia.”
- Lita AlbuquerqueOriginal proposal document, 1980 -
In 1980 Lita Albuquerque produced The Washington Monument Project: The Red Pyramid on the National Mall in Washington, DC for the International Sculpture Conference.
To create the site-specific work, Albuquerque dug triangular trenches into the earth due West, North and East of the Washington Monument obelisk. She consulted the astrophysicist, Donald Goldsmith for his calculations to geolocate the precise times and locations for the intersections, so that her earth installation would be in perfect alignment with the shadow of the massive structure. She filled the trenches with natural pigment, in a technique she had already begun to use in her landworks in locations including the Mojave desert and the Malibu horizon line. Art historian William L. Fox describes this intentional harmony with nature, the ephemerality of her interventions as well as her use of color to be part of Albuquerque’s uniquely feminist contribution to the history of Land Art. Alongside Judy Chicago and Patricia Johanson, Albuquerque’s introduction of color was “a deliberate choice to counter the monochromatic earthworks by the men,” and “feminize land art,” Fox wrote. Others would say that it is a direct confrontation with the phallic symbol of power.
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The project came at a pivotal junction in the artist’s development as it is her first urban intervention that continues the dialogue between earth and the cosmos central to her oeuvre. In earlier works such as Rock and Pigment (1978) she dusted stones with pigment in expansive natural landscapes and in conversation with the heavens - stones replicated the maps of the stars. The same year she presented her renowned, Spine of the Earth in the Mojave desert, The Washington Monument Project opens the door for Albuquerque's later, well-known works such as Sol Star (1996) when she intervened near the pyramids in Giza and Stellar Axis: Antarctica (2006) created in situ at the South Pole.
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The presentation contains a triptych of photographs that show the motion intrinsic to the work, exhibited with a sculpture made of copper filled and with pigment that condenses the simultaneous gravity and fragility of the intervention.
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A never exhibited set of fifty vintage slides from the artist's studio (Edition of 2 + 1 AP).
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A series of drawings created at the time highlight the work’s philosophical underpinnings and documentation of the artist's process.
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The artworks are complemented by extensive and rare documentation that survived a devastating fire in the artist’s studio in 2018, including artist texts, correspondences with scientists and authorities, design documents and plans.
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Learn More About The Artist
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Lita Albuquerque (b. 1946) is a major figure in the Land Art and Light & Space Movements. She recently exhibited in the retrospective Groundswell: Women of Land Art, at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas, USA (2023) and in the Light & Space retrospective at Copenhagen Contemporary, Denmark (2021).
Her works are held in numerous major collections including the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Getty Trust, the Whitney Museum of American Art, LACMA and MOCA.
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THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT PROJECT: LITA ALBUQUERQUE
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