| In this thesis I attempt to account for the contemporary reception of Land Art (specifically Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels, Michael Heizer's Double Negative, James Turrell's Roden Crater, and Walter De Maria's Lighting Field) as a spiritually significant phenomenon. The impetus for this thesis sources from the common tendency of those who visit Land Art to label their journey to reach the intentionally remote and inaccessible artworks, as a "pilgrimage." With a receptionist methodology, I evaluate and analyze the propensity of the viewer to describe and perceive Land Art in a manner that thoroughly resembles the reception of recognized religious sacred spaces. Through examining the desert landscape of the American West as "site," the ritualized performances enacted at the location of the artworks, and Land Art's synthesis of nature and culture, I argue that Land Art has come to embody a powerful and significant form of nonreligious, socially constructed, sacred space. |
