Maya Lin's landscapes at DC's Corcoran Gallery unite art, architecture, environment

March 11, 5:52 PMDC Art Travel ExaminerMarsha Dubrow

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the DC Art Travel Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Maya Lin atop her "2 x 4 Landscape" ©MarkSilvaPhoto.com

Famed artist/architect/designer Maya Lin says she's "in love with showing you different ways to see the environment."

Lin makes hills out of two-by-fours (see photo), rivers out of pins, seas out of plywood, and lakes out of pine particle board in "Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes" exhibition that opened March 14 and runs through July 12, 2009 at Washington, DC's Corcoran Gallery of Art.   

"Systematic Landscapes" is the first time Lin has translated the immense scale of her outdoor installations into a museum's interior space.

[The Corcoran is within walking distance from her most famous work, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, but more about that later.]  

At the top of the Corcoran's grand staircase is "Pin River -- Potomac" a linear map of the river that runs through the Washington, DC metro region. The "flow of silver", formed by tens of thousands of straight pins pushed into the wall, charts the river's actual course.

Lin's "2 x 4 Landscape", composed of 55,000 short two-by-four wood blocks, form a ten-foot-high hill or ocean swell. It covers about 2,400 feet and fills almost the entire room.

In stark contrast to the Corcoran's ornate floral grills on the ceiling, Lin's "Plaster Relief Landscapes" use only a few lines of molded plaster to evoke ice floes, waves, and river systems.

"Bodies of Water" series are Baltic birch plywood portraits of the three most endangered seas, the Caspain, Red, and Dead Seas. All her materials are reclaimed, whether formaldehyde-free plywood, silver, and aluminum tubing.

The exhibition inspires and even startles viewers to contemplate how they perceive and experience landscapes, especially in this time of environmental awareness -- she's a purist -- and technological impact.

"I'm a very dedicated environmentalist, but I don't want to be didactic or preach. But I do want you to pay close attention to the environment," the artist told a preview audience at the Corcoran. 

And speaking of technology, her cell phone rang a moment into her talk. She pulled it out of her jeans, checked caller ID, and turned it off. "Where was I?"

In fact, she'd been talking about memory -- her five "memory" works -- the Vietnam memorial was her first, as we know.

"I've oddly chosen to work in three different fields, architecture, memorials, and art. I love them for their differences...but I wasn't sure whether working in three lines would be schizophrenic."

Lin is all about lines, and about schisms.

"I feel I exist on the boundaries. Somewhere between science and art, art and architecture, public and private, east and west. I am always trying to find a balance between these opposing forces, finding the place where opposites meet." Her quote is emblazoned on a wall at the exhibition's entrance. She entitled her book "Boundaries" (Simon & Schuster).

Years ago, "Newsweek" summed up the artist vs. architect debate like this: "Given her ability to maintain her esthetic integrity in a string of projects that have won over both critics and the public, magician is more like it."

Lin elaborated on the three-decade deliberation as she walked through the exhibition. "I see myself as an artist...It's hard to do art and architecture and keep them separate. Architecture is a functional art, and art is something you do. It's everything you've ever known and done, percolating up...I won't give up any of them, or memorials either."

She added, "The Vietnam memorial is also a landscape, with text and history." Cut into the earth, the black marble's polished, mirrored surface combines art, architecture, and design.

She created the proposal while a 20-year-old Yale architecture student -- and earned only a B, according to the book "Women of Our Time: 75 Portraits of Remarkable Women" (Merrell and National Portrait Gallery). But Lin submitted her proposal and won the design competition in May 1981, with judges terming it "a memorial of our own times".

However, she and her design were met by scorn, like this from the "Washington Post" -- "An Asian Memorial for An Asian War" to be designed by "...a woman who was 4 years old when the first bodies came home ..."

Today, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has transformed American monument design, and has become one of the world's most visited monuments. And Maya Lin is one of the world's most respected and renowned artists and architects.

Be sure to experience this "magician's" works at the Corcoran as well as on The Mall.