Cobalt Vectors – An Invasion,

1978

Cobalt Vectors—An Invasion documents an outdoor installation created by Dennis Oppenheim in 1978. Using asphalt primer and cobalt-blue dry pigment, the artist “drew” two 2,000-foot lines on a vast stretch of land at El Mirage Dry Lake in California and photographed the results from the air.

First active in the late 1960s, Land artists such as Oppenheim and Robert Smithson used tools and earthmoving equipment to shape, carve, and inscribe natural materials, transforming landscapes into sculptures. Although remote and often ephemeral, their projects were usually accompanied by maps, photographs, and models that the artists displayed in museums and galleries. Contradiction was at the heart of Earth Art: in works such as Oppenheim’s, outside and inside, presence and absence, immediacy and mediation are inextricably connected.