Also under the heading of what Baum classifies as interruptive art, along with Sierra, are Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla’s Land Mark (Foot Prints) photographs, for which the artists infiltrated a U.S. Navy bombing range in Puerto Rico and altered the ground covering with the specially designed soles of their shoes.
      There are also some works in the show pointing to the effects of warfare on the landscape. With the tools of melted lead and burnt wood, Matthew Day Jackson’s assemblage Aug. 6th, 1945 (2010) evokes the devastating nuclear attacks of the Second World War. And the team of Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige create a parafictional representation of their native Lebanon’s lost innocence following its 1975-1990 civil war by repurposing the burnt negatives of a post card photographer. The tourist’s paradise of pre-war Beirut, as depicted in the postcards, has been scarred by war, which the dark blotches that tarnish the images convey.
      It’s never easy to assess trends in the art world in their immediate aftermaths, but this exhibition makes a credible case for the emergence of a new kind of environmental artist, one who sees human faces in the jagged edges of land formations. Gone are the days, it seems, when landscape artists stood back and marveled at the power of nature. Today’s land artists look outward at the horizon and sense their own awesome presence.