As conceptual art emerged in the 1960s as a dominant movement, more artists turned their attentions toward atypical materials and spaces. Using wood, steel, plants, peat moss, and other organic matter became commonplace in the genre known as land art, which included works made directly on the earth or with natural materials brought into the gallery.

As with most of art history, land art has generally been dominated by men, although a new book published by Delmonico offers a corresponding, if not corrective, narrative. Groundswell: The Women of Land Art is a 256-page volume that encompasses a range of works by renowned artists like Ana Mendieta, Nancy Holt, and Agnes Dean, to name a few.

On the cover is Lita Albuquerque’s “Spine of the Earth,” an ephemeral creation of concentric circles laid in the Mojave Desert in 1980, with projects like Meg Webster’s verdant “Moss Bed, Queen” and Patricia Johanson’s winding “Fair Park Lagoon” inside its pages. Given the fleeting nature and live components of many land-art pieces, the book is both a celebration of the women artists working in the genre and a necessary resource for documenting such groundbreaking and transient additions to the canon.

Groundswell is available on Bookshop.

Patricia Johanson, “Fair Park Lagoon” (1981–86), gunite, native plants, and animal species, For the People, the Meadows Foundation, Communities Foundation of Texas, Texas Commission on the Arts and their private and corporate donations, permanently sited in Fair Park, Dallas. Image by Michael Barera, © Patricia Johanson, courtesy of the artist

Alice Aycock, “Maze” (1972), 12-sided wooden structure of 5 concentric dodecagonal rings, broken by 19 points of entry and 17 barriers 6 x 32 feet diameter, originally sited at Gibney Farm near New Kingston, Pennsylvania, now destroyed. Image by Silver Spring Township Police Department, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, © Alice Aycock, courtesy of the artist

Nancy Holt, “Sun Tunnels” (1973-76), Great Basin Desert, Utah, concrete, steel, earth, 9 1/6 x 86 x 53 x 86 feet, collection of Dia Art Foundation with support from Holt/Smithson Foundation. Image © 2023 Holt/Smithson Foundation and Dia Art Foundation, licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Meg Webster, “Moss Bed, Queen” (1986/2005), peat moss, earth, and plastic tarp, 10 x 60 x 80 inches, Walker Art Center, T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 2006. Image © Meg Webster, courtesy of the artist and the Paula Cooper Gallery  Photo: Courtesy Walker Art Center

Maren Hassinger, “Twelve Trees” (1979)

Mary Miss, “Perimeters/Pavilions/Decoys” (1977–78 ), earth, wood, and steel, temporary installation at the Nassau County Museum, Long Island, New York. Image © Mary Miss, courtesy of the artist

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article A New Book Celebrates the Groundbreaking Women Who Changed Land Art appeared first on Colossal.

Last week, on Paris’s oldest planned square, the Place des Vosges, the global gallery brand Mendes Wood DM opened its fourth branch. The two-storey space takes over a newly renovated 18th-century building in the artistic Marais district. It joins Mendes Wood DM locations in New York, Brussels and São Paulo, where the gallery was founded in 2010 by Pedro Mendes, Matthew Wood and Felipe Dmab to show a roster of contemporary Brazilian and international artists, which includes Sonia Gomes, Lucas Arruda and Lynda Benglis.

While Mendes Wood DM is one of three prominent international galleries to have opened in the French capital over the weekend before Paris + by Art Basel (until 22 October), along with Hauser & Wirth and Modern Art, its plans pre-date the city’s current art market boom, Mendes says. “Paris has always been important to us. This is where Matthew and I met as students in the 2000s, and where I lived for seven years—our experiences in Paris are what led us to open our first gallery in Brazil.”

Of course, the city’s ascendant position within the global art trade is a draw too. “Paris feels like the perfect gateway to Europe—and it has a renewed energy,” Mendes says. The move also allows the gallery to be physically closer to institutions and collectors that have led the way for the visibility of Latin American art in the West, including the Centre Pompidou and the Fondation Cartier, he adds.

The Mendes Wood DM team considered opening their newest space in London, Mendes says, but “Paris felt more like home”. He continues that Brexit-related issues were certainly factors that the gallery took into account when deciding between the two cities, but also that he has heard of instances in which the UK’s departure from the EU has created “favourable tax situations” for some galleries.

The gallery opened its first overseas outpost in Brussels, in 2017. This was a necessary step to allow many of its European clients to more fully engage with its programme. “It’s important to have a physical presence. Collectors need to understand your gallery beyond the context of the art fair circuit,” Mendes says.

The Brussels space allowed Mendes Wood DM to begin operating in a country where legal and tax structures are more favourable for art trading. “Ease of doing business is certainly one of the reasons we create these ’embassies’ in various countries,” Mendes says. Establishing a gallery in Brussels was also informed by a desire to not have another space in a huge metropolitan city like São Paulo, Dmab says.

Mendes Wood DM’s New York space opened in 2022, cementing the gallery’s position as a serious player in a global industry, although it ran a project space in the city for a few years in the mid-2010s. With locations on three continents, Mendes Wood DM counts itself among a growing number of Latin American galleries that have expanded to the West in recent years, including Mexico City’s Kurimanzutto, and Nara Roesler, from Brazil, both of which have opened in New York. Madrid is witnessing a new influx of Latin American galleries too, such as Ginsburg and Hilario Galguera.

Mendes reflects on whether his Latin American-founded gallery is at risk of losing its identity by expanding so far outside of the region. “In the beginning there was a boxing in for galleries like us—and now often people don’t remember our origin. Brazil is our home, just like Paris, New York and Brussels are our homes. From the beginning we have represented artists whose practices were outside of the centre. When we began in São Paulo we were a black swan—people said our artists were too formalist, too crafty. So if people don’t understand our gallery, it doesn’t bother us. We’re used to being on the outside anyway.”

Mendes Wood DM’s Paris space is directed by Nicolas Nahab. He joined the gallery last month from Marian Goodman Paris, where he was a partner. He was previously with the Paris gallery Yvon Lambert. “This is the first time I am working with a team of gallerists who are of my generation, and that’s an exciting prospect,” Nahab says of his reasons for joining. “I like how horizontal the structures are at this gallery, it appeals to me.”

Mendes Wood DM’s inaugural show in Paris, curated by Fernanda Brenner, features around 50 artists, most of whom are not represented by the gallery. Its title, I See No Difference Between a Handshake and a Poem, comes from a 1960 letter by the poet Paul Celan. Themed around hands, touch, and mark making, the multi-media show includes works by Tosch Basco, Michael Dean and Marguerite Duras.

At the Paris+ fair and its satellites, there was plenty of talk about the art world’s center of gravity in Europe shifting from Britain to France.

Itinerant fair Paris Internationale’s ninth edition opened this week in a 1920s former telephone exchange building in the central Grands Boulevards area. Freshly gutted, the edifice will soon be renovated by a property developer. The walls are raw and peppered by orange tape, and fair-goers need to mind their step. This edginess is what visitors have come to expect from the nomadic fair that has popped up in locations as diverse as dilapidated townhouses and a newspaper’s old carpark. This year, 65 galleries and five non-profit spaces are exhibiting across five floors, up from 60 galleries last year.

“[Belgian fashion designer] Dries Van Noten held his fashion show here last month,” said Silvia Ammon, who has been Paris Internationale’s director since its inception in 2015. Ammon was joined in the event’s second year by Clément Delépine, who served as co-director from 2016-2020. After an interim stint working at JGM Galerie owned by Jean-Gabriel Mitterrand, Delépine became director of Paris+ last year. Paris Internationale did not replace Delépine; instead, Ammon held tightly onto the reins.

The fair launched when former rival fair Slick, an alternative to FIAC (France’s now defunct international contemporary art fair), was wearing thin. Slick’s 10 editions ran from 2006-2015; Paris Internationale and Slick overlapped for one year. Subsequently, Paris Internationale became the main event for emerging galleries too young for FIAC. Since Art Basel ousted FIAC after winning the Grand Palais’ covetable October slot, Paris Internationale has been sharing dates with Paris+ par Art Basel instead.

Paris Internationale 2023. © Margot Montigny

Although some might wonder if Paris Internationale is unsettled by Paris+ par Art Basel’s arrival, Ammon is adamant that the former’s collegial identity is key to its success. “It’s a project that was created from the heart—a fair by galleries for galleries so they could have a platform for our generation,” she said. “Since then, the project has evolved and become multi-generational.”

The fair was founded by five galleries: Crèvecoeur (Paris), Gregor Staiger (Zurich/Milan), Ciaccia Levi (Paris/Milan), Sultana (Paris) and High Art (Paris). High Art left after the 2017 edition in order to participate in FIAC, and Sultana followed suit after the 2020 edition. Both galleries are now at Paris+ currently at the Grand Palais Éphémère; Paris+ will hold its first edition at the Grand Palais next year following the building’s renovations.

Permeability between Paris Internationale, FIAC in its time, and now Paris+ has long existed, with galleries sometimes graduating to the bigger fair as they grow. Felix Gaudlitz, LC Queisser and Galeria Stereo participated in Paris Internationale last year but are at Paris+ this year.

“We left Paris Internationale with regret because we like the fair and its ambience a lot,” Philippe Joppin, co-director at High Art, explained. “[But] the fact that we were founders gave us an enormous, time-consuming workload in terms of following the fair’s production and organization, and we wanted to continue to evolve in less young fairs in order to show more established artists.”

Guillaume Sultana also left because his eponymous gallery “needed a change” and because he wanted to leave place for younger galleries to participate. “The gallery and our artists were evolving, and showing in a more official fair [FIAC] gave a different status,” Sultana said. His decision was also influenced by his gallery moving from Belleville to the central Beaubourg district.

Mehdi Chouakri at Paris Internationale, 2023. Courtesy: Sylvie Fleury, Geneva, the Estate of Charlotte Posenenske, Berlin and Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin. Photo: Andrea Rossetti.

By contrast, Ciaccia Levi decided to stay put at Paris Internationale. “At the beginning, we decided to launch Paris Internationale because FIAC didn’t have space for everybody, especially young galleries of our generation,” the gallery’s co-founder Nerina Ciaccia, who exhibited last week at Frieze Masters, said. “Now we continue to be here because we’ve grown with the fair. Increasingly, more institutions come and it’s one of the fairs where we meet the most museums and curators.”

This back-and-forth can happen in the other direction, too. A surprise at this edition is Berlin’s Mehdi Chouakri, who participates in Art Basel. However, his application to Paris+ was rejected so he applied to Paris Internationale.

“I thought that I might be too established for Paris Internationale but they were happy to welcome me,” said Chouakri. “Being here is really good and brings a totally different way of working because we can experiment, do projects more lightly than at a fair like Paris+, and present more accessible works.” He has sold one of Sylvie Fleury’s Cuddly Dot paintings in fake fur, priced at €24,000 ($25,395), a red Escape neon by Fleury, and a galvanized steel sculpture by Charlotte Posenenske.

When asked if he would re-apply to Paris+ next year when the fair moves to the Grand Palais, Choukari said, “I guess so, yes… We would try to do Paris Internationale as well because I like this less corporate format.”

House of Gaga from Mexico City also applied to Paris Internationale after being turned down by Paris+. “We exhibited for 10 years at FIAC until its last edition, and this is our first time at Paris Internationale as we were ‘wait-listed’ at Paris+,” said gallery director Gabriela Magaña. “We’re really loving this fair­­—its energy, the refreshing proposals, and the organizers. It’s heartwarming.”

Marc Camille Chaimowicz’s bird ceramics and rugs alongside German-Korean photographer Heji Shin’s portraits of camels at House of Gaga’s stand. Photo: Courtesy of House of Gaga.

On view at the gallery’s booth is a duo show juxtaposing Marc Camille Chaimowicz’s bird ceramics, made under Covid pandemic’s lockdowns, and rugs alongside German-Korean photographer Heji Shin’s portraits of camels at a Moroccan beach. Magaña sold seven from the set of 48 of Chaimowicz’s ceramics at the preview.

Like House of Gaga, galleries have traveled far and wide to exhibit at this year’s edition. A sixth of them are from Asia, including Beijing’s Magician Space which sold its installation by Hu Yingping, priced €110,000 ($116,000), at the preview. It features over a dozen knitted bikinis encased in plastic that are suspended in the space. The artist created a company to purchase knitted garments made by local women for a project initiated in 2015. “We’re trying to get connections around the world because during the pandemic China was blocked [internationally],” Pojan Huang, a researcher and assistant at Magician Space, said about the gallery’s participation in Paris Internationale.

Inevitably, a prevailing question is how Paris Internationale might be impacted by Paris+ moving next year to the Grand Palais where it will have a much larger floor plan. This will provide Delépine with the opportunity to invite more emerging galleries to participate.

Axel Dibie, who co-owns of Crèvecoeur with Staiger, is robust on this topic. “Certainly, Paris+ par Art Basel will have more exhibitors but we also have more exhibitors as Paris Internationale is expanding,” he said. “We’re delighted that Paris+ is moving to the Grand Palais because what’s good for Paris+ is, by extension, good for Paris Internationale. The two fairs are complementary, Paris Internationale is inter-generational, and everybody is pulling Paris upwards.” At the preview, Crèvecoeur sold all of its paintings by Japanese artist Yu Nishimura, priced between €4,000 and €60,000 ($4,232 and $63,482), which are part of the gallery’s group presentation.

Still, Staiger admitted that Paris Internationale was “discussing strategies” ahead of the relocation of Paris+ to the Grand Palais next year. He conceded that the fairs are competing on some level.

Yu Nishimura, gaze (2023). Courtesy of the artist and Crèvecoeur, Paris. Photo: Alex Kostromin.

Several exhibitors, past and present, voiced support for Paris Internationale’s future. “I think the fair has such a well-defined identity and well-executed vision that it will continue to attract sufficient exhibitors regardless of competition,” said Todd Von Ammon from Washington D.C., who has participated in the fair for three years. He finds its “rough-and-ready, egalitarian ethos” to be a good fit for his gallery.

“I don’t consider it to be a satellite fair per se as it continues to be the right choice for some of the world’s most well-respected and serious small galleries,” added Von Ammon. He has sold several works, priced $18,000, from Dinos Chapman’s “Disastrous Moments” series (2023), for which Chapman reworked etchings from Goya’s “The Disasters of War” series with watercolor and graphite based on kitsch figurines from an American gift brand.

Meanwhile, Robbie Fitzpatrick, who participated in Paris Internationale in 2020 because FIAC was cancelled said that different fairs were necessary. “There’s a natural comparison between what Liste is to Art Basel and what Paris Internationale is to Paris+ and was previously to FIAC,” said Fitzpatrick, who exhibited at FIAC for several years and is now at Paris+. “The vibrant energy of these fairs, which were both initiated by young galleries, is imperative for a fair ecosystem to flourish.

Fitzpatrick added: “One of the most appealing aspects of Paris Internationale’s model, which Basel Social Club has emulated, is its itinerant nature of the project [which keeps it] fresh with each edition.”

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