Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West

Award-winning author, curator, and activist Lucy R. Lippard is one of America's most influential writers on contemporary art, a pioneer in the fields of cultural geography, conceptualism, and art. Hailed for "the breadth of her reading and the comprehensiveness with which she considers the things that define place", she now turns her keen eye to the politics of land use and art in an evolving New West.

Drawing from her own lived experience over decades in a New Mexico village and inspired by gravel pits in the landscape, Lippard weaves a number of fascinating themes – among them fracking, land art, adobe buildings, Indigenous land rights, the Old West, tourism, and water – into a tapestry that illuminates the relationship between culture and the land. She offers a skeptical examination of the 'subterranean economy', comprised of the industries that derive their wealth directly from the earth, often to the detriment of the people and cultures inhabiting the surface.

Overall, a fascinating read for anyone eager to explore new ways of understanding the relationship between art and place in a rapidly shifting society.

Soft cover with both black and white and color photographs throughout.

Edition: 2014.