Last night I went to a movie called Earthwork. Earthwork is the story of Stan Herd and his artistry on Donald Trump's one acre vacant NYC lot in 1994. The image was called "Countryside" and on the day it was to be featured on national news, OJ Simpson decided to entertain us with his white Blazer excursion on the LA freeway. Herd's NYC masterpiece was bulldozed two days later.
Stan, who is from Protection, Kansas, is the preeminent representational earthworks artist in the world. He pioneered the art form of creating images of people, images, and products by digging, disking, plowing, and otherwise manipulating acres of green space. If you want to see Stan's art, you have to stand on a rooftop or peer out of a plane. His subjects range from American folk hero Will Rogers to commercial products like Papa John's Pizza. His campus is the great outdoors - a farmer's field, an abandoned lot, or a soil-capped landfill.
John Hawkes from HBO's Deadwood played Stan Herd in the movie.
Herd's earthwork projects have been created in countries around the world, including Cuba, England, and Australia. After the movie, Mr. Herd (and Chris Ordal, the director) held a Q&A about his passion and his projects.
Some examples of Stan Herd's earthworks:
movie trailer:
