Boyle Family’s “Study From the Westminster Series With Glass Pavement Light,” (1987), mixed media, resin, fiberglass.
Credit: Boyle Family and Luhring Augustine
Boyle Family
Through April 24. Luhring Augustine, 531 West 24th Street, Manhattan
Art centered on the land or environment and working in collectives are two practices that emerged from the tumult of the 1960s. The group known as Boyle Family embraced both of these, as you can see in their hulking “earthprobes” mounted on the walls in “Nothing is more radical than the facts” at Luhring Augustine. The 11 works here were made from 1969 to 1990 by the British artists Mark Boyle and his wife, Joan Hills, and their two children, Sebastian and Georgia Boyle.
Rather that creating colossal works in a far-flung locale, like Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty” (1970) or Nancy Holt’s “Sun Tunnels” (1973-76) — both in remote areas of Utah — Boyle Family made objects to be shown in galleries. The square and rectangular works represent parcels of land from various parts of the world, often chosen through random methods, like throwing darts onto a map. Here you can see recreations of a “Tidal Sand Study, Camber” (2003-05), a striated “Study of a Potato Field” (1987) or the urban gutter in “Study From the Westminster Series With Glass Pavement Light” (1987) made primarily with resin and fiberglass and a few samples of the site, like a pebble or an aluminum beverage container.
Read full article at nytimes.com
