Cauleen Smith's "Remote Viewing"

Cauleen Smith, The Pit, 2010

From the Creative Capital website: "The films focus on burial and an excavation separated by space and time but connected by the shared intention of violent erasure. The happenings explored in the films were not rooted in a desire to resolve absence and loss; rather, they were meant to conceal. The films seek not only to expose that which has disappeared, but also to investigate the gestures and associated traumas of burial itself. In so doing, the images link these sites and incidents with something recuperative, something recognizable as art—Land Art."

I'm still thinking a lot about burying objects specifically in relationship to Nancy Holt's Burial Project. Cauleen Smith discusses the nature of concealing objects and since the end product looks remarkably like earthworks, I'm really interested in her films currently exhibited at The Kitchen. Apparently I need to go to NYC before early March!

I'm traveling to Southern California this year for a family reunion and have a deep-seeded desire to confront the root of some of my influences - in the form of my parents growing up in San Diego, Ed Ruscha in Venice Beach, John Baldessari's "California Map Project," & Wayne Thiebaud's presence in the Bay Area. I want burial to be a part of this but haven't yet solidified how.