Wanderlust. Actions, Traces, Journeys 1967-2017

Wanderlust highlights artists as voyagers who leave their studios to make art. This book (and the exhibition it accompanies) is the first comprehensive survey of the artist’s need to roam and the work that emerges from this need. Wanderlust presents the work of under-recognized yet pioneering artists alongside their well-known counterparts, and represents works that vary in process, with some artists working as solitary figures implanting themselves physically on the landscape while others perform and create movements in a collaborative manner or in public.
Many of the earlier works use what were at the time nontraditional methods of art making. In Trail Markers (1969), for example, Nancy Holt spent time in the English countryside, where she documented the painted orange trail markers she found dotting the landscape. Vito Acconci explored his body’s “occupancy” of public space through the execution of preconceived actions or activities. In Following Piece (1969), Acconci followed one randomly chosen stranger through the streets of New York. A Line Made by Walking (1967), a black-and-white photograph of Richard Long’s imprint of a straight line in a field, was Long’s first walking art work, made on a journey to St Martin’s from his home in Bristol. Ana Mendieta’s influential Silueta Works in Mexico (1977) documents performances by the artist during her travel between Iowa and Mexico, in which she imprints her body on the landscape while addressing issues of displacement.

Each of these works recognizes the walk and the journey as much more than just a basic human act. Rebecca Solnit observes that walking replicates thinking, adding “the motions of the mind cannot be traced, but those of the feet can.” These works trace the motions of wandering artists’ focused minds. Artists include Vito Acconci, Bas Jan Ader, Nevin Aladag, Francis Alÿs, Janine Antoni, John Baldessari, Kim Beck, Roberley Bell, Blue Republic, Sophie Calle, Rosemarie Castoro, Cardiff/Miller, Zoe Crosher, Fallen Fruit, Mona Hatoum, Nancy Holt, Kenneth Josephson, William Lamson, Richard Long, Marie Lorenz, Mary Mattingly, Anthony McCall, Ana Mendieta, Teresa Murak, Wangechi Mutu, Efrat Natan, Gabriel Orozco, Carmen Papalia, John Pfahl, Pope.L, Teri Rueb, Michael X. Ryan, Todd Shalom, Mary Ellen Strom, and Guido van der Werve.