Spiral Jetta, Erin Hogan, 2008

Another re-read, in this case in preparation for our Southwest landscape art tour.  Hogan leaves her quiet art historian life in Chicago and sallies forth in her VW Jetta solo to visit the iconic land art installations of the West—Spiral Jetty, Sun Tunnels, Double Negative, Rodon Crater, the Lightning Field, and Marfa.  Along the way, she struggles with her car, being lost, loneliness, fear, and how to apply her art historian principles to these often gigantic and sometimes lost (she never found the Sun Tunnels or Rodon Crater) works.  Space, mass, time, the effect of the environment on the work, Michael Fried, Smithson, Judd, De Maria, and Heiser all collide in this often humorous and always interesting work.  Eager to see at least two of these in person in the coming weeks.