Land art marks the start of Portscapes

A new version of  "12 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective", which celebrates its 40th anniversary, will be executed during Art Rotterdam this month. This will also mark the start of Portscapes, a series of art projects that will be developed throughout 2009, conceived by the curatorial office  Latitudes, which is commissioned by the Port of Rotterdam Authority. Portscapes is a response to the Maasvlakte 2, a new 2,000 hectare extension of the port that will emerge from the North Sea. The project represents an artistic voyage of discovery of the architectural, political, social and ecological past, present and future of the  port of Rotterdam. Both Dutch artists as well as artists from China, Mexico, Austria and the United States will take part in Portscapes, which is organized in consultation with SKOR (Foundation Art and Public Space).

This month, 40 years ago, Dibbets realized the original version of this seminal work, subsequently broadcast on German television as part of Gerry Schum’s Ferhsehengalerie (1968-1969). In the film we see a bulldozer tracing out a shape in the sand. Due to perspectival distortion, the shape is perceived as a square on the TV screen. Subsequently the incoming tide washes away the shape.

Jan Dibbets is a pioneering artist primarily concerned with light, observation, perspective, and space. In this particular project his use of sand and sea, tide and time  make us reconsider how we observe and perceive our surroundings. In the same vein, Portscapes aims to navigate the port in new and unexpected ways.

The première of Dibbets’ new version of the film will take place in late April 2009 during the opening of Futureland, the information centre of Maasvlakte 2.


via: Port of Rotterdam