Rise Industries

Bruce Nauman over Pasadena

This weekend started off with a trip up to Pasadena to see Bruce Nauman’s unrealized 1969 project finally realized for the Armory Center for the Arts’ 20th Anniversary. We went to a viewing location hosted by Side Street Projects, and watched as five planes criss-crossed the sky, outputting fluffy cloud dots which resolved into the text “Leave the Land Alone”.

It was interesting to us the change in context for this work, from its initial response to the land art projects of the 1960’s to today where it could reasonably be assumed it was a green/ecological statement referring to land use and global warming.

Bruce Nauman, Untitled, 1969/2009 from Jeremy Quinn on Vimeo.

After watching them etch the sky in gigantic letters for four passes and catching up with a few friends who also showed up, we headed off to Side Street Projects’ campus further up in Pasadena to check out their Armadillo (a FEMA trailer converted by MIT students into a vertical garden which Side Street won), their wood shop buses, and their collection of air-stream trailer offices.