Educational Media Reviews Online

Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art begins with a dense but informative definition of land art. This immediately gives the film context and makes a complicated genre of art somewhat more accessible to a general audience, and many artists, gallerists and art historians expand on the definition throughout the film. Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art is cerebral, challenging and engaging. Three artists are featured: Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer and Robert Smithson. They are idolized and humanized in the film, and their biographies are discussed in addition to their artworks. The film has the effect of documenting the culture of time as well as the works of art. There are incredible shots of rugged landscapes and seemingly vast horizons, providing a sense of the places that the artists were negotiating. Certain artworks, such as Heizer’s Double Negative, were examined at length. Potent quotes are featured as text for viewers to read onscreen, as Heizer explains, “Double Negative is really a scar of a kind, an intrusion of nature, an assult of some sort...” Later, the same work is seen in ground level and aerial shots, exposing the layered rock that had been cleaved during the work’s creation without any narrative, and the scene is instead accompanied by ambient music with the rhythm of a heartbeat. This simple interlude is one of the most engaging moments of the film.

Troublemakers includes significant visual material from the late 1960s and early 1970s, such as film clips and photographs. There is footage from the 1969 Earth Art Show at Cornell University, which exemplifies the movement. The film encapsulates land art as embodied by three troublemakers engaging with the landscape as medium and bringing art outside of the gallery setting.