Arava

Australian artist Andrew Rogers has been making sculptures since 1989, both bronze pieces and huge earthworks in the spirit of James Turrell and Michael Heizer. This show, titled "Earthworks and Geoglyphs," encompassed maquettes and large-scale aerial photographs of two massive projects that Rogers has been working on for six years: sets of constructed geoglyphs (large images usually carved into or drawn on the ground) in the Atacama Desert in Chile and the Arava Desert in Israel. According to the artist's statement, "In concept the Geoglyphs reach back in history and to the past. They are giant metaphors ... linked to prehistoric traffic routes of ancient inhabitants. Geoglyphs are a re-formatting of the ancient to comprise a new form derived from the past." The artist is seeking to connect, via the works' outsize dimensions, with ancient culture in a kind of inspired archeology.

The photos show men constructing what seem to be relics of prehistoric cultures--stone walls--in absolutely empty desert environments. Like pictures of Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, the images give only an approximation of what the experience must be like on site. One of the more powerful geoglyphs is Ancient Language (2004), which according to Rogers is inspired by a 4,800-year-old petroglyph carved into stone in the Atacama Desert. Made of stone and clay, the piece is 10 feet high and 200 feet in length; the sculpture stretches out into the desert, surrounded only by sand and sky.

The three works in the Arava Desert are titled Slice (2003), Rhythms of Life (2001) and To Life (1999). Separated from each other by a few hundred feet, the works are built of piled-up stones. There is an interesting photograph of the works, taken from an airplane some 1,500 feet above the ground. Slice consists of several rough enclosures surrounding each other, looking vaguely like the outline of a human heart. To Life forms the Hebrew letter for life--an unusually literal interpretation for someone working the way Rogers does. There is also a small bronze maquette (1998) with the same title, but the work seems forced and is not as interesting as the huge structures Rogers builds, with the help of many friends, in the desert. Rogers is best at monumentality, as he memorializes the past with art that is beholden to it.

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