Excerpt from “Outdoor Art: Extraordinary Sculpture Parks and Art in Nature”
Silvia Langen
Prestel 2015
Pages 130-137

On the Trail of Humanity

Time and Space, Cappadocia, Turkey

Like ancient route markers eight basalt steles stand on the brow of a hill high up above the rugged landscape of Cappadocia in central Anatolia: these Sentinels are one of thirteen monumental installations created by the Australian artist Andrew Rogers (b 1947) between 2007 and 2011 in this lonely, high valley that extends from Avanos to Nevsehir. “Time and Space” is the name he has given to this art landscape which covers a distance of 2.5 kilometres. It is recognised as the largest Land Art park in the world and is also part of Rogers’ global project Rhythm of Life, which he started in 1998 and has already seen him leave impressive marks on the landscapes of all the continents: stone-built structures, archetypal symbols of the civilisations in those regions, which he has placed in very different topographies – from the Gobi Desert in China to the Atacama Desert in Chile to the Chyulu Mountains in Kenya. So far Rogers has installed art works in fourteen countries around the world. It is his answer – as an artist – to globalisation and the march of technology, which are blurring political and cultural boundaries and thus threatening the identities of different cultures. As he himself says, “We define our existences from the interplay of space and time. Nowadays we live in a world where technology is constantly advancing but people are staying where they were. That is why the old values from the past are so important for us today. Our roots are in ancient civilisations and cultures whose legacy we still carry around with us today. That is why I want to connect the old and the new.”

The sculptures at Time and Space can be divided chronologically into two groups During the first phase (2007-09) Rogers used stone walls to create pictures, which he has called geoglyphs, thereby alluding to the Nazca Lines in the foothills of the Andes in Peru: huge images that were scraped into the surface of the ground (by means of sharpened wooden sticks) around 800 BC. Archaeologists have interpreted these images as the remains of a prehistoric civilisation that was rich in mythologies and rituals. They could be sacred sites along pilgrim routes. Rogers also deliberately places his own marks in untouched landscapes, in order to connect with prehistoric civilisations that regarded the Earth as the primal goddess, as Mother Earth, the creator of everything that is alive. Unlike the artists who made the Nazca Lines, Rogers does not carve his symbolic motifs into the ground but constructs them from hip-high stone walls: a large horse, which gave Cappadocia its name; a millstone, which represents the material basis of life in the village; the mythological figure of a siren as a symbol of temptation; a palm as a tree of life; and a double-bodied lion as a metaphor for strength. All of these motifs are universal archetypes that can be understood the world over. Like a personal tag, Rogers also includes his own sign, Rhythms of Life, which is present at all of his projects: a dynamic structure that represents the arbitrary nature of human life. Each of these images, rendered as sculptures, covers an area of up to 100 by 100 metres. As a result they can only be seen in full from raised viewpoints – such as the amphitheatre in Cappadocia, which was carved out of a rock face at the end of a path. “But the best place to see them from is a hotair balloon,” says Rogers.

This is also true of the six installations created during the second phase (2009-11), which Rogers prefers to call “structures”: vertical basalt steles, with the tallest measuring fifteen metres. Sometimes they are in rows, sometimes in groups, as gateways and colonnades in an imaginary, ancient temple complex. Archaic-looking remains of lost civilisations are structured according to formulas that are still valid today – the golden section and the Fibonacci sequence. It is important to the smart Australian with the cowboy hat that people interact with his works of art “I want people to touch the walls, to run around in among them, to climb on them. Our sense of touch can teach us a lot about the way our bodies relate to space and objects.” Unlike the first exponents of Land Art Michael Heizer and Robert Smithson, Rogers takes it for granted that he will document the entire process and the finished works by means of videos, photographs and even satellite images. But above all he wants the locals to identify with his projects and with the unusual sculptures, in their region. He has often reiterated his belief “that history and our cultural legacy are essential to us as human beings.” This is why the social, collaborative aspect of Time and Space was crucial to Rogers. And that was also why he chose Cappadocia as the site for his work, since this area has always marked the juncture between Asia and Europe. As long ago as 4000 BC people were already creating habitable caves in the white stone of this volcanic landscape. Later on the Assyrians, the Hittites, the Mongols and the Persians, Greeks, Romans and the people of the Ottoman Empire all left their marks on the landscape. Entire underground towns and monasteries show the level of threat that was posed by ever-new invaders. “That is why I always start by going to the village elders and asking them what is important to them, what they want to have preserved for posterity. I want them to think about these things, to remember. Memory is the most important thing of all” The response from the villagers was wonderful “They were immediately on board and told me about the symbols that mattered most to them,” he recalls with enthusiasm. Having reviewed their suggestions Rogers then sought out relevant historical, mythological or archaeological remains in their culture, often with the help of anthropologists or archaeologists. That was how he found a 6,000-year-old rock drawing of a horse in Nevsehir Museum. This shows the important role of horses in that area, which is also reflected in the name Cappadocia. The original Old Persian name was “Katpatuka”, which means “land of beautiful horses”.

Now it was time to realise the concept. Men and women, old people and young people, whole extended families volunteered to help, keen to be part of this immense project. Two leading Turkish businesses covered a large part of the costs. The multitudes of helpers collected tons of boulders that were passed from hand to hand along endless human chains. On their arrival at the site the boulders and rocks were measured and finally used to create walls using the traditional dry-stone technique, which requires no mortar. Finally the women in their brightly coloured dresses danced as the men watched and everyone celebrated a work of art that they had all had a hand in creating – something that has no other function other than to radiate beauty and to prompt those who see it to contemplate human existence.

Andrew Rogers is often asked if his installations – which are entirely without protection – are ever damaged in any way “No!” he replies emphatically, “the locals are so proud of these works that they take care of them. They reposition stones if they fall out and they keep the whole area clean.” Rogers is happy about the appreciation people show for these works, but he is also happy in the knowledge that over the years nature will reclaim what he has appropriated in the name of art. The gradual reincorporation of his works into the natural landscape is an intentional component of his art. All the construction materials – the boulders and the basalt steles – were found in that area or carved out of the rocks there. Stones are Rogers’ materials, regardless of where he is in the world: “They attest to the present day, to our existences now. They connect me with the Earth and yet they are also part of the Earth. They are the components that trigger our ideas” – ideas that Rogers enriches with concepts such as liberty, justice, integrity, truth, respect peace, quiet hope, optimism, history, tolerance and beauty – values and principles that are embodied in his art as hope for future generations These concepts are chiselled in Turkish and English into columns recalling a ruin of an ancient temple in A Day on Earth – reminders of the past that point the way into the future.

Silvia Langen is an art historian, writer, and collector. She lives in Munich, Germany.

Downloadable Article: The Art Newspaper 21May12

Sculptures, satellites and what it means to be human

Artist Andrew Rogers wants to shrink the world and get us all to work together

By Elizabeth Fortescue. Web only
Published online: 21 May 2012

The Australian artist Andrew Rogers is due to travel to Namibia in south­west Africa in August to work alongside nomadic Himba tribespeople on a stone geoglyph or earth sculpture. The “earth drawing”, as Rogers calls it, will measure hundreds of metres across and will be photographed by satellite on completion. The Namibia project will be the next phase of Rogers’s seven-continent “Rhythms of Life” series. The series inspired Google to make a video tour of the globe in which Rogers’s geoglyphs can be seen in satellite imagery.

Rogers says he will arrive in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, on 14 August and travel to a rural, riverside location where he will “sit down and talk to [the Himba people] about what they would like to see recreated on the ground”.

“These structures will relate to [the Himba’s] history and heritage,” Rogers says.

Three structures will be created in the Namibian desert from the local stones. Rogers will offer to make one of his signature “Rhythms of Life” geoglyphs of which he has made versions on all seven continents, beginning in 1998.

It is part of his usual practice to involve local people in the creation of the works. So far he has created 48 geoglyphs in 13 countries with a total of 6,700 people, including 1,000 Chinese soldiers in the Gobi desert and 1,270 Maasai tribespeople in Kenya. Other countries with Rogers’s geoglyphs include Chile, Nepal, Bolivia, Sri Lanka, India and Australia.

Nearly all Rogers’s geoglyphs are left standing in the landscape where they will eventually disintegrate and be reclaimed by nature.

“Even though it may take a couple of hundred years to be reabsorbed into the landscape, they [eventually] will be,” Rogers says.

In March this year, Google Earth Outreach launched a video which pans around the world and zooms in on Rogers’s geoglyphs in deserts, flat lands, on prominences and mountains.

Rogers arranges for private satellite companies to photograph each of the completed geoglyphs from 880 kilometres above the surface of the earth. “It’s very humbling because you realise how large the world is and how minute these things are,” he says.

An exhibition of large-scale photographs of the Rhythms of Life earth drawings goes on display at Hammer Gallery in Zurich from 9 June. On 11 and 12 June Rogers will work with 1,000 Zurich citizens to create a labyrinth in a town square. He declines to divulge the exact location.

The walls of the labyrinth will be made from a 180 metre tube of plastic netting which Rogers’s collaborators will fill with thousands of biodegradable plastic bottles. The work, titled Another Way, will be a “tool for contemplation” about the impact of garbage on the environment, he says. The labyrinth will be up to 1.5 metres high and remain in the square for two days before being taken down and recycled. As usual, satellite photographs will be taken of the Zurich work.

Rogers says his Rhythms of Life geoglyphs were inspired by the ancient Nazca lines of Peru. Other ancient examples of this form of art, including the White Horse on Salisbury Plain in the UK, show that humans have been compelled to create geoglyphs for thousands of years.

“I think it’s probably a respect for something which is fundamental, which is our earth and the rocks and structures that form our environment,” Rogers says. “I try and rearrange what’s on the surface. We are very sympathetic. We follow the contours of the land. I suppose it’s a fascination with nature.”

Rogers said he earns nothing from his geoglyphs, which are funded by a range of sponsors. A former economist, he earns his living from his sculptural practice with studios in Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. Rogers’s 7.5-metre bronze sculpture of a female nude, titled Perception and Reality I, was unveiled at Canberra Airport in April.