Art Hag

Perhaps best known for designing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., artist, architect, environmentalist, Maya Lin is an amazing woman of many achievements. Skimming her list of accomplishments makes me feel ridiculously and hopelessly inadequate.

Currently based in New York, Lin was born in 1959 in Athens, Ohio to two academic parents from China (her father was the dean of fine arts and her mother a professor of literature both at Ohio University). Lin received her Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude in 1981 and her Master of Architecture in 1986 both from Yale University. In 1981, while still a senior at Yale, she won a national competition to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial!

According to Wikipedia, when Lin's Asian background was revealed (submissions to the competition were "blind" - designated by a number and not the designer's name), a bit of a controversy erupted. It seems some believed that someone of Asian decent was not an appropriate choice to design the memorial dedicated to the fallen soldiers of a war fought in Asia. (Yes, sadly these people were right here in America, and considering how things are currently going with our new president, seem to still slither amongst us.) Lin was harassed and even that big-eared, wacky (cough) presidential candidate, Ross Perot, allegedly called her an "egg roll" after he learned she was Asian (again, my source on this is Wikipedia). As we all know now, her majestic design was fortunately realized - after an ultimatum was reached - that a bronze statue of three soliders (The Three Soliders by Frederick Hart, who came in third in the competition) be placed nearby.

Anyhoo, that's all history now. Today, you can see three magnificent installations by Lin at Pace Wildenstein's West 22nd Street location. Three Ways of Looking at the Earth consists of three massive, environmental installations pulled from her current traveling exhibition Systematic Landscapes. The three works recreate different topographies that viewers are allowed to walk around, through and under.

According to the show's press release, 2 x 4 Landscape "was initially conceived by Lin as a way to bring landscape into an architectural setting," and does it ever. The 10-foot-high (at its highest peak) hill, or wave, is made of over 50,000 vertical two-by-fours of Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) certified wood (Lin often uses sustainable and recycled materials in her work). The piece takes over the front room of the gallery occupying 1,900 square feet!

Blue Lake Pass was modeled after terrain from the Rocky Mountains. Twenty individual units made from thousands of sheets of duraflake particleboard "form narrow passageways through the mountain pass." The curvy way that the boards are cut give it a wavy look and the appearance of sand dunes.

Working with scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, Lin created Water Line, a topographic rendering based on the "ocean floor along the Mid-Atalantic ridge as it ascends to Bouvet Island, one of the most remote islands in the world." Water Line consists of "a 19' x 34' 8" x 29' 2" suspended, painted aluminum wire line drawing that invites viewers to pass underneath and around a landscape hidden miles beneath the ocean."

Each of the three works is made from one, single material (though with lots of it) and are simple, elegant, intelligent, and thoughtful studies of the earth. Lin is committed to focusing attention on environmental concerns through her art and promotes sustainable building design in her architecture.

Salon 94 (94th Street between Madison and Fifth) will present Maya Lin: Recycled Landscapes, some smaller sculptures made from recycled materials starting September 25th through November 13th.

Lin's Bodies of Water exhibit is currently on view at Storm King Art Center (Mountainville, NY) in the ground floor of the museum until November 15th. Her site-specific piece, Storm King Wavefield, a four-acre earthwork, can be seen at the southwest edge of the sculpture park. Later in the fall, What is Missing?, Lin's final public memorial, will debut at Storm King.

And finally, check out the new space for the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) designed by Lin with its grand opening on September 22nd. MOCA is located at 211-215 Center Street just north of Manhattan's Chinatown.

Lin is an extraordinarily busy and extraordinarily gifted artist. Be sure to see some if not all of these works by her. She rocks! You won't be disappointed! Read more about Three Ways of Looking at the Earth at Pacewildenstein.com and learn more about Lin at her website Mayalin.com.

2 x 4 Landscape, 2006