#23

Beginning in the 1960s Stuart pioneered the use of nontraditional materials, making a group of drawings on long scrolls that employed the technique of frottage, or rubbing. These monumental sheets are coated in graphite and pressed directly on the earth, imprinting the physical environment directly onto the surface. Like her contemporaries Ana Mendieta and Agnes Denes, much of Stuart’s work, including #23, can be considered in relation to such other practitioners of land art as Robert Smithson, Richard Long, and Michael Heizer. Stuart’s interventions into the landscape were more ephemeral, or, as she described it, “less concerned with keeping a monument to my ideas or my ego.” (“Highlights from the Collection: 45 Years at the Johnson,” curated by Stephanie Wiles and presented at the Johnson Museum January 27–July 22, 2018)