Gerry Schum
«Land Art»

The broadcast (transmitted by Sender Freies Berlin/ARD, 10.40pm, 15 April 1969) begins with a studio-recorded opening that has something of the atmosphere of a vernissage. Following short speeches by Schum and Jean Leering, the director of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the artists' contributions are shown with no commentary. The eight artists from different countries (Richard Long, Barry Flanagan, Dennis Oppenheim, Marinus Boezem, Robert Smithson, Jan Dibbets, Walter de Maria, Mike Heizer) co-operated closely with Schum. The filming concentrates on the works of art that are created in rural sites, and there is none of the usual TV portrayal of the artist in a ‹studio atmosphere.› The elaborate productions were shot in Europe and the USA. Schum expanded the message of the emergent Land Art movement, which avoided the conventional ‹studio – gallery – collector› distribution channels: «Art should no longer be made for the privacy or exclusiveness of dealers or collectors. (...) Until now artists have not succeeded in finding a modern system of communication. The only chance I see for the visual arts is the conscious deployment of television.»