Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art

In the late 1960s, a handful of artists rejected the world of art galleries by creating works on a scale so massive no building could contain them. To do so, they used the earth itself as their canvas, often working in the expansive American Southwest. James Crump chronicles the rise of the movement in his documentary Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art. Crump positions Michael Heizer, Walter De Maria and Robert Smithson as the big three of the style, using new aerial footage and remastered vintage images to show how their earthworks have been altered by time and the environment. Smithson's iconic piece Spiral Jetty, a 1,500-foot-long spiral of basalt, mud and salt constructed in the bed of the Great Salt Lake in 1970, was submerged for almost three decades and is now mostly white rather than its original black. De Maria's sprawling The Lightning Field — a one-mile by one-kilometer grid of 400 steel poles on a plateau in New Mexico — required an overhaul after 40 years standing against the winds of the high desert. Troublemakers provides the opportunity to see art that is hidden in plain sight in some of the country's most remote regions. The film screens at 7:30 p.m. Friday through Sunday (February 26 to 28) at Webster University's Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood Avenue: 314-967-7487 or www.webster.edu/film-series). Tickets are $4 to $6.