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All images are from Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison, "California
Wash: A Memorial", mixed media installation, 1996.
Standing at the top of Pico
in a rare heavy rain
looking toward the ocean and the sand
we flashed back
to a moment before history
before the building of cities and towns
when waters
flowing down from the mountains
and mesas above
cut a course to the ocean.
California Wash: A Memorial, a sight specific environmental work
by Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison, opened last April after eight
years of planning and preparation. Located where Pico Boulevard meets Santa
Monica State Beach, its coiling blue path lined with newly planted sycamores
descends from street level to the shore below, following the slope alongside
the garden at Shutters on the Beach. At the bottom it encompasses a new
bridge over the Pico-Kenter Storm Drain, the concrete surface there enlivened
with bronze images of the wild life that once prevailed on the site. There
are fragments of shale and bits of colored glass, while curvilinear striations
recall the original geological formations.
The bridge is closed at its further end by a fence whose ribbony blue bands
mirror the movement of the ocean beyond. The illusion of waves is reiterated
in shadow on the sand, underscoring its presence as a product of human endeavor
on the aesthetic level, while drawing on the knowledge and processes that
are the rewards of scientific and technological progress. Taking up an area
the size of a city block, California Wash is the latest in the series
of public art works that the Harrisons have undertaken since they first
directed their collaborative energies to focus on ecological matters in
1971.
Indeed, ecology was the motivation for their undertakings in public art
well before terms like "global warming" and "greenhouse effect"
were common in our vocabulary, and survival of life on the planet become
a matter of serious concern. That California Wash is constructed
on the site of a storm drain intended to carry excess rainwater to the sea
is of no little significance. Consider the increased contamination of the
water that has flowed through it over recent decades, brought about by the
ever growing presence of garbage and other waste, and often making it perilous
for bathing and swimming. And what about the fish caught off nearby Santa
Monica Pier? Does anyone actually eat it?
To both artists--Newton Harrison, a sculptor by study and background, and
Helen, holding a Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Education--survival was the
critical issue to be addressed in works which confront environmental problems
head on. They concern themselves with the multitude of factors that wreak
havoc on the planet, from deforestation and oil spills to depletion of the
ozone layer.
While local or regional issues--such as the San Diego Landfill
(1992) in Southern California, or in Europe, Breathing Space for the
Sava River, Yugoslavia (1988-89), the latter named for a waterway in
what is now Croatia and Serbia, and flowing into the Danube at Beograd (Belgrade)--dominate
their work such projects frequently have planetary significance. They may
also arouse public interest and response as well. The Sava River
project, a series of photographs of the area with text discussing the issues
confronted there, was exhibited in both Ljubljana and Zagreb. The matter
received prompt attention from Zagreb's Water Department and its Ministry
of the Environment. This led to plans for the purification of the Sava River
and support from the World Bank. Unfortunately, the outbreak of war caused
them to be set aside, at least temporarily. The exhibition, however--the
text has been translated into five languages--is now part of a traveling
show, Fragile Ecologies, and, will tour the United States for three
years, beginning with the the Queens Museum in New York.
Another project, The Lagoon Cycle, first undertaken by the Harrisons
in 1973 in the form of a mural 360 feet long (it was exhibited at LACMA
in 1985) has thus far unfolded as an imaginary discourse between two characters,
the Lagoon Maker (Newton) and Witness (Helen), carried on
in seven parts. Among other issues, the two characters search for new guiding
metaphors to replace those of force and fire. They perceive the accelerating
greenhouse effect as nature's response to the millennia of the making of
fire. The next chapter of The Legion Cycle series, comes up in October
this year, at La Villette, a recently opened art center in a Paris suburb.
Based in the San Diego area, the Harrison's have carried on dialogue with
colleagues at U.C. San Diego, especially those working in the various sciences,
over the years. Such interchange has kept them fully informed on the state
of all matters relevent to their work and their goals. Begun when both were
members of the university art department faculty, it continues at their
campus studio in their present roles as professors emeriti. They pursue
their objectives with the assistance of their son Gabriel and his wife Vera
Westergaard, both architectural designers.
That the viewer actually enters California Wash places it in the
realm of real-world experience. This both magnifies and multiplies the impact
of its presence, contributing visual pleasure and sensory uplift at the
same time. Declaring itself an ecological statement and a work of art at
once, the project--co-sponsored by the City of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs
Division and the Edward Thomas Company, owners of the Shutters on the Beach
hotel--addresses the continuing problem of deterioration and destruction
to which the Southern California environment is regularly subjected. Response,
moreover, is underway. The City of Santa Monica is currently selecting artists
to work with an engineer to design a low-flow treatment plant!
The effects of both components, the aesthetic and the ecological, are height-ened
by a poem engraved in the concrete base. Indeed. poetry is integral to th
Harrisons' projects, serving to enhance their presence as art on the one
hand, and lend awareness and explication of the ecological statement on
the other. The poem on California Wash, excerpted at the top of the
article, holds special significance for this area. It refers to a moment
before history, recalling the eons ago formation of the Wash's topography.
Rain played a primary role, precipitation from the Hollywood Hills carrying
earth, rock, seeds and plants over all, creating both the formal structure
of a California coastal wash and the landscape that spanned the region from
Mandeville Canyon to the beach.
Indeed, the work is poetic itself, both as metaphor--the wavelike bands
of the fence much like lines in a verse --and in endowing aesthetic form
to an aspect of nature that civilization, and especially technology, has
undermined.e The harmony, indeed, oneness, it has achieved with its setting
will steadily increase as the plant life develops and matures, inseparable
from the installation.
In all of the Harrison's work, applying the aesthetic component that prevails
in science in order to bring environmental issues to light underlines the
consideration that man's achievement in technology need not destroy but
contribute to bringing nature and the urban sphere into accord, each enhancing
the other, each serving towards full productivity. For the present, California
Wash stands as a memorial to a time long past, to prod the spirit towards
restoring to the environment the abundance and verdancy it once nurtured.
For the future while lending its presence to the beauty of the local environment,
it will serve as a memorial to the present that has become past, a reminder,
and more, in recalling the critical issues which will have then become history.
