Descending the Line (Descendiendo la línea)

Steven Yazzie, American, Native American, born 1970

2011

video

Museum purchase with funds provided by Eva and Eric Jungermann Family Fund

2011.38.1

© Phoenix Art Museum. All rights reserved. Photo by Ken Howie.

© Steven Yazzie

Contemporary

No

Arizona artist Steven Yazzie here explores the Western landscape and the experience of people visiting areas like National Parks, which were organized to be visited in a moving vehicle. He built a soap-box-derby-like go-cart, attached an easel, and began experimenting with landscape drawing while travelling at speeds of over 20 miles an hour. Yazzie's Descending the Line is both a performance (as recorded by the video) and a process (as manifested by the drawings he made). Each drawing was made over the course of one run in the cart and reflects multiple view points; in this way the images explore both time and space. This series uses a highly experimental technique that allows him to explore the Western landscape as a physical space faced with the evolving concepts of expansion and development in the 21st century.



The locations shown are known for their drama and beauty. They also hold a personal significance for Yazzie: Monument Valley (part of the Navajo Nation and his cultural heritage); Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell (close to Page where he grew up); Humphrey Peak (one of the four sacred mountains for the Navajo); Saguaro National Park and South Mountain Municipal Park (in Phoenix where he now lives).This intersection of subject, process and action speaks to the vast and dynamic nature of the Western landscape itself, as well as to its commodification as a tourist destination.