22 Facts About Alan Sonfist

Alan Sonfist was born on March 26,1946 and is a New York City based American artist best known as a "pioneer" and a "trailblazer" of the Land or Earth Art movement.

Alan Sonfist first gained prominence for his "Time Landscape" found on the corner of West Houston Street and LaGuardia Place in New York City's Greenwich Village.

Alan Sonfist's sculptures reassert the historical role of the artist as an active initiator of ideas within society.

Alan Sonfist's work derives from an early childhood anxiety towards deforestation.

Alan Sonfist later attended Hunter College, where he received a master's degree in Art.

Alan Sonfist edited "Art in the Land: A Critical Anthology of Environmental Art," which was republished in Europe and Asia due to its reception by critics and artists alike.

Alan Sonfist has been included in multiple major international exhibition catalogs such as the Dokumenta, the Venice Biennale, and the Paris Biennale.

Alan Sonfist has been a featured lecturer at numerous major institutions including the Whitney Museum of Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago.

Alan Sonfist has received major awards and grants from private and governmental organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation for Art and Architecture, the Chase Manhattan Bank Foundation, and the US Information Agency.

Alan Sonfist's works are included in many international public collections such as Skulpturen Park Koln in Germany and Villa Celle, in Tuscany, Italy.

Recently, Alan Sonfist collaborated with Green City Planners in Pori, Finland and Tampa, Florida to create green public spaces.

The juxtaposition of the pre-Colonial forest inside a modern-day city epitomizes the environmental conscience that Alan Sonfist is known for.

Alan Sonfist's New York York City-wide Time Landscape, most visible to the art world in its segment at the corner of La Guardia Place and Houston Street, is an example of the artwork as a major urban-design plan.

Alan Sonfist spent over ten years developing the project and finally pushing it to fruition.

Alan Sonfist focuses not only on a place of beauty in the center of an urban landscape, but on its history, incorporating features of the natural landscape such as indigenous trees and plant life, as well as inanimate objects.

Mr Alan Sonfist researched the indigenous olive trees along and trees which would have coexisted with them two thousand years ago.

From 1971 to 2012, Mr Alan Sonfist completed a series of drillings known as 'Corings' or Rock Monuments'.

In 1991, Mr Alan Sonfist was invited to propose a public park in Paris - La Defense as part of an urban renewal movement in Paris, France.

Alan Sonfist proposed a series of environmental sculptures representing the cultural and natural history of Paris.

However, Alan Sonfist's work goes far beyond simple environmental or social commentary.

Today, Alan Sonfist continues to promote his message of ecological sustainability and timeless respect for the fragility of nature in each of his green art projects.

Alan Sonfist is that rare species of artist- not just a pioneer in a particular form or approach, but a real trailblazer whose ideas have remained consistent, and consistently interesting, over the course of an entire career.