Study for An End of the World No. 2

Emily Scott, a PhD candidate at UCLA, recently came to Las Vegas to lecture on Land Art at the Historic Fifth Street School. The topic of her lecture (and dissertation) was a work that Jean Tinguely developed during his time here in Las Vegas in 1962 entitled Study for An End of the World No. 2. I'll go a little deeper into the entire project soon, but here's an image (top) of Jean working in the desert and us returning to the same area 48 years later.

Okay, it's been a few days since I wrote that, so here's more of the story: Tinguely (accompanied by his wife, the sculptor Niki de St. Phalle) was invited by NBC to do a project in Las Vegas. Tinguely and his entourage spent their time in town gathering materials from the city landfill (closed in 1999 having reached capacity after forty years of operation, the site is located east off of Vegas Valley, past Boulder Highway), then were given space at The Flamingo to fabricate the work, which was subsequently transported to Jean Dry Lake to be detonated. More soon.

Top image: Jean Tinguely at Jean Dry Lake in March 1962, by Allan Grant, courtesy LIFE.

Bottom images: Las Vegas Landfill (looking towards LV), images of objects collected on site, and Jean Dry Lake Bed, March 2010.