SPINE OF THE EARTH, 2012

300 performers, red suits, sky diver, red smoke, pigment.

The Getty Museum’s Pacific Standard Time Performance Festival, Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook in Culver City, California.

Lita Albuquerque’s Spine of the Earth 2012 was a striking large-scale performative sculpture that took place on January 22th, 2012.   Visible from the I-10 and I-405 freeways, this public performance was a dramatic re-interpretation of Albuquerque’s original 1980 Spine of the Earth piece. 

In this re-enactment the red pigment of the spiral from the original piece was represented by 300 performers all wearing red suits. The movement of the performers was initiated by a skydiver, also in red, and transformed into a line as all 300 performers went down the 287 steps of the site, resembling a red “spine” in the fissure of the landscape. 

This project is in conjunction with 18th Street Arts Center and the PST Performance and Public Art Festival organized by Glenn Phillips of the Getty Research Institute and Lauri Firstenberg of LAXART.