Dennis Oppenheim, 'Canceled Crop'

Socially engaged experiential work (what some folks have called social sculpture) is a big inspiration for a lot of Los Angeles artists. Living in a city that asserts so much presence in the daily routine means that a lot of artists here have spent considerable amounts of time assessing how LA could be better, nicer, greener, more sustainable and more people-friendly.

To me, these engaged practices with the urban landscape seem to have a direct relation to earlier practices in Land Art.

Dennis Oppenheim's 1969 piece 'Canceled Crop' seems - for instance - like an early piece that could perhaps have indirectly paved the path for LA artists like Lauren Bon, Fallen Fruit, Fritz Haeg and Owen-Driggs.