BOOK_NEW_MEXICAN_TRAVELS_©KLAUS_HU_2013 a photographic research as artist book and diary into the vast expansive landscape of New Mexico, USA, made possible during residence stay at Santa Fe Art Institute in March / April 2013. all photos/ layout © KLAUS HU 2013 additional image rights courtesy Derrick Velasquez, page 57, "Untitled 41, 2012" and courtesy Georgia O`Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, NM New Mexico Museum of Fine Art, Santa Fe "The Motorbike of G O K " on page 56 book preview via: http://klaushu.blogspot.com/2013/07/books-editions.html available as print on demand via: https://www.epubli.de/shop/autor/KLAUS-HU/34755 While site-specific attempts were lingering in the back of my mind, recalling Nancy Holt, Robert Smithson and Bruce Nauman, I experienced a slow, but vast expansive landscape, full of contradictions and full of colonial and cultural clashes, that emptied my mind and my eyes from pre-conceptions, making me drive out into the unknown, while on stay. What I experienced was a mix of reservations, clinging to casino build resorts for income, the hispanic community living side by side of the old spanish settlers and their descendants, all reclaiming own territories and land, while some towns of the 60 ́s communities are driven to tourism and real estate sales. New Mexico is the state of the first atomic bomb explosion and of dry high altitude with mountains, valleys and resorts. Being on my own, I enjoyed a photographic research, that can be called an artists journey, discovering a vast expansive landscape.

1. NEW MEXICAN TRAVELS KLAUS HU 2013

2. New Mexican travels
© KLAUS HU 2013

3. new mexican travels
© KLAUS HU 2013

4. ACOMA
1 th / 2 nd of April.
Cloud - and rainmaking song.
Driving out to Acoma / high Mesa / oldest american town alive /
sometimes its better just to drive out / "Dakota", our tour
guide insists, that solar energy is against "our" religious
believes / never heard of that...on my question why still using
propane gas for heating / the night before, I find a last
section of route 66 / take an overnight at "Grants" / an old
uranium mining town /
the main street / rotten stores and motels / in the
background / undiscovered for the visitor / the pub of town /
and everyone is dining at 5 PM / behind closed window panes / /
hidden fences

37. ARRIVAL IN SANTA FE
28 th of Feb

41. ARCHITECTURE
A coyote crossed the Campus last night,
while heading to Meowulf

45. CERRILLOS RD

50. downtown santa fe

56. I found my hat at Suzy ´s at
railyard

59. courtesy Georgia o´keeffe Museum
& New mexico Museum Of art, Santa Fe, NM

60. Courtesy of derrick velasquez

61. STAGES

63. BANDELIER
17 th of March
Following my intuition. At Anasazi land.
Driving up a long and winding road to the "Enemy- ancestors",
which the Navajo would call Anaasází. Passing by Pojoaque
and its Casino build resort
the rocky volcano made land - tuff -
compressed by million of years -
older than you can imagine -
land, that makes you feel young again

74. We pass by White Rock and some labs of Los Alamos.
White Rock is a quickly set up town for the employees.
Probably

76. After some miles of a curvy and cliffy road, we reach the
National Monument Park and the tourist information center
for instructions

77. First it had been a cloudy day.
Now it clears up, becoming the blueish New Mexican sky

78. We follow the path along the excavated ruins along the
former communal round house, climb up stairs, while the
lungs are already exhausted by altitude pressure

80. As wind moves through emptied space along the canyon, it
fills the silence with A sound made by gods, reminding to
cars passing by on a distant highway

81. The caves, small in size, nearly indistinguishable from the
wind and water made cracks and voids inside the cliffs are
looking like a Swiss cheese

82. taking snapshots like tourists, we end up hiking at the
ceremonial cave, where, in fact of erosion, we have to catch
multiple erect ladders

83. In vain. I´m exhausted, and enjoy the silence only haunted by
the soft howling of the wind

85. riding out to Madrid
26th of March
riding out to Madrid.
the wide open landscape in front of my eyes.
Galisteo and the vast expansive desert.
A school bus driver shows me the way.
You cannot get lost. But found.
I imagine, why Bruce Nauman,
Lucy Lippard and
Nancy Holt
have their
homes
here.

96. What brought you here?
1. The invitation onMaps and mapping and my previous work, I guess. My interest
in Robert Smithson since 2001 and his obsession with landscape, fiction and
industrial ruins .... and his collected appendix of fiction / nonfiction, he
collected in his library. How was your relation to him?
2. Robert Smithson seemed to be all the time "ON- LINE".
His imagination along his projects seemed borderless, sometimes
correlating, sometimes confronting my female perspective on things. It
has been like a "RUN-THROUGH" or constant "RUN- DOWN", like one of
his projects. Always imagining structures of existing and non-existing
relations between constellations and landscape and the books he was
reading meanwhile. And he needed that perspective as well.

97. 3. Did he imagine his projects to be seen by alien visitors in a
far future distance, who discover the left-overs of
humankind, wondering about the mysterious ruins of a species
long ago having faded?

98. 4. May-be yes and no. He didn´t care much about reception and critical feedback
- he cared about conflict of being - and how calculus would interact - and then
project his ideas of unforeseen re- combinations
onto it. I don t ́think, he cared much about alien visitors, although he liked
science-fiction. In books and in films.
5. Did you have to emancipate from his visions, or has it been
more like a collaboration? What was your role in it?
And what was your favorite book you had in common
with him?

99. 6. Referencing Michael Heizer, for example, who blew up the idea of land-art, of
site, and of territory into a gigantic sculpture with enormous funding.
land-art has developed as a negative aspect of american spirit.
In contrast, James Turrell, who also realized his dream of Roden Crater,
always returned to either "light spaces" for museums or to small scale projects
for commissions
A fictitious
dialogue
with
Nancy Holt
in
Galisteo

100. WHITE SANDS I/ II/ III
charcoal / oil on Stonehenge
each 36,7” x 48,8”
93,2 x 123,9 cm
© KLAUS HU 2013

101. KLAUS HU
STUDIO BERLIN
REPRESENTED
BY VG-BILD KUNST BONN - Germany
contact & links
HTTP://KLAUSHU.BLOGSPOT.COM
HTTP://ARTNEWS.ORG/KLAUSHU
all images © klaus Hu 2013
residency at Santa Fe Art Institute
Santa Fe, NM, US
except:
Page 58 courtesy Derrick Velaszquez
Untitled 41, 2012
Vinyl, cherry 67 x 60 x 1.25 inches
Courtesy of the artist
page 57 courtesy Georgia O`keeffe Museum
& New mexico Museum Of art
The motorbike of Georgia O ́Keeffe

104. NEW MEXICAN TRAVELS
© KLAUS HU 2013