Malibu Line

Experience a career-defining artwork by one of Los Angeles's most renowned artists.

LAND presents Lita Albuquerque: Malibu Line, a new iteration of the celebrated artist’s first ephemeral pigment earthwork. Originally created in 1978, Malibu Line was a direct mark on the land that connected the viewer to the earth and to the horizon. By virtue of a slight optical illusion, the line both spatially and symbolically linked land to sky, and sky to the ocean horizon beyond. The artwork signaled a turning point in Albuquerque's practice. Instead of painting on two dimensional surfaces, Albuquerque began to create on the earth, drawing the viewer's attention to a relationship outside of themselves and to the land.

The new iteration of Malibu Line commences a multi-year project in which Albuquerque will connect her current home in California with her first home in Tunisia by way of another pigment installation located in North Africa. With the ocean serving as the conductor between these two sites, Albuquerque uses the planet to create expansive perspective shifting artworks.

Please note that Malibu Line is on private property and not accessible outside of the project dates. The location on the map is not the exact location of the artwork.

Lita Albuquerque is an internationally renowned multidisciplinary artist and writer. She has developed a visual language that brings the realities of time and space to a human scale and is acclaimed for her ephemeral and permanent art works executed in the landscape and public sites. She was born in Santa Monica, California and raised in Tunisia, North Africa and Paris, France. In the 1970s Albuquerque emerged on the California art scene as part of the Light & Space movement and won acclaim for her epic and poetic ephemeral pigment pieces created for desert sites. She gained national attention in the late 1970s with her ephemeral pigment installations pertaining to mapping, identity and the cosmos, executed in the natural landscape.

Recent exhibitions include Desert X AlUla, Saudi Arabia (2020); Lita Albuquerque: Red Earth, Huntington Botanical Gardens and Art Museum, San Marino, CA (2020); Light & Space at Copenhagen Contemporary, Denmark (2021); Lita Albuquerque: Liquid Light presented by bardoLA at 59th La Biennale di Venezia, Biennale Arte (2022); Groundswell: Women of Land Art at Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2023); Lita Albuquerque: Early Works, Galerie La Patinoire Royale Bach, Brussels, Belgium (2024); and Lita Albuquerque: Stellar Axis, Anderson Collection at Stanford University (2024). Her work is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Getty Trust, Los Angeles, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, among others.

Lita Albuquerque: Malibu Line is presented by Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND) and curated by independent curator Ikram Lakhdhar.

Generous support is provided by Pasadena Art Alliance and Berry Stein.

LAND’s 2024 exhibitions are made possible with lead support from the Offield Family Foundation, the Jerry and Terri Kohl Family Foundation, and The Perenchio Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, Patrick and Aimee Butler Family Foundation, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, the LA Arts Recovery Fund, Brenda Potter, LAND’s Nomadic Council. Special thanks to Artist Sponsors Karen Hillenburg, Liana Krupp, and Ben Weyerhaeuser.

LAND is a member of and supported by the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition.

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