Sculpting in Time: Land Art in the 21st Century

As historical land artworks re-enter public view, this panel asks what it means to care for artworks made from stone, fire, and time. Using new installations on Powder Mountain as a starting point to explore land art in the region more broadly, this discussion explores how institutions can honor the integrity of past works while introducing them to new audiences, in new contexts. What do maintenance and stewardship mean when the original impulse was anti-institutional, ephemeral, or site-specific?

This discussion is grounded in the specific challenges of land art in the American West, from its geographic isolation to the logistical demands of presentation. But it also pushes beyond logistics: What principles should guide us when we revisit historical works? How can we remain artist-centered in our approach to conservation and re-presentation? And what might a next generation of land art look like—responsive to climate, history, and public life?

The panel will explore the need for long-term commitment and adventurous new thinking in how we care for land art, especially at a moment when institutions are increasingly returning to earth-bound, elemental, and large-scale practices. Moderated by Powder Art Foundation Artistic Director, Matthew Thompson, this panel discussion will pose thought provoking questions to experts Jordan Carter and Mika Yoshitake.

Visit the How to Get Here page for information on parking, public transit, and wayfinding instructions.

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Meet the Panelists:

Jordan Carter

Dia Curator and Co-Department Head
Jordan Carter joined Dia Art Foundation as curator in 2021 and was named curator and co-department head in 2023. At Dia, he has curated exhibitions including Renée Green: The Equator Has Moved (2025), Amy Sillman: Alternate Side (Permutations #1–32) (2025), Keith Sonnier (2024), Lucas Samaras (2024), Mary Heilmann: Starry Night (2024), stanley brouwn (2023), Tony Cokes (2023), and Jo Baer (2022), among others. He also curated the exhibition Cameron Rowland: Properties (2024) following the 2023 announcement of Dia’s stewardship of the artist’s Depreciation (2018) as a site. He oversees Dia’s permanent collection and works closely on the preservation of and programming around its permanent installations, including Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970) and Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels (1973-76), both located in Utah.

He previously served as Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago. In his time at the Art Institute of Chicago, Carter curated and co-curated numerous exhibitions including Mounira Al Solh: I strongly believe in our right to be frivolous (2018); Ellen Gallagher: Are We Obsidian? (2018–19); Benjamin Patterson: When Elephants Fight, It Is the Frogs That Suffer—A Sonic Graffiti (2019); Richard Hunt: Scholar’s Rock or Stone of Hope or Love of Bronze (2020–21), Ray Johnson c/o (2021-22), and stanley brouwn (2023).

From 2015–17, Carter was a Curatorial Fellow at the Walker Art Center. Prior to his time at the Walker, he was the twelve-month Fluxus Collection Intern at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, where he researched, catalogued, and organized displays of MoMA’s Fluxus collection. Carter has also held curatorial and research positions at the Studio Museum in Harlem and Centre Pompidou in Paris. He holds a BA from Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, and an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, where he focused on Fluxus and global Conceptual art.

Mika Yoshitake, PhD

Independent Curator
Mika Yoshitake, PhD, has worked in the field for the last two decades pushing forward acclaimed exhibitions and scholarship worldwide such as Breath(e): Towards Climate and Social Justice with Glenn Kaino at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2024–25); Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now with Doryun Chong at M+ Hong Kong, traveled to Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain, and Serralves Museum, Porto, Portugal (2022–23); Yoshitomo Nara, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, traveled to Yuz Museum Shanghai (2021–22); and KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature, New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY (2021). She previously served as Curator at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (2011–18) where she curated the six-venue North American tour of Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors (2017–19), Shana Lutker: Le “NEW” Monocle (2015–16), Days of Endless Time with Kelly Gordon (2014-15), and coordinated Ai Weiwei: According to What? (2012–13), among other exhibitions. A leading postwar Japanese art expert, she organized the AICA (International Association of Art Critics) award-winning exhibition Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha (2012), introducing the late 1960s Japanese art movement, Mono-ha (School of Things) into an international context and Parergon: Japanese Art of the 1980s and 1990s (2019) both at BLUM Los Angeles. 

Yoshitake’s scholarship has been published widely as catalogue editor of aforementioned exhibitions, and edited or contributed to numerous catalogues including, Yukinori Yanagi (BLUM, 2025), Yoshitomo Nara (Guggenheim Bilbao, 2024); Ryoji Ikeda (Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art, 2022); Mika Tajima (Inventory Press, 2022); Kishio Suga: Situations (Pirelli HangarBicocca, 2016); Kishio Suga (Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, 2015); Lee Ufan Versailles (Palace of Versailles, 2014); Carl Andre: Sculpture as Place (Dia Art Foundation, 2014); Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-garde (MoMA, 2012); Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity (Guggenheim, 2011); Target Practice: Painting Under Attack, 1949-78 (Seattle Art Museum, 2009); and © MURAKAMI (MOCA, 2007). Her writing has been published in Artforum, Art in America, Bijutsu Techō, and Exposure, among other journals.

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Meet the Moderator:

Artistic Director, PAF
Matthew Thompson is a contemporary art curator and strategic advisor based in Los Angeles and the Sea Ranch. With two decades of experience in senior roles in internationally distinguished art museums, auction houses, and globally preeminent art advisories, he has played key roles in the development of some of the most transformative projects in the field. His work is distinguished by his close relationship with artists and extensive experience developing and producing complicated commissions and large-scale experiential projects. 

Working across the non-profit and commercial sectors of the artworld, he leverages his deep network of close relationships with artists, museums, and entrepreneurs to help create and sustain significant projects and institutions. He serves as the Artistic Director leading the formation and ongoing evolution of the Powder Art Foundation, an immersive land art and outdoor recreation experience set across more than 10,000 acres of wild terrain in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. Previously, he was a Senior Director at Schwartzman, where he worked with artists, private collectors, and advised on the creation of new museums and cultural initiatives globally. He had an extensive career in museums, most recently as the director of collection development at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where he focused on large-scale public artwork, strategic collection building, and major acquisition projects. Before that, he held curatorial roles at the Hammer Museum and the Aspen Art Museum, where for six years he curated exhibitions, public projects and programs, and oversaw the museum’s publications and artist commissions. 

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