Billed as “a restaurant without walls”, OITF organizes banquets at locations where ingredients are sourced, whether in fields, orchards, vineyards or along the seashore. San Gregorio State Beach, the scene of his composition for the FT, has not only been the site of many previous artworks but also several dinners that Denevan has staged with Outstanding in the Field (OITF). Among his most recent is a work entitled Angel of Reposecomprising 364 sand pyramids in concentric circles at the center of which singer Alicia Keys was photographed dancing at this year’s Desert X AlUla in Saudi Arabia.
Among his largest installations is an 18sq mile spiral of circles that he etched onto the frozen surface of Lake Baikal in Russia in 2010. His work has been documented at MoMA PS1 and the Vancouver Biennale. The process could be intense and physical but also “profoundly soothing and meditative”, he says.Ī spiral work by Denevan from 2013 © Peter Hinsonĭenevan has since become a globally recognized land artist. Later it became geometric shapes on a monumental scale: interlocking circles and cascading spirals done largely freehand over the course of hours. At first, he sketched whimsical figures like a 15ft fish. Denevan quit his job, headed to the beach and started drawing in the sand with a stick. The emotional stress of it all took its toll. Three of his brothers had already been diagnosed with schizophrenia. In the mid-1990s Denevan’s mother – a professor of mathematics at San José State – fell ill with Alzheimer’s.
But he took pleasure in the food and drink (“I managed to sip the best coffee on earth”) and on returning home, he started working at farm-to-table pioneer Trattoria Primizia in Santa Cruz, where he later became head chef. “People were congratulating me on being photogenic like I’d accomplished something,” he says. But when 24-year-old Denevan was scouted as a model and ended up in Milan, he welcomed the chance to broaden his horizons: “I did not want to be a model per se,” he admits, “but going to Italy “I knew I was going to see something besides these damn surfers.” The fashion world did not suit him. Jim Denevan’s land art at San Gregorio State Beach © Peter Hinsonįor some, the life of a champion surfer would have been enough. Jim Denevan on San Gregorio State Beach in California © Peter Hinson ” From aerial photographs taken at sunrise by Denevan’s son Brighton, the scene looks like a distant galaxy of the Milky Way. Fortunately the high waves created their own pattern that added to the composition. “Though most of the composition was beyond the reach of the tide, very high waves – higher than predicted – had erased some of the outer rings in the middle of the night.
“We went out at 3.30am when the wind was going to be light enough, ”He reports. Now in the early hours of the final day, Denevan is making the finishing touches – inserting a candle into each mound to create a vista of tiny makeshift lanterns. It consists of hundreds of sculpted dunes of various sizes, each with an indentation at the top. Set beside the cliffs on San Gregorio State Beach in San Mateo County, the installation has already taken three days of painstaking work. Jim Denevan – acclaimed land artist, roving chef and founder of the cult supper club known as Outstanding in the Field – is standing on one of his favorite beaches in California making an artwork specifically for the FT.
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