The Cartographic Journal Vol. 46 No. 4 pp.

293–307 Art & Cartography Special Issue, November 2009

# The British Cartographic Society 2009

REFEREED PAPER

Mapping and Contemporary Art

Ruth Watson
Elam School of Fine Art, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand
Email: [email protected]

If mapping is our most common operational metaphor today, there has been a related increase in the use of maps in art and
attention from outside the art world is growing with new publications also on the rise. This article reviews aspects of this
decades-long history and discerns patterns to the reception of this theme, suggesting that some revisions are needed – in
particular a call for a wider cultural account than is often the case. Shifting epistemologies that consider art useful to
cartography or science are discussed. This article therefore grapples with notions of what mapping in art has been and can
be, opening out a history of definitions that have created expectations as well as regrettable limits, looking at who is
mapping, and what is being mapped today, via contributions from artists.

Keywords: Contemporary art, art exhibitions, mapping, cartography, maps as art, thematic exhibitions, art curating,
Alighiero e Boetti, Autogena and Portway, Experimental Geographies, critical cartographies, actor-network theory,
art theory, Aboriginal Art, Öyvind Fahlström, J. Brian Harley

INTRODUCTION or tropes of another, and what are the contributions that

each could make to the other as well as to groups beyond
From the 1980s onwards, curators of contemporary art have
either field? Some speculative ground will be presented for
been able to bring together an impressive number of artists
discussion, including the notion that some aspects of
whose work uses maps or mapping processes in their
Aboriginal art have been too long overlooked within these
artworks. These exhibitions took place from Sydney to
histories2. This article therefore grapples with notions of
Zagreb, Indiana to Antwerp, and the mapping theme
what mapping has been and can be, opening out the history
continues to generate substantial exhibitions (for example,
of definitions that have created expectations and limits on
Experimental Geographies, touring multiple venues in North
what actions are seen to count as cartography – in other
America, 2008–2009). There has been an explosion of maps
words, looking at who is mapping, and what can be mapped
in art recently, despite regular exasperation on the part of
today, via contributions from artists.
curators who think the subject ‘has been done’: ‘the map is
dead, long live the map!’1. One purpose of this article is to
review aspects of this decades-long history and discern some
THE RISE AND RISE OF MAPS IN ART
patterns to the reception of this theme. Many of these
exhibitions proceed without much reference to their At the end of this article is a list of 24 exhibitions of
predecessors and overviews of the emergence of these contemporary art from 1977 to 2009 which have taken
exhibitions and changing roles of maps in art are overdue. cartography as their main focus. The list is not exhaustive;
Another concern of this article is to examine the mindset and the aim is only to indicate the prevalence of the mapping
expectations of artists, curators and external commentators theme in this time period via these exhibitions3. Some of
working with maps and mapping today, who are as varied in these exhibitions’ catalogues are reproduced here to
origin, concerns and approach as could be expected from an underline the frequency of this theme. If the use of maps
increasingly global arts and information scene. In relation to in art is now commonplace, it is worth remembering that
the contemporary mindset, a shift away from ‘the map’ such a similar list is not possible in the first half of the
towards ‘mapping’ must be examined, and there will also be a twentieth century or before and reasons need to be
call for a more culturally expanded notion of mapping in art, explored for this rapid rise of the map in art4. Some
beyond the Western tradition as a universal concept (even if it contributing factors are considered below, although this
has near worldwide distribution). subject has been addressed in several of the exhibition
Some artists today are more engaged with geographers’ catalogue essays, most notably in Moritz Kung’s sump-
notions of mapping than others, this too needs investiga- tuous, essay-rich catalogue for Orbis Terrarum: Ways of
tion: what happens when one discipline uses the languages Worldmaking.

DOI: 10.1179/000870409X12549997389709
294 The Cartographic Journal

Figure 1. Three early publications (left to right): Curnow, W. (1989). Putting the Land on the Map: Art and Cartography in New Zealand
since 1840, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and national tour, New Zealand. Artscanada Special Issue. (1974). On Maps and Mapping. Smith, R.
(1981). 4 Artists and the Map: Image/Process/Data/Place, Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS, USA

The list of exhibitions should also be considered along- An alternative is Wystan Curnow’s 1989 exhibition and
side the contributions made by writers and curators, from catalogue Putting the Land on the Map: Art and
scholarly volumes such as Art and cartography: Six Cartography in New Zealand since 1840, which combined
Historical Essays5 or Terra Infirma: Geography’s Visual European-based mapping and map art alongside that of
Cultures6, early journal issues such as the 1974 Artscanada Maori mappings of the landscape, with a catalogue essay
On Maps and Mapping7 to more recent compendiums such that was still international in scope. Another was the 1999
as The Map As Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Djamu Gallery/Australian Museum exhibition Mapping
Cartography8. Philosopher Edward S. Casey has also Our Countries, which included 36 Aboriginal artists from
extended his work on place to include artistic explorations, multiple locations within Australia as well as non-Aboriginal
in his book Earth Mapping: Artists Reshaping Landscape9. Australian artists, and artists from other countries13. While
Outside this English-dominant list, French philosopher still having to engage with dominant conventions in
Christine Buci-Glucksman’s L’oeil cartographique de l’art discussing ‘international’ art, this article is an attempt to
springs to mind10. Cartographers have also contributed to modify their claims to universality and provide some
this field, with a special issue of Cartographic Perspectives in perspective on them by suggesting that some aspects of
2006 featuring Denis Wood, whose earlier book The Power indigenous art and Aboriginal art in particular hold a more
of Maps has been cited by many artists11. The presence of central place in any discussion of art and mapping.
these volumes speak to an even broader engagement with ‘Aboriginal art’ is an overall term that can be problematic,
mapping and art as they permit investigations beyond those describing the works of multiple indigenous peoples and
achievable by galleries and institutions, arguably limited by language groups living in Australian urban and non-urban
international freight and insurance costs in the movement environments. Although it has not always been the case,
of objects around the globe (which is a polite way of most of their visual productions are now easily classified as
addressing the not yet foregone issue of parochialism). art and included in art galleries, not just museums of
These books have also shaped the arguments within ethnography14. Their topographical content also varies in
which much of the art has been positioned, with few form, intent and accessibility, but to extend the term
exceptions from Euro- or Amero-centric points of view12. mapping to them is not inappropriate, especially when
Mapping and Contemporary Art 295

Figure 2. Koscevic, Z. (1997). Cartographers: Geo-Gnostic Projections for the 21st Century, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb. Taçon, P.
and Watson, J. (1999). Mapping Our Countries, Djamu Gallery/Australian Museum, Sydney, NSW

considering definitions extended to Western artists15. Co- 1960s as the field picked up pace with the advent of
curator of Mapping Our Countries Paul Taçon wrote: computing19. Mathematical adaptations are more impor-
‘Maps may have scientific or mythological characters but tant, however, as ‘mapping’ was extended to describe
they always do the same thing – they tell stories of more abstract relationships (or correspondences) between
relationships to geographic locations that are important to elements of two disparate sets. This shift freed mapping
the individuals and groups doing the story telling. They are from its origins in geography (‘writing the Earth’) to
artefacts that embody, reaffirm and publicize the persona- become available for other tasks, which now seem
lisation of place. Without maps we would exist in totally innumerable. What isn’t being mapped today? A mathema-
different, unimaginable ways’16. This would apply to a lot tical tone was adopted by cultural theorist Fredric Jameson
of work described either as maps, or map art. for his notion of ‘cognitive mapping’, a tool for under-
In Western countries, mapping is currently a ubiquitous standing and interrogating the present and leading to new
and dominant operational metaphor. It has superseded analysis and action20. Jameson’s work was widely discussed
other metaphors derived from other fields; for example, through the 1990s as part of the early theorization of post-
today we rarely ‘chart our position’, ‘give an outline of …’, modernism and this certainly contributed to the dissemina-
‘offer a perspective on …’, ‘lay out the field of …’, and so tion of the term in realms outside the strictly geographic.
on; we now prefer to suggest something is being mapped, Contributing origins of the mapping metaphor do not
or mapped out. This metaphorical use has not gone fully explain its current ubiquity, or the use of cartography
unnoticed by cartographers; eminent cartographic scholars in art. In the 1960s and 1970s, laying the ground for the
Arthur Robinson and Barbara Petchenik offered this relative explosion of map imagery in the decades afterwards,
explanation: ‘Everything is somewhere, and no matter what many artists from North America and Europe used the map
other characteristics objects do not share, they always share as a recurrent visual trope in their work, including Alighiero
relative location, that is, spatiality; hence the desirability of e Boetti, Marcel Broodthaers, Agnes Denes, Nancy Graves,
equating knowledge with space, an intellectual space’17. Öyvind Fahlström, Jasper Johns, Richard Long, Robert
This ‘spatial turn’ in the presentation of thinking may be Smithson and many more21. Western artists at least were
aligned with the rise of the ocular, as visualisation is largely much more exposed to maps in popular culture than those
predicated on (at least the illusion of) dimensionality, a working before them. War has long relied on maps, but the
characteristic less important in the oral/aural transmission Second World War had extended the use of mapping as the
of information18. geographic reach and knowledge of terrain were stretched
This is speculative; more concrete contributions to the beyond those of former eras; both maps and film were
increase are the important changes in linguistic use of the indispensable in this process22. Popular culture reflected
term that were occurring within the very different fields of this cartographic turn in films such as Charlie Chaplin’s
genetics and mathematics. In genetics, the position of a 1940 film The Great Dictator, or 1942’s Casablanca, both
chromosome is not metaphorical: its physical place in a films suffused with contemporary wartime concerns23. The
sequence is crucial, so mapping a genome is a fair Korean War and especially the Vietnam War – televised,
description of the process. This linguistic adoption by with its images broadcast inside people’s living rooms –
genetics seems to have taken place predominantly in the were current for many of the artists listed above who came
296 The Cartographic Journal

Figure 3. Storr, R. (1994). Mapping, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Levy, D. and Tawadros, G. (1996). Map, Institute of
International Visual Arts, London

to use maps as a major part of their imagery. The Fog of War, mapping impulse in contemporary art can also be seen not
Errol Morris’ documentary on Robert McNamara, US only by its most obvious exponents (one of whom will be
Secretary of State during the Vietnam War, featured much discussed in greater depth below), but in the parade of well
archival footage that was map related although this could known artists in the map exhibitions who, although famous
also reflect the time in which the film was made, 200424. for quite different kinds of art, nevertheless found the map a
Map imagery was transforming into a common visual tool, necessary tool. This surprising list includes Elsworth Kelly
accessible and readable by many, including newspaper and and Claes Oldenburg, Guillermo Gomez-Peña and Joseph
magazine illustrators, science fiction illustrators, and Beuys, Ilya Kabakov, Robert Indiana, Fischli and Weiss,
artists25. Laurie Anderson, Gerhard Richter and On Kawara; Ben,
Maps in common visual representations alone were not a Maurizio Cattelan, Nam June Paik and Yoko Ono28.
sole factor in the rise of mapping in Western art – it still Many artists used the map as a set of abstractions to be
needed a major epistemological shift to change the way manipulated or produced as a tool for action. Modernism’s
artists saw maps and mapping processes. Consider the striving towards ideal forms and its pure abstractions were
gauntlet thrown down by American art writer Kim Levin in left behind; the map had (and still has) its hands dirty with
her influential 1979 article ‘Farewell to Modernism’26: matters of the world29. It became recognized and accepted,
as were the multitude of new subjectivities revealed by the
If the grid is an emblem of Modernism, as Rosalind
post-modern examination of identity, as complicit actors in
Krauss has proposed – formal, abstract, repetitive,
a socially, politically mediated world30. This approach was
flattening, ordering, literal – a symbol of the Modernist
also explored by historian of cartography J. Brian Harley in
preoccupation with form and style, then perhaps the
an influential series of articles from the late 1980s, one title
map should serve as a preliminary emblem of
giving a clear indication of some of the theoretical
Postmodernism. Indicating territories beyond the sur-
framework that lay behind the new interrogations,
face of the artwork and surfaces outside of art. Implying
‘Deconstructing the Map’31. Each aspect of map produc-
that boundaries are arbitrary and flexible, and man-
tion (who made the map, for whom, and for what purpose)
made systems such as grids are super-impositions on
and construction (choice of projection, other representa-
natural formations. Bringing art back to nature and
tional choices such as decoration) became contestable fields
into the world, assuming all the moral responsibilities of
and this method is normative in the study of maps today,
life. Perhaps the last of the Modernists will someday be
even if these concerns are more closely aligned with the
separated from the first Postmodernists by whether their
work of Michel Foucault than of Jacques Derrida. A
structure depended on gridding or mapping.27
discourse around these themes known as ‘critical cartogra-
Levin made this statement just as map use in art was on phy’ has subsequently arisen and some of its key writers
the rise and she locates it squarely as a fundamental practice have recently engaged strongly with the subject of the map
within a newly forming canon. The map’s centrality to post- and art, which I shall return to in the third section.
modernism has not been universally shared by all commen- Alongside these new critiques, a parallel emergence of the
tators; for some, this theme has just been either a curiosity study of subjectivities may also hint at differences in
or another available subject in the rise of the curated group approach by artists using maps as post-modernism
exhibition with its concomitant star curator, itself some- unfolded. There has been (preceding post-modernism?) a
thing of a post-War phenomena. But the prevalence of the thread of artistic use in which the map is a metaphoric site
Mapping and Contemporary Art 297

Figure 4. Silberman, R. (1999). World Views: Maps and Art. Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN. Küng, M. (2000). Orbis
Terrarum: Ways of World-making, Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp

for personal investigation, often referencing notions of ‘the Boetti was one of the post-War Italian Arte Povera artists
journey’ or exploration, but I find this problematic as a who used materials and methods that broke radically with
methodology as the power relations of the map are usually Italian pre-War art35. Like many of his peers, Boetti
glossed over (exploration’s successor, colonisation, is not as frequently employed pre-existing images or industrially
easily ‘metaphoricised’). This tendency sits uneasily with made materials; alongside his use of commercial ballpoint
uses that open out the description of and engagement with pens, the format of the rug, using stamps, envelopes or the
actual sites or social issues, beyond the walls of the art patterns of camouflage, the map was just another of these
gallery. The map is increasingly used in contemporary art as everyday items. While living in Kabul (from 1971, staying
a political tool for commentary and/or intervention, a topic there two times a year until the Soviet invasion in 1979),
that will also be discussed later. In 1987, French Boetti began his renowned series of works, each titled
philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari perhaps Mappa (some are titled Mappa del Mondo). Hand
best represented the newly forming approach to maps: ‘The embroidered by local craftswomen, these rectangularly
map is open and connectable in all of its dimensions; it is formatted, large-scale world maps show each country’s flag
detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification. within the political borders of the landforms on the map. As
It can be torn, reversed, adapted to any kind of mounting, the series – nearly 150 works – ranged from 1972 until the
reworked by an individual, group, or social formation. It year of his death, 1994 (with some produced post-
can be drawn on a wall, conceived of as a work of art, humously), political changes can be seen within the series
constructed as a political action or as a meditation’32. It itself, such as the emergence of flags for Namibia and
could be argued that many artists had already realized this, Greenland. Each map in the series is framed by a border of
that Deleuze and Guattari’s comment looked back to the text, sometimes in Arabic script – in either Dari or Farsi –
preceding decade at least as much as it still well describes probably contributing to their increasing interest in a
much of today’s artistic mapping practices33. post-9/11 world.
Since their inception, Boetti’s map works have generated
some grand and occasionally hyperbolic claims, at times
THE MAP OVER THREE DECADES: THE MAPPA OF
related to the artist’s own suggestions. Referring to Mappa
of 1972/1973, Boetti wrote that it was: ‘A work of cosmic
ALIGHIERO E BOETTI
dimensions which sees every nation represented in the
As mentioned, the 1960s and 1970s produced several geographical form of its existence and in the joyfulness of
artists for whom the map was an important visual trope. the colours of its flag. […] It is a familiar form wherein we
One artist in particular, Alighiero e Boetti (1940–1994), can increasingly identify as citizens of the world’36. This
appeared many of the exhibitions and writing on the theme 1970s ‘hands-across-the-waters’ version of globalism
of art and cartography. The reception and positioning of his resulted in more than one writer using the term ‘supraeth-
work over the 1970s through to the 1990s may function as nic’ in relation to his work37. Museum of Modern Art
a synecdoche revealing changing patterns in the use of maps curator Robert Storr in 1994 wrote of Boetti’s map/flag
in art generally34. This I hope will be a more interesting way works as ‘philosophical souvenirs of global consolidation
of exploring shifts of mapping in art rather than creating a and countervailing nationalist separation’, but admitted
catalogue of instances of maps in art, as is often done in that was a retrospective attribution38. In the 20 year
exhibition catalogues and some recent publications on the gap between these two comments, the world map had
subject. become a symbol for globalisation; how ever that notion is
298 The Cartographic Journal

Figure 5. Boetti, A. (1979) Mappa. Embroidered cloth, 122.9 6 174.9 cm. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, # DACS 2009

construed39. In Boetti’s case, his use of the world map and and be integrated therein’43. In a recent book on Boetti,
other motifs has been proposed to represent his ‘moral dedicated to the Mappa series, some 15 detailed pages are
imperative as an artist to cut loose from the framework of given to the subject of Afghanistan and the method of the
little Europe’ even if, as Edward Casey and J. B. Harley have maps’ production. Contrast this with a comment (written
pointed out, the cartography represented by Boetti’s choice before the events of 11 September 2001) that would not be
of world map is a bastion of Eurocentrism40. It is notable uncharacteristic of most previous interest in the production
that the female Afghani embroiderers employed on the method: ‘We barely know or really care about the names of
Mappa series were unfamiliar with the image of the world in those who critically manufactured and even conceived the
this format when Boetti began working with them41. details of the Kilims and the Maps, even if we suspect they
The Mappa series’ method of production has aligned all enjoyed doing it’44.
them with later, post-modern questions around authorial Deconstruction, another dominant theme of the last
signature. Nevertheless, it has only been relatively recently 20 years, was liberally attributed to Boetti’s oeuvre.
that the actual ‘others’ making the work have been Although he was very much a man exploring concerns of
recognized as co-contributors, which is a shift from the his time, combining a love of the cabala as much as con-
simple recognition of the removal of the artist’s hand. ceptualism, of dualities and binaries as a means of escaping
These topics have been discussed in an uneven fashion. unitarianism – of loving disorder as the other side of order,
Post-colonialist writer and critic Sarat Maharaj, in a 1996 of being shaman and showman – many commentators have
article titled ‘A Falsemeaning Adamelegy: artisanal signa- presented his work as if he studied Derrida with avidity.
tures of difference after Gutenberg’, made no comment ‘His project is a deconstruction, an unmaking of signs and
upon the artisanal signature, even when the stitching was meanings’, says one author in 1995 and, chiming in with
central to his claims for Boetti’s work as ‘in-between’: this, another lists his sources as ‘from every field of
‘Stitchery takes charge and we are drawn into the knowledge: signs, numbers, letters, accounting, poetry,
unreadable non-place’42. Is ‘non-place’ a locational equiva- history, geography, geometry, the sciences, the news, and
lent of ‘supraethnic’? In Boetti’s statement about the flags philosophy’ or ‘characterized by its obsession with systems
and nations, quoted in the paragraph on globalisation, the – of language, of logic, of mathematics, and of representa-
square brackets contained the following sentence: ‘It is a tion’45. These claims about some of his work are not
piece which hails from a desire to approach another culture inaccurate; it is just that the cabala, chance, beauty, and a
Mapping and Contemporary Art 299

Figure 6. Mogel, L. and Bhogat, A. (2007). An Atlas of Radical Cartography, The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press, Los Angeles,
CA. Thompson, N. (2008). Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography and Urbanism, Independent Curators
International, New York

strong interest in Eastern religions and mystic traditions are I MAP, YOU MAP, WE MAP: RECENT ACTORS AND
missing from these lists. NETWORKS
Boetti’s map works would not, however, seem to address
Some readers may take issue with the choice of Boetti for the
one major theme of the last few decades – that of the body reason that it minimizes the importance of the Land Artists
itself – and there were other artists working with maps who of the 1960s in the development of mapping’s role in recent
could be proposed as doing so, such as Guillermo Kuitca or art. Some writers have already given Robert Smithson in
Mona Hatoum. Argentinian artist Guillermo Kuitca painted particular a central place in this story, but it may be more
maps onto mattresses, which are then hung vertically in the useful to consider his and the other Land Artists use of the
gallery. When you stand in front of these works, the map map as precursor to some of today’s artistic practices that
seems to be a substitute for the body, anyone’s body, not seek to engage with the land or geographies beyond the
just that of the artist. These ‘roady’ maps from the bedroom gallery walls48. Today’s artists are, however, motivated by
mix the public and the private in a somewhat disturbing some quite different theoretical frameworks and cultural
way46. In 1994, London-based Palestinian artist Mona concerns than the Land Artists, not the least being changed
Hatoum made Corps étranger, with fibre optic-generated ecological attitudes. Although not attractive to all artists
footage taken from inside the body. Presented as circular using maps, French curator–critic Nicolas Bourriaud’s
video projections on the floor inside a smallish, cylindrical ‘criterion of coexistence’ for artwork and his related term,
room that you enter to view the artwork, audiences see a relational aesthetics, have been influential in expanding
body in motion – pulsing, releasing fluids, draining, notions of participation in the wider sphere of contemporary
contracting and expanding. It is a busy, self-contained art49. Minimalists and their critics had long noticed the role
world, not usually present to our eyes, very much a foreign of the viewer in the completion of a work of art, but
place47. Bourriaud repositioned the importance of the viewer from
With that thematic exception (although the absent body that still contemplative role to one of an active participant in
of the actual makers is a possible sub-theme), that the the full realisation and, at times, the actual creation of the
Mappa series was regularly aligned with the art world’s artwork. There are now many instances of contemporary art
concerns of the day is testimony to their ongoing relevance using cartography that have shifted towards these new
across time. Even if his extraordinary works have engen- methodologies that, generally, represent a generational shift
dered readings not entirely synonymous with the artist’s away from the map (and associated problems of the image
intentions, they have become iconic and, as such, could be and representation) towards mapping as a process, with a
said to transcend their original conception. This section was concomitant focus on action and activism (in some instances,
not intended to either reify – or limit – responses to Boetti’s returning to a primacy of content)50.
work but to suggest that some of what has been written Art with this (broadly defined) activist intent is the main
about it reveals as much about prevailing themes in focus of exhibitions such as Experimental Geographies and
contemporary art as the work itself. An Atlas, with its appealing catalogue An Atlas of Radical
300 The Cartographic Journal

Cartography51. Two exhibitions featuring new work of this

sort were both initiated by an artist and an independent
artists’ space, rather than curators: Ursula Biemann’s 2003
exhibition Geography and the Politics of Mobility, and
Mapping a City: Hamburg-Kartierung by the Galerie für
Landschaftskunst, also in 2003/2004. The title of a recent
mapping exhibition in Denmark, The Map is not the
Territory52, did not use the famous quote to explain
simulacra and related problems of representation, but
signified an interest in the territory itself, freshly and
expansively construed to themes beyond the solely geo-
graphic. Some of the artists in these shows have been
motivated by affecting some kind of social change, using
art’s distribution strategies as one means of getting their
work/word out. Although the idea may annoy, there is
clearly a utopian streak to some of this work. Figure 7. Autogena, L. and Portway, J. (2006). Most Blue Skies,
Such art exists alongside increasing, user-oriented tech- Installation view, Kwanju Biennale
nologies within mapping practices generally, as cartographic
theorists Jeremy W. Crampton and John Krygier have American Pop artists who ‘transformed’ their sources into
noted recently53. Crampton and Krygier describe the effect art; Fahlström used methods from popular culture to
that this end-user technology has had upon the contem- critique and question cultural assumptions about finance,
porary discipline of cartography itself and, at the same time, power structures and their representations56.
suggest that artists also have a role to play in the new American artist Mark Lombardi was concerned with and
constructions of mapping. It has been a long time since an preceding many of the same corporate governance issues
artist was considered to be able to contribute in more than raised by Mike Moore’s 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11.
just an ad hoc manner to a field long considered as a Lombardi’s maps are diagrammatic and network-like,
science54. This shift to the end-user, combined with pertinent to the new era of interconnectivities implied by
contemporary art’s current focus on participation and the computer age. Works such as George W. Bush, Harken
interactivity, continues to erode notions of the individual Energy, and Jackson Stephens are pencil drawings, a simple
artist as a sole creator–genius, acting from either inspiration ‘DIY’ method many artists are returning to. New versions of
or the need to express themselves: the new artist is a the drawings were made, being updated as new information
conduit, at times a facilitator of events or environments that came to light. Much of Lombardi’s work was concerned with
seek to engage with new audiences, employing terms tracing connections between global money laundering,
familiar to most users. Whether or not this is by definition corporate bad-doings and international terrorism, although
a radical practice, it is part of a wider shift in subjectivity in in more specific ways than most artists then or now are
part due to the world’s now massive populations – doubled comfortable doing: Lombardi named names57. Australian
since the time of the land artists – and how we aim to artist Louisa Bufardeci also works with statistics and data to
communicate with each other within that world. create her work. In 2003, she made a suite of digital prints
Bourriaud’s offerings may just be the art world’s footnote titled Governing Values: Military Expenditure per Capita,
to much larger propositions, such as Bruno Latour and showing a graph dotted with coloured landforms, each
others’ actor-network theory or ANT (which posits human represented to scale related to the expenditure58.
and non-human agents, ideas and related technologies as a Several map exhibitions included Situationist Guy
single network), which seek to describe and engage with Debord’s maps of Paris; these maps took the often reifying
this new world in a productive fashion. aspects of mapping and used them against themselves, for a
Precursors for today’s activism in art using maps are not ‘renovation of cartography’: ‘the production of psychogeo-
hard to find, with Öyvind Fahlström and Mark Lombardi graphical maps may help to clarify certain movements of a
being worthy candidates. During the mid-1960s, Fahlström sort that, while surely not gratuitous, are wholly insubordi-
made work with a counter-cultural intent and his awareness nate to the usual directives’59. Knowing what constitutes a
of international political issues culminated in some impor- ‘usual directive’ becomes moot; not all unusual maps or
tant map works. In 1972, he made his World map, methods such as using open-source mapping and distribu-
originally distributing it in a left-wing journal, Liberated tion are necessarily radical60. At times, artist/activists work
Guardian, in an edition of 7000 copies. Fahlström wrote in outside the art institutions bypassing the commercial gallery
1975 that ‘… most of it is about the third world: economic system and reaching their audiences by ‘direct’ communica-
exploitation, repression, liberation movements, USA: the tion, via the Internet or other media. An oft-discussed, more
recession economy. Europe is represented by a Swedish contemporary American example is ‘Routes of Least
manual for diplomat’s wives … the shapes of the countries Surveillance’ map of Manhattan, created by the ‘Institute
are defined by the data about them. It is a medieval type of for Applied Autonomy, with Site-R’ and made between 2001
map’55. This world map is also very comic-book-like; and 2007. The map marks the sites of CCTV surveillance
Fahlström admired the work of American cartoonist Robert cameras and can then be used for avoiding them. An
Crumb and the pre-Columbian art of Mexico and South associated website allows you to enter your starting point and
America. Fahlström’s use of comic imagery contrasted the destination, and will generate the safest ‘path of least
Mapping and Contemporary Art 301

Figure 8. Most Blue Skies, detail of monitor. Images published with the permission of L. Autogena and J. Portway

surveillance’ between these two points61. The role of politics Thompson’s ‘geologic-urban’ axis has arguably even
in relation to these new, artistic mapping practices does not more exponents today, as artists return to place and space
always indicate a greater degree of political activity or with new agendas. Some land artists of the 1960s were
awareness on the part of artists, but reflects a shift in the discovering the world outside the gallery for the first time
role of such acts or attitudes within contemporary art practice and their interventions have been well celebrated; today’s
itself. There have also been corresponding changes in artists are more comfortable with accusations of cultural
curatorial practice that at times seek to facilitate such actions tourism, acknowledging that it can be an inescapable state.
or activities, and even become involved with them. Many artists are either working with scientists in pursuit of
Curator of Experimental Geographies, Nato Thompson, their goals or actively engaging in scientific research.
distinguishes the new approach as ‘operating across an Experimental Geographies features the work of collaborative
expansive grid with the poetic-didactic as one axis and the groups such as the Centre for Land Use Interpretation
geologic-urban as another’62. In keeping with a new (CLUI), the Centre for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) and the
generation’s fearlessness regarding modernist structures, We Are Here Map Archive (a website that shows the work
Thompson happily references the grid, binaries and the of a range of international artists, designers and activists) as
graph. His claim nevertheless describes much contemporary examples of crossover ventures. This is a tendency that can
art and his pairings of ‘poetic didactic’ and ‘geologic-urban’ only increase, as awareness of ecological issues is becoming
therefore deserve closer examination63. An evocative a mainstream concern.
example of the ‘poetic-didactic’ might be the work of the The geologic-urban is just one arena in which non-
collaborative pair Autogena and Portway, whose work Most Western indigenous artists are often sadly missing from the
Blue Skies is a mapping of the sky – using elaborate data record: few if any appear in the recent journals on this topic,
processing techniques to determine where in the world at perhaps even less than under the previous reigning
any given time is the ‘most blue’. Their website links the paradigm (IVA London’s exhibition Map included con-
two tendencies in its description of the work: ‘Most Blue temporary Aboriginal artist Gordon Bennett, and the MCA
Skies combines the latest in atmospheric research, environ- Zagreb’s Cartographers included Native American Jimmie
mental monitoring and sensing technologies with the Durham; the aforementioned exhibitions Mapping Our
romantic history of the blue sky and it’s fragile optimism’64. Countries and Putting the Land on the Map could be
The work has been shown in the Kwangju Biennale, from precedents of this culturally varied sort). Given that
where these images are derived, but is to be remade for the mapping and art making are activities not confined to small
exhibition Rethink, curated to accompany the 2009 United sections of the world’s population, there is little reason for
Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. this particular topic to remain so confined to European or
302 The Cartographic Journal

Figure 9. Harmon, K. (2009). The Map As Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography, Princeton Architectural Press, New York

American models and practitioners65. This is an opportu- given’ (an artistic strategy derived in part from Marcel
nity here to fully develop a truly international perspective Duchamp in the early twentieth century). At the same time,
on the art/mapping theme and theories such as ANT and some scientists or map theorists overlook how any particular
its related material-semiotic method (the examination of map artist fits within the wider schemes or conventions of
relations between objects and concepts that form a contemporary art. Yet both artists and cartographers are
network) would seem to support a more expansive version increasingly sharing approaches based on contemporary
than our current model. ANT networks are transient and philosophies and, for better or worse, often sharing a
need to be reinforced by repeated actions by contributing similar, information-drenched, user-oriented world.
actors, with humans as just one example among many. The Long comfortable with landscapes of insecurity, the map
model, among other aims, breaks down some longstanding often appears at the boundary of the certain and the
hierarchies between differing kinds of labour and the uncertain, trying to push us in the direction of certainty.
objects affected by this labour, with a range of performative But older definitions of the word map reveal a less stable
agents and networks being invoked66. past: to map once meant to confuse or bewilder67. I am
Access to information about mapping has changed in the often concerned that the map or mapping are still taken as
last decades, with concomitant expectations for artists and authoritative givens – whether by artists or scientists – and
contemporary scholarship. The writing of scientists and not often in themselves interrogated as methodologies,
map theorists is more easily available via the Internet; the even when being used to question some other site or
bibliography of Experimental Geographies features much concern. This is an area in which hearing from contempor-
more of this literature than actual art, Robert Smithson ary practitioners of other cultural artistic/mapping tradi-
being one exception. Nevertheless, there is still room for tions could be illuminating.
misunderstanding between what have long been separate
discursive cultures. One instance is artists’ often unques-
A NEW MAP?: CONCLUDING COMMENTS
tioning acceptance of mapping structures such as map
projections or the uses of technology, justifying their lack of This essay offers an outline of the map in art from the
engagement as an artistic strategy of the readymade, or ‘the second half of the twentieth century to today. In doing this,
Mapping and Contemporary Art 303

it updates some commentaries in the considerable number one would think that the subject of the map or mapping
of catalogues associated with the exhibitions listed in the would be uniquely placed to foreground this discussion and
Appendix of this article. It also repositions the importance even encourage greater boundary crossings than many
of some usually stated themes or contributors as outlined in other themes. Yet the majority of the exhibitions on the list
earlier accounts, such as that of the land artists. Cultural in the Appendix or in recent publications predominantly
shifts in relation to maps and mapping as impacting upon its follow the pattern discussed above. Aboriginal art of
rise in artistic use have been suggested. This is different Australia has not yet been accorded a central place within
from many accounts that often propose a fascination with this traditional hierarchy, although its duration easily
maps, signs or the politics of the representation of place as outstrips the post-War rise of mapping by Westernised
the reason for artistic usage. If the rise of maps in art is artists. This lack of acknowledgement and understanding is
located historically, it has often been presented as if all the more unusual given so much Aboriginal art is
pioneered by the land artists, with perhaps a few precursors. presented today via painting and sculpture; furthermore,
Although Boetti is another of the art world’s ‘usual much of its topographically-relevant content at times takes
suspects’ in relation to this theme, he is not positioned performative form, arguably making it even more pertinent
here as a primary exemplar; instead, his Mappa series has to newer discourses in contemporary art.
been used to investigate how the reception of his work can A new history of the map in art needs to be written that up-
reveal how the response to maps has changed over time. His ends the usual suspects from their comfortable nodes on a
Mappa series should not necessarily be made to fit some of one-sided cultural map (hardly a model of any new
the categories that have been proposed for it and, as cartography). At the same time, this future map should not
mentioned, there is an extensive literature around his work just repeat the old patterns in new locations; a Chinese artist
that does not reduce it to prevailing theme du jour. The using maps is not automatically an innovator, nor is the
third section looked at some of the more contemporary employment of open-source software a guarantee of an
examples of how mapping is being used in art today, which alternative perspective. The art world has frequently asked
include a shift away from the image of the map towards the what is outside its own paradigms, but we could also usefully
map as evidence of other investigations, often politicized in ask: what is currently outside the mapping paradigm? This
attitude if not automatically in final result. Today’s art may strike a utopian note, but if transdisciplinary acts and
practices range from using very elaborate technologies or methods are to increase, welding together European
incredibly simple DIY methods, but all embody a new philosophical traditions with post-colonially-infused theories
emphasis on the author as user, similar to his/her/ of subjectivity and location might be a good place to start.
their audiences. Artist and public are coming closer That brave, cobbled-together world needs a new map.
together – communicating with each other more directly
even if, at times, what is being mapped is not necessarily a
good news story.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
The link to changes in mapping technologies themselves
– home and car GPS, open source mapping softwares, Ruth Watson is an artist
geocaching, the impact of Google maps (three-dimensional who has worked with carto-
or otherwise) comes in tandem with changes in art, and graphy since the early
have encouraged a greater crossover between fields than has 1980s. In 2005, in conjunc-
been the case for centuries. There will be a crossover of tion with the Research
roles also, of scientists more comfortable with the creative School for Astronomy and
aspects of their work and artists who understand that they Astrophysics at the
can contribute beyond the gallery. Contemporary philoso- Australian National
phy is providing a basis for this, not only in the University, she made the
deconstruction or declassification of old epistemological largest map of the universe
edifices but in the construction of new methods of working to date (12 metres dia-
and acting, in relation to each other and to objects and meter). Her work has been
meanings. Critical cartographies and counter-mappings included in international
have a strong role to play in ensuring that our rush to Biennales including Sydney
map does not become a form of entrapment. (1992), Korea (1995), surveys of New Zealand and
There is a significant limitation in what has been Australian art including ‘Paradise Now: Contemporary Art
discussed thus far. Mostly American and European practi- from the Pacific’ (Asia Society Gallery, New York, 2004)
tioners, theorists and sources have been used and if they and featured in some of the exhibitions, books and articles
were not born there, usually work in either arena. This is a mentioned in this article. She studied in New Zealand
problem that reflects but also simultaneously reinforces (BFA, 1984) and Australia (MVA, 1999, PhD, 2005) and
conventional versions of history and the politics of has received many awards, including the 2005 Walter W.
reception and dissemination of information. Old models Ristow Prize for an essay in the history of cartography. She
of centre-periphery relations are supposed to have broken writes occasionally on art and began teaching at the Elam
down as the art world celebrates new famous names from School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland in 2006,
Cuba, Peru, Thailand or China, but most of this work is still where she is a senior lecturer. Ruth Watson is represented
filtered through the main economic portals of the art world, by Two Rooms Gallery, Auckland, and some of her work is
New York and London. There is a profound irony to this; visible online at: http://www.tworooms.org.nz/
304 The Cartographic Journal

11
NOTES Wood, D. (2006). ‘Map art’, Cartographic
1 Perspectives, 53, pp. 5–14. Wood, D. and Fels, J.
At the 2009 Venice Biennale curated exhibition Fare
(1992). The Power of Maps, Guildford Press, New
Mondi/Making Worlds and the attendant on- and off-site
York, was written with John Fels.
national pavilions, a range of maps and mapping strategies 12
were to be seen, from older works by Öyvind Fahlström, to See Harley, J. B. and Woodward, D. (1987–ongoing).
Belgian artist Jef Geys or the intriguing pieces of Venezuelan The History of Cartography, University of Chicago Press,
Daniel Medina, among the most notable. Regarding ‘the Chicago, IL, for a rich exposition on the mapping traditions
map is dead ...’, see Wood, D. (2006). ‘Map art’, Carto- of non-Western cultures.
13
graphic Perspectives, 53, p. 11. The increased use in art is in The exhibition also included a significant number of
tandem with an interest from outside the field of con- works by Aboriginal artists whose names are not known.
temporary art by either geographically-based commentators Mapping Our Countries (see Appendix) regrettably did
like Wood, or a rising number of non-experts in either field. not have an extensive catalogue, although it does contain a
2
See Morphy, H. (2007). Becoming Art: Exploring short essay by co-curator Paul Taçon (see note 16 below).
14
Cross-cultural Categories, Berg, Oxford and New York, or For an introduction on the changing status of
Sutton, P. (1998). ‘Icons of country: topographic represen- Aboriginal art, see Morphy, H. (2007). Becoming Art:
tation in classical aboriginal traditions’ and ‘Aboriginal maps Exploring Cross-cultural Categories, Berg, Oxford and
and plans’, both in Woodward, D. and Lewis, G. M. (1998). New York; Mudine, D. (2008). ‘An aboriginal soliloquy’, in
The History of Cartography: Cartography in the They are Meditating: Bark Paintings from the MCA’s
Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian and Arnott’s Collection, ed. by Michael, L., Museum of
Pacific Societies, Vol. 2, pp. 353–384 and 387–413, Contemporary Art, Sydney, NSW, or Jones, P. (1988).
respectively, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. ‘Perception of aboriginal art: a history’, in Dreamings:
Smith, T. (2001). ‘Public art between cultures: The Aboriginal Art of Australia, ed. by Sutton, P., pp. 143–
‘‘aboriginal memorial’’, aboriginality and nationalism in 180, Viking/Asia Society Galleries, New York.
15
Australia’, Critical Inquiry, 27, pp. 629–661. Some accounts of indigenous mapping have been
3
The Appendix is not a scientific survey of prevalence but concerned to maintain categorisations and differences
I cannot think of another theme engendering, on average, rather than similarities. Rundstrom, R. A. (1991).
one major exhibition per annum for 30 years across a ‘Mapping, postmodernism, indigenous people, and the
variety of countries. More exhibitions than are presented changing direction of North American Cartography’,
here are likely as the list is largely restricted, with some Cartographica, 28, pp. 1–12.
16
exceptions, to Western Europe and the USA. Taçon, P. and Watson, J. (1999). Mapping Our
4
A sixteenth century idea that maps were art was lost as Countries, Djamu Gallery/Australian Museum, Sydney,
cosmography’s successor, cartography, become a science unpaginated.
17
during the Enlightenment. A broad contrast with the Robinson, A. and Petchenk, B. (1976). The Nature of
nineteenth century is instructive as it is hard to think of Maps: Essays toward Understanding Maps and
examples other than paintings of explorers or monarchs with Mapping, p. 4, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
18
maps or globes depicted as directive, often literal information John D. Barrow describes the visual turn in science as
on the sitter’s sphere of interest, or employed as part of the being more recent than the last three decades. Barrow, J. D.
Vanitas tradition. In the first half of the twentieth century, (2008). Cosmic Imagery: Key Images in the History of
examples are scanty but these are well covered in some of the Science, p. xiii, The Bodley Head, London.
19
art catalogues (Mapping, Cartographers, Orbis Terrarum ...) Although the OED registers the first instance of
and recent articles such as Wood, D. (2006). ‘Map art’, ‘mapping’ in genetics in 1935, the pace accelerates in the
Cartographic Perspectives, 53, p. 11. 1960s. For mathematics, two instances earlier than 1935
5
Woodward, D. (1987). Art and Cartography: Six are registered, and the increased use seems to be from the
Historical Essays, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. late 1950s onwards.
6 20
Rogoff, I. (2000). Terra Infirma: Geography’s Visual Scientific in tone but utopian in intent, Jameson first
Culture, Routledge, London. introduced his term in 1988 in his essay ‘Cognitive
7
Society for Art Publications. (1974). ‘On maps and mapping’ in Marxism and the Interpretation of
mapping’, Artscanda, Vol. XXXI, no. 1, Issue nos. 188/189, Culture, ed. by Nelson, C. and Grossberg, L., University
Toronto. A full journal focussing on map-related themes and of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. The influence of the term
artworks, combining articles by geographers as well as artists. largely arose after the publication of his 1991 book
8
Harmon, K. (2009). The Map as Art: Contemporary Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late
Artists Explore Cartography, Princeton Architectural Capitalism, Duke University Press, Durham.
21
Press, New York, preceded by Harmon, K. (2004). You Each of these well-known artists has many mono-
Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the graphs to their names, both in their own time as well as
Imagination, Princeton Architectural Press, New York. posthumously in some cases. Robert Smithson brought
9
Casey, E. (2005). Earth Mapping: Artists Reshaping together the story by Jorge Luis Borges and Lewis Carroll’s
Landscape, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN. maps from The Hunting of the Snark and Sylvie and
10
Buci-Glucksman, C. (1996). L’oeil Cartographique Bruno Concluded. Smithson, R. (1968). ‘A museum of
de l’Art, Éditions Galilée, Paris; German translation. language in the vicinity of art’, in Holt, N. (Ed.). (1979).
(1997). Der Kartographische Blick der Kunst, Merve The Writings of Robert Smithson, pp. 67–78, New York
Verlag, Berlin. University Press, New York. Jasper Johns’ work mostly uses
Mapping and Contemporary Art 305

the outline of the United States, with the exception of his asking 2488 first year geographical students to draw from
large-scale 1967 work titled Map, based on Buckminster memory a world map, labelling each country with its name
Fuller’s dymaxion projection (now in the Museum Ludwig, and any other features of interest. What they found
Cologne). intriguing was not only that most people over-exaggerated
22
See Hodsdon, B. (1996). The Dawn of Cinema: the size of their home continent, but that all students
1894–1915, pp. 49–50, Museum of Contemporary Art, overestimated the size of Europe and underestimated the
Sydney, NSW, on the subject of film in the First World War. size of Africa. They conclude: ‘This Mercator effect is so
23
In The Great Dictator, the eponymous hero was powerful that it overcomes the ethnocentric effect. As a
shown with a globe which he courts, tenderly caresses, result, in Africa and South America and Australia, even local
jostles, cajoles, toys with and manipulates in a reverie of map sketchers draw their home continents smaller than the
world domination. In 1942’s Casablanca, a 1 min opening actual size of these landmasses’. Saarinen, T., Parton, M.,
sequence of map and globe imagery, combined with voice- Billberg, R. (1996). ‘Relative size of continents on world
over and film footage, indicated that the film was to be no sketch maps’, Cartographica, 33, p. 46.
31
everyday domestic story but one set within a geo-political Harley’s contributions were all the more remarkable for
context of global relevance. See Conley, T. (2007). his background being not in critical theory, but the study of
Cartographic Cinema, University of Minnesota Press, the British Ordnance Survey maps. Harley, J. B. (1989).
Minneapolis, MN, for a fuller discussion of the global ‘Deconstructing the map’, Cartographica, 26, pp. 1–20.
context this sequence contributes to the film. This and other articles such as ‘Maps, knowledge and power’
24
Morris, E. (2004). The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons are reprinted in Laxton, P. (Ed.). (2001). The New Nature
from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, Columbia of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography, John
TriStar Home Entertainment, Culver City, CA. I am not Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.
32
suggesting that the use of maps for the persuasion or Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand
informing of local populaces about war efforts is unique to Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, p. 12,
the mid-twentieth century, but that such usage was University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN.
33
increased and popularized. Arguably, Deleuze and Guattari’s engagement with
25
Denis Cosgrove’s discussion of the pictorial maps of Foucault on the subject of geography may also have
Charles Owens was an overdue contribution to this field. contributed to the spread of mapping terminologies within
Related to this, the impact of the representation of the cultural studies and academia, at least in the Anglophonic
world in science fiction illustration upon artists is not well world. See Fall, J. (2005). ‘Michel Foucault and
covered in the literature. Cosgrove, D. (2005). ‘Maps, Francophone geography’, in EspacesTemps.net, http://
mapping, modernity: art and cartography in the twentieth espacestemps.net/document1540.html
34
century’, Imago Mundi, 57, pp. 35–54. This approach has its problems; Boetti was surrounded by
26
Levin, K. (1979). ‘Farewell to modernism’, in Theories a robust critical dialogue that saw his map works in the context
of Contemporary Art, ed. by Hertz, R., (1993), Prentice of his overall oeuvre. Some of his most perceptive commenta-
Hall (originally published in The Arts Magazine, 1979, 52, tors include such art world notables as Germano Celant,
p. 90). Levin’s reference to Krauss is based on her October Achille Bonito Oliva, Jean-Christophe Ammann, and more.
35
article of the same year titled ‘Grids’ and her exhibition of the The literature on Boetti is extensive and many of his
same name and year at New York’s Pace Gallery. catalogues have good bibliographies, for example, (1999).
27
This leaves aside the complication that some, including Alighiero e Boetti, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, or
artists, actually conflate the grid with the map. True, a map Christov-Bakargiev, C. (1999). Arte Povera, Phaidon,
graticule often appears grid-like, especially at close scales, London. Boetti is so well thought of one writer referred
and may indeed have longitudes and latitudes that cross at without pause to ‘Boettology’ and, one page later, ‘… there is
right angles for certain projections. But to equate the two is no custodian of some sort of Boettian orthodoxy’. Salerno,
a reduction of the complexity of the map as well as G. B. (2006). ‘An infinite impromptu dialogue’, in Alighiero
disregarding the history and methods of map construction. e Boetti, pp. 6–7, Studio Giangaleazzo Visconti, Milan.
28 36
See the Appendix for exhibitions written in short form Di Pietrantonio, G. (1993). ‘Alighiero Boetti: united
here. Kelly was included in Mapping; Oldenburg in colors’, Flash Art, 168, p. 73.
37
Mapping and World Views, Gomez-Peña and Beuys in Curator André Magnin used this phrase, quoting Angela
Map; Kabakov and Indiana in World Views; Fischli and Vettese’s 1993 catalogue for the Grenoble Centre National
Weiss, Laurie Anderson, Gerhard Richter and On Kawara in d’Art Contemporain exhibition. Alighiero e Boetti: De
Orbis Terrarum; the rest were all in Cartographers. Bouche à Oreille. Magnin, A. (1995). ‘Detached thoughts
29
Some would say that this is the opposite of the post- on a basic exhibition’, in Worlds Envisioned: Alighiero e
modern drive, which they see as severing the link between Boetti and Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, ed. by Cooke, L. and
signifier and signified. Even if that were the claim of all Magnin, A., p. 27, DIA Centre for the Arts, New York.
38
postmodernists, which is disputable, saying that the Storr, R. (1994). Mapping, p. 15, Museum of
relationship between sign and signifier is arbitrary does Modern Art, New York.
39
not imply that it is either random, or without power. This is a relatively new use for the world map that
30
An example of the deep-seated impact of cartography needs further examination. Denis Cosgrove’s book Apollo’s
in daily life studied by geographical researchers Thomas Eye discussed the image of the Earth and did consider maps,
Saarinen, Michael Parton and Roy Billberg. In 1996, they but this is largely a historical study culminating in the Apollo
conducted an international survey of ‘mental mapping’, photographs from space. Cosgrove, D. (2001). Apollo’s
306 The Cartographic Journal

50
Eye: a Cartographic Genealogy of the Earth in the After Robert Storr’s 1994 exhibition ‘Mapping’ at
Western Imagination, Johns Hopkins University Press, MoMA in New York, the following year artist Peter Fend
Baltimore, MD. Boetti was by no means alone in referencing curated ‘Mapping: a response to MoMA’, at American Fine
the brave new worlds opening up in the 1970s; some works Arts. Fend argued for mapping as an activity in art, as
by Jasper Johns, Öyvind Fahlström, Agnes Denes and distinct from Storr’s upfront concerns for the representa-
Alfredo Jaar – some of whom were also regulars in the map tional features of the map, yet a significant number of artists
exhibitions – at times directly invoked such notions. in either exhibition could have fitted into both categories as
40
Rosenthal, N. (2001). ‘Recognising Alighiero recog- defined by Storr or Fend.
51
nising Boetti’, in Alighiero e Boetti, p. 7, Gagosian Mogel, L. and Bhagat, A. (2007). An Atlas of Radical
Gallery, New York. For the following claim, see Casey, E. Cartography, The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press,
(2002). Representing Place: Landscape Painting and Los Angeles, CA.
52
Maps, p. 194, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, (2008–2009). The Map is Not the Territory, Esbjerg
MN. For Harley, see multiple entries in the index for Kunstmuseum, Esbjerg. The original remark was made by
Eurocentrism and ethnocentrism in maps in The New philosopher Alfred Korzybski in 1931 but reinvigorated by
Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography, Jean Baudrillard in the 1980s.
53
John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. Crampton, J. and Krygier, J. (2006). ‘An introduction
41
Cerizza, L. (2008). Alighiero e Boetti: Mappa, p. 31, to critical cartography’, ACME: An International E-
Afterall Press/Central Saint Martins College of Art and Journal for Critical Geographies, 4, pp. 11–33, http://
Design, London. www.acmejournal.org/vol4/JWCJK.pdf
42 54
Maharaj, S. (1996). ‘A Falsemeaning Adamelegy: The art/science dichotomy in cartographic debates is
artisanal signatures of difference after Gutenberg’, in well discussed in Cosgrove, D. ‘Maps, mapping, modernity:
Jurassic Technologies Revenant: 10th Biennale of art and cartography in the twentieth century’, Imago
Sydney, ed. by Cook, L., pp. 45, 47, Biennale of Sydney Mundi, 57, pp. 35–54.
55
Publications, Sydney, NSW. Appropirately for a medieval map, neither Australia nor
43
Di Pietrantonio, G. (1993). ‘Alighiero Boetti: united New Zealand appeared in Fahlström’s world. Fahlström,
colors’, Flash Art, 168, p. 73. Boetti’s openness to other Ö., Wallerstein, I. and Rolnik, S. (2001). Öyvind
cultures was one motivation behind the exhibition and Fahlström: Another Space for Painting, p. 258, Museu
catalogue with Ivorian artist Frédéric Bruly Bouabré (see d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona.
56
note 36). Fahlström spoke at least four languages: he had a
44
Rosenthal, N. (2001). ‘Recognising Alighiero recog- Norwegian father, Swedish mother and was born in Brazil,
nising Boetti’, in Alighiero e Boetti, pp. 7–8, Gagosian in 1928. During a trip to visit family to Sweden when he
Gallery, New York. The book dedicated to the maps alone was 10 years old, the Second World War broke out and he
is Cerizza, Alighiero e Boetti: Mappa, p. 31, Afterall was stranded there. Biographical information is crucial to
Press/Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, understanding his art, based on the experience of belonging
London. ‘Kilims’ refers to works made for Boetti’s 1993 to different cultures and a politicized relationship to
exhibition, De Bouche à Oreille. internationalism. In the 1950s, he began exhibiting around
45
Anthony Appiah, K. (1995). ‘Script reading’, in Europe, moving between Stockholm, Paris and Rome and
Worlds Envisioned: Alighiero e Boetti and Frédéric eventually settled in New York. Another important work
Bruly Bouabré, ed. by Cooke, L. and Magnin, A., p. 11, using map imagery was Garden – A World Model from
DIA Centre for the Arts, New York, followed by Magnin, 1973. This work followed his World Map’s emphasis on
A. (1995). ‘Detached thoughts on a basic exhibition’, in economic data about companies, money and the world
Worlds Envisioned: Alighiero e Boetti and Frédéric economy. Fahlström’s use of the map to express his interest
Bruly Bouabré, ed. by Cooke, L. and Magnin, A., p. 23, in global political issues seems as prescient as his innovative
then Michael Govan in the ‘Preface’, p. 5. The list covered methods of display. See http://www.fahlstrom.com
57
Bruly Bouabré as well as Boetti, but Boetti’s work For an account of each state of the drawing, see Lin, T.
encompassed even more mystical or coincidental themes. (2003). ‘Following the money’, Art in America,
46
Lipschutz-Villa, E. (1994). Guillermo Kuitca: Burning November, pp. 145–149.
58
Beds: A Survey, 1982–1994, Contemporary Art Founda- http://www.annaschwartzgallery.com/works/news?
tion, Amsterdam; The Map as Art has a section on his work. a_serial536&c5m
47 59
For Hatoum, see Edward, W. (2000). Mona Debord, G. (1955). ‘Introduction to a critique on
Hatoum: the Entire World as a Foreign Land, Tate urban geography’ quoted in McDonough, T. (1994).
Gallery, London, or Archer, M., Brett, G. and de Zegher, ‘Situationist spaces’, October, 67, p. 62.
60
C. (1997). Mona Hatoum, Phaidon, London. Dodge, M, Perkins, C. and Kitchen, R. (2009).
48
Tiberghien, G. (1994). Land Art, Princeton ‘Mapping modes, methods and moments’, in Rethinking
Architectural Press, New York. See also Bann, S. (1994). Maps: New Frontiers in Cartographic Theory, pp. 226–
‘The map as index of the real: land art and the authentica- 227, Routledge, London and New York.
61
tion of travel’, Imago Mundi, 46, pp. 9–18. See http://www.appliedautonomy.com/isee/info2.html
49 62
Bourriaud, N. (2002). Esthétique Relationelle, Thompson, N. (2008). Experimental Geography:
Les Presses du Réel, Dijon. Interestingly, Bourriaud Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography and
interviewed Boetti for ‘Afghanistan’, in Documents, Urbanism, p. 14, Independent Curators International,
Paris, no. 1, October 1992. New York.
Mapping and Contemporary Art 307
63 Frank, P. (1981). Mapped Art: Charts, Routes, Regions, Colorado
A precursors to the ‘poetic-didactic’ is Alfredo Jaar’s
1989 work Geography5War. In this large-scale installation, Art Galleries, Boulder, CO, with Independent Curators
Incorporated, New York.
light boxes with Peters projection world maps on them are Calabrese, O. (1983). Hic Sunt Leones: Geografica E Viaggi
placed near petroleum barrels filled to the brim with dark Stradordinari, Centro Palatino, Rome.
liquid. More light boxes are suspended above the liquid, Curnow, W. (1989). Putting the Land on the Map: Art and
their images reflected on its bright surface. The Peters Cartography in New Zealand since 1840, Govett-Brewster Art
world maps show global tanker routes and the suspended Gallery, New Plymouth.
McDaniel, C. and Robertson, J. (1992). Exploring Maps, Turman Art
light box images are of people from a town in Nigeria where Gallery/Indiana State University, Terra Haute, IN.
other countries had dumped toxic waste. The people are Edlefsen, D. (1994). A World of Maps, Anchorage Museum of
shown standing by the waste. This is clearly a didactic work, History and Art, Anchorage, AK.
it tells you what it thinks; yet the dark liquid has a real Storr, R. (1994). Mapping, Museum of Modern Art, New
presence in the gallery space and the way the images float York.
Fend, P. (1995). Mapping: A Response to MoMA, American Fine
upon its surface complicate simple meanings for the work.
64 Arts, New York.
See http://www.mostblueskies.net Kelly, L. (1996). Langage, Cartographie et Pouvoir, Galerie Nikki
65
This is particularly noticeable in the recent literature, Diana Marquardt, Paris/Orchard Art Gallery, Derry.
especially that not emanating from the art world. For Levy, D. and Tawadros, G. (1996). Map, Institute of International
anyone unconvinced of mapmaking as a human activity, Visual Arts, London.
refer to the History of Cartography series, bearing in Bianchi, P. and Folie, S. (1997). Atlas Mapping: Künstler Also
Kartographen, Kartographie Als Kultur, Kunsthaus Bregenz and
mind at times other cultures’ mapping practices are still Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz.
discussed from a Eurocentric point of view (for example, Koscevic, Z. (1997). Cartographers: Geo-Gnostic Projections for
the entry on mapping in New Zealand focuses on map the 21st Century, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb.
drawings by Maori at the time of encounter with European Taçon, P. and Watson, J. (1999). Mapping Our Countries, Djamu
explorers, but not the locational devices embedded in the Gallery/Australian Museum, Sydney, NSW.
Silberman, R. (1999). World Views: Maps and Art, Frederick R.
older traditions of recitation of genealogies). Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN.
66
One of the founding theorists of actor-network theory, Küng, M. (2000). Orbis Terrarum: Ways of World-making,
Bruno Latour, regularly combines art-science collaborations Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp.
in exhibitions and this model is increasingly contributing to Biemann, U. (2003). Geography and the Politics of Mobility,
these current, transdisciplinary methods of working. Latour, Generali Foundation, Vienna.
B. and Weibel, P. (2005). Making Things Public: Berg, S. (2003/2004). Die Sehnsucht des Kartographen,
Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover.
Atmospheres of Democracy, ZKM Centre for Art and Galerie für Landschaftskunst. (2003/2004). Mapping a City:
Media, Karlsruhe, with the Massachusetts Institute of Hamburg-Kartierung, Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg. Moss,
Technology, Cambridge, MA. Their essay-rich, 1072-page K. (2004). Topographies, San Francisco Art Institute, San
catalogue accompanied the eponymous exhibition. Francisco, CA.
67
Oxford English Dictionary online; see map v2: to bewilder. Mogel, L. and Bhogat, A. (2007–2008). An Atlas, University of
Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL.
Lehn, A. (2008). Zoom and Scale, Institute for Art and Architecture, Vienna.
Thompson, N. (2008–2010). Experimental Geography,
APPENDIX: THE MAP IN ART: EXHIBITIONS FROM OVER Touring multiple venues in North America, in conjunction
with the Independent Curators International, New
30 YEARS York.
Kardon, J. (1977). Artists’ Maps, Philadelphia College of Art, Esbjerg Kunstmuseum. (2008–2009). The Map is not the Territory,
Philadelphia, PA. Esbjerg Kunstmuseum, Esbjerg.
Smith, R. (1981). 4 Artists and the Map: Image/Process/Data/ Kruger, L. (2009). Envisioning Maps, Hebrew Union College/
Place, Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS. Jewish Institute of Religion, New York.