Playa Works
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A01=William L. Fox
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American West
American West history
ancient lakes
arid regions
art crit-icism
art criticism
art history
art inspiration
atomic weapons
Author_William L. Fox
automatic-update
Black Rock Desert
Burning Man
Burning Man arts festival
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJK
Category=JBCC1
Category=JFCA
Category=NHK
Category=WN
Category=WQH
climatology
contemporary art
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
desert
dry beds
earthworks
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eq_history
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Frenchman Flat
geoglyphs
geology
Great Basin
Great Basin geography
Great Basin history
Great Salt Lake
History of the American West
landscape
Language_English
military experiments
Mojave Desert
Natural history
Nature writing
Nellis Air Force Base
Nevada
Nevada history
Nevada Test Site
Northern Nevada
Owens Dry Lake
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painting
philosophy
photography
playa
Playa history
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
settlement of the west
Smoke Creek Desert
softlaunch
Wendover
Western exploration
Western settlement
Product details
- ISBN 9781647791537
- Weight: 227g
- Dimensions: 160 x 224mm
- Publication Date: 15 Jan 2024
- Publisher: University of Nevada Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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In eight brilliant essays, Fox explores many of the major playas of the American West , examining locations as diverse as Nellis Air Force Base and Frenchman Flat, where the federal government has tested experimental aircraft and atomic weaponry; the Great Salt Lake Desert, where land-speed records have been broken; and the Black Rock Desert of Northern Nevada, site of the colorful Burning Man arts festival. He analyzes the geological and climatological conditions that created the playas and the historical role that playas played in the exploration and settlement of the West. And he offers lucid and keenly perceptive discussions of the ways that artists have responded to the playas, from the ancient makers of geoglyphs to the work of contemporary artists who have found inspiration in these enigmatic spaces, including earthworks builder Michael Heizer, photographer Richard Misrach, and painter Michael Moore. The ensemble is a compelling combination of natural history, philosophy, and art criticism, a thoughtful meditation on humankind's aversion to and fascination with the void.
Bill Fox remains stubbornly outside the ability of critics to label him. An independent scholar, a cultural geographer, an essayist, a poet, a travel writer, Fox consistently brings together unexpected fields of knowledge in order to illuminate the subjects at hand. He has been an arts consultant, curator, and visiting scholar at the Getty Research Institute. He has written widely on the nature of deserts and the role of the arts in American culture. He is the author of numerous articles and books; his work on cognition and the landscape includes time in the Antarctic as a visiting writer with the National Science Foundation and work in the Arctic with NASA on the Haughton-Mars Project. He lives in Burbank.
