A former barracks where soldiers still practice home invasions.
  • A former barracks where soldiers still practice home invasions.
The Center for Land Use Interpretation—CLUI, pronounced "klouie"—was founded in 1994 by Matthew Coolidge, who doesn't use the word "art" at all in the website description of his project. In fact, in a 2005 interview with Jeffrey Kastner (shortly before CLUI was included in the 2006 Whitney Biennial), Coolidge described his notion that the sculpting CLUI does isn't physical, it's mental.

JK: Do you want the presentations that you make to contend with conventionally accepted portraits of the places they depict?

MC: At times. Let me give you an example. Recently, we did a tour to parts of the Great Salt Lake and looked at the Bingham Pit, an open-pit copper mine they call "the biggest hole on earth." Two people can stand next to each other in front of this massive creation, and one will say, "This is a horror! Look what we've done, we're doomed!" And then the other person will say, "If you're engaged in society, you're using copper; you depend on it for your communications, your electricity. This site symbolizes the industriousness and ingenuity that built this country." Those are two ends of one conventional political polarity. But we try to introduce the rest of the spectrum, where you can understand the site as both of these things. It's stirring, it's moving, it's horrible and beautiful—in a kind of Keatsian sense where beauty becomes truth. A sense of connection with a place is a form of truth; a visual truth, a ground truth. It can embody conflicting judgments all at once. Through us trying not to tell people what to think about the site—by getting in touch with this truth of the ground—maybe you come away with more of an emotive or a psychological truth, a more complex and complete sense of the place.

JK: And what is the role of the research you present in this context?

MC: Maybe one that allows you to become less sure, to realize that things aren't quite as certain as you thought. We try to suggest with the database and exhibits that the landscape is fairly rich as it is, and in a way, you don't need to do too much to it other than change your perspective.

The little sign out front of CLUIs exhibition hall, or museum. (Theres also a small gallery for visiting artists nearby.)
  • The little sign out front of CLUI's exhibition hall, or museum. (There's also a small gallery for visiting artists nearby.)
Coolidge's background is in geomorphology, art history, and film. He's built up CLUI so that it has databases online and gives tours of landscapes all over the country, plus offices in Los Angeles; Troy, New York; and a main base with an exhibition hall and an artist residency in Wendover, Utah. I went to Wendover.

Wendover is nuts.

Where the Enola Gay hid out before going to Hiroshima.
  • Where the Enola Gay hid out before going to Hiroshima.
It used to be one of the biggest military bases in the world, and is still partly active. This is where the atomic bomb crew was trained, and where the Enola Gay was stored before its historic missions. It's surrounded by hazardous waste dumping grounds, nuclear testing sites, industrial mineral extraction ponds, other works of land art (Sun Tunnels is the closest), and the town itself is lined with casinos and bisected by the Nevada border. On the Utah side, it's mostly Mexican, and on the Nevada site, it's mostly Anglo. Nobody pays any attention to CLUI, or its visiting artists.

I'm just going to illustrate the rest with pictures. For more on how CLUI fits in with land art history, read my whole piece here.

But before the jump, have you ever seen an evaporation pond in the middle of the desert? Here's the one next to CLUI Wendover (it collects potash, used mainly for fertilizer):

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More pictures of scenes from CLUI Wendover...

The CLUI exhibitions hall with Deborah Stratmans radio tower artwork out front.
  • The CLUI exhibitions hall with Deborah Stratman's radio tower artwork out front.

What you can listen to on Stratmans art tower.
  • What you can listen to on Stratman's art tower.

Inside CLUI Wendovers exhibition hall, which features photos and texts about every landmark on the base and in the surrounding area.
  • Inside CLUI Wendover's exhibition hall, which features photos and texts about every landmark on the base and in the surrounding area.

A torn-apart semi just hanging out on one of the junkyards at the former Wendover military base.
  • A torn-apart semi just hanging out on one of the junkyards at the former Wendover military base.

Nice needlepoint! In the same home invasion practice barracks as above.
  • Nice needlepoint! In the same home invasion practice barracks as above.

Berms like these used to be missile storage; now theyre storage for the casino owners.
  • Berms like these used to be missile storage; now they're storage for the casino owners.

Inside Wendovers Montego Bay casino.
  • Inside Wendover's Montego Bay casino.

Former missile storage.
  • Former missile storage.

Random abandoned military building. CLUI is covered in these. Most of them you can just wander inside.
  • Random abandoned military building. CLUI is covered in these. Most of them you can just wander inside.

Patched bullet holes in the side of the Quonset hut where a team of artists work.
  • Patched bullet holes in the side of the Quonset hut where a team of artists work.

More pics on FB.