Professor Joseph Low ("Pepe") Karmel Writes about the Art Historic Importance of MARABAR (2020)
On May 15, 2020, author and of art history at New York University Joseph Low ("Pepe") Karmel wrote the following letter to the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) concerning plans that would demolish the sculpture MARABAR at the National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C. Completed in 1984, MARABAR is the work of celebrated artist Elyn Zimmerman, who recently spoke with 开云体育官网 about her career and the National Geographic commission in particular. After officially listing the National Geographic headquarters in its Landslide program for threatened cultural landscapes and landscape features, 开云体育官网 also requested that the HPBR revisit the case in light of information that the review board lacked when it rendered its initial decision.
Greetings:
I gather that the Historic Preservation Review Board is considering whether to grant landmark status to Elyn Zimmerman's 1984 installation Marabar, on the campus of the National Geographic Society. I strongly urge you to do so.
Marabar is one of the most important sculptural installations of the twentieth century. It will be included prominently in my book Abstract Art: A Global History, to be published by Thames & Hudson in October of this year.
Zimmerman emerged in the 1970s as a leading exponent of the Los Angeles 鈥淟ight and Space鈥 movement. Her approach was transformed, in 1976, by a three-month trip to India, where the rock-cut temples awakened her interest in stone. Her earlier studies had acquainted her with the narrow water channels running through Islamic gardens; now her visits to Mughal palaces and tombs, and to civic water tanks, reminded her of the expressive power of water. T