An exhibition that visionary collectors Dominique and Jean de Menil never quite pulled off is now in full flower at the Menil Drawing Institute. Maybe, however, it is now meeting the moment. Dream Monuments: Drawing in the 1960's and 1970's comes at a time when monuments of all kinds have been questioned. (The de Menils were inspired by another show they did realize about Visionary Architects including LeDoux. When France opens, his museum is a must see. In a remote corner of southeastern France not far from Basel...).

This show "presents artworks that challenge the conventional idea of the monument as a permanent, grand or commemorative structure." Just yesterday I read that Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty-perhaps the most famous of completed earthworks in the US—has been exposed since 2004 because of drought and that there are so many hundreds of people trying to see it, they are building a visitor center and facilities.

These drawings instead present imaginary projects for large tracts of land. There are Michael Heizer's and Christo's and De Maria's. There is Claes Oldenburg's whimsical proposal for a Park Avenue bowling alley (love this. They are working on a new scheme for the median now.)

But there is also this lesser known work by Mary Beth Edelson, a first wave feminist artist, who had made visits to caves and other sites where female rituals were known to have taken place. ( she just died in April at 88) Her idea in this piece was to take mounds-aka breasts-and cap uranium mines in Wyoming. Now that Biden has rolled back Trump era desecrations of the land, why not think about it?

Mary Beth Edelson, Earth Works: Reclaiming the Land, 1976. Courtesy of David Lewis, New York. © Mary Beth Edelson. Photo: Ben Heyer