This book is intended for people interested in policy—not for those primarily focused on art.

In my experience, it takes about five minutes to sell a visual product to the mass media within the realm of public affairs or policy. Selling the same ideas or images within the art world, however, seems to take five decades.

The main reason I turned to art in the first place was to have it lead us toward models of land use shaped by wilderness—economic approaches that prefigure ecological thinking. I saw this path already outlined in Joseph Beuys’ role as “Chief of the Hunters,” in Earth Art, in the language of color video, and in the work of body artists like Carolee Schneemann and Mary Beth Edelson. But such a thesis—despite being scientifically sound—has never even been exhibited. Though colleagues like Jenny Holzer recommended it to venues such as Artists Space, curators, critics, and collectors consistently rejected it as too strange. I’ve come to believe that the art world has become retrograde. As for the fate of this book: it remains unknown. Peter Fend March 4, 2016