Walter De Maria / The New York Earth Room / 1977

Olafur Eliasson / Riverbed / Louisiana Museum of Modern Art / 2014

Santiago Sierra / Balenciaga ss23 / Paris / 2022

Walter De Maria

The Gold Frame 1964

Wood and paint

Walter De Maria / Dia Art Foundation / The New York Earth Room / Sculpture  / 1977

Walter de Maria, Lighting field, 1977

Walter De Maria created The Lightning Field in 1977. Open each year from May through October, this work includes 400 polished stainless steel poles measuring approximately 20 feet and 7 ½ inches in height that are spaced 220 feet apart. A sculpture to be walked in as well as viewed, The Lighting Field is intended to be experienced over an extended period of time.

Walter De Maria, Time / Timeless / No Time: The 3-4-5 Series, 2004, Naoshima

(Gallery with sphere. Indian Green granite, mahogany, red gold leaf, and cement.)

Walter De Maria (1935-2013) was an American sculptor, illustrator and composer whose artistic practice is connected with minimal art, conceptual art, and land art of the 1960s.

Dia castoffs

Photography is not permitted in The Earth Room. I would never photograph a work in secret. I am just here for the dirt.

Land Art, (original in colour, reproductions in black and white), Series of films organised by Gerry Schum for Fernsehgalerie, April 15, 1969, Featuring works by Richard Long, Barry Flanagan, Dennis Oppenheim, Robert Smithson, Marinus Boezem, Jan Dibbets, Walter de Maria, Mike Heizer films made with Gerry Schum [The Estate of Barry Flanagan, London]

Timeless...No Time... Walter De Maria Art. Chichu Art Museum, Naoshima. | Chichu art museum, Tadao ando, Art museum

Walter De Maria, Seen / Unseen, Known / Unknown, 2000.

Walter de Maria

Walter de Maria | DSTLD

Walter de Maria, Small Landscape

s/o @blittman for a related WdM drawing

Earth Room—S-T (Related States)

Earth Room by Earth Room

The Earth Room, in Soho, is a conceptual art installation by Walter De Maria, consisting of a large pile of fragrant, loamy dirt. Not much is allowed to grow in it; the occasional weed or fungus gets pulled out immediately. The point is the earth itself, there in the middle of Manhattan. And also, not secondarily, the point is how you react to the earth there, what thoughts and feelings and ideas are prompted by its incongruence. The exhibitors originally intended to leave the installation up for three weeks. That was in 1977. 

Earth Room, the musical ensemble, got its name from this piece of art (or provocation or dumpster load of soil, however you look at it), but it’s not entirely clear how it relates conceptually. The group is a trio, made up of one-time Citay guitarist Ezra Feinberg, the synth and percussion player John Thayer and reedist/sound experimentalist Robbie Lee. Together they make a serene but mobile sort of music, which has elements of free jazz, ambient music and krautrock.

They start quietly, in “Bridge of Waves,” in which a sprinkle of electric keys, soft moans of clarinet and electronic glitches carve out a space of nursery-like comfort and calm. Small sounds–like chimes and a percussive noise of what sounds like pennies rolling to a stop–establish a pristine space early on. Then the music swells with agitated flute runs and synthesizer. About halfway through, drums kick up, giving the tune a rambunctious, playful air. The cut lasts over nine minutes, but never stales or repeats itself. It is fertile and in the process of becoming. Anything might emerge from that rich, moist ground. 

The balance between freewheeling improvisation and groove is one of the main things here, and you can experience it best on the long, “Empty Way/Full Way.” Lee’s untethered saxophone solo at the beginning is matched by Thayer’s explosive, non-linear drumming. The music spirals out of bounds of key and time signature. And yet, a couple of minutes later, a rhythmic pounding takes hold, and the piece assumes a foreboding kind of propulsion. “Within the Field” also moves with precision and discipline, agitated with hand drums and founded on the steady pulse of bass. Then it breaks for dream-like inchoateness. It moves us forward, then leaves us to drift. 

Earth Room the band and Earth Room the album are not as inscrutable as Earth Room the art exhibit, but they share a certain willingness to let the elements speak for themselves. Also, they provide a center for meditation. It’s as much about how you respond to Earth Room a# Earth Room itself. 

Jennifer Kelly

Walter de Maria, Art by Telephone, 1967/69. Exhibited at Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form: Works-Concepts-Processes-Simulations-Information (1969)

Walter de Maria’s Art by Telephone challenged visitors to engage in a conversation with the artist, about anything, at any time. Walter, who was in America while the exhibition was taking place in Switzerland, had $200 to cover international calls. The work is ephemeral, because even though both the paper and the phone will continue, if there is no one to call, and no one there to answer, the art will cease to exist. Walter is inviting the visitor to be a part of the work of art, because conversation can be art, between a man across the ocean who has no idea who will pick up, and a visitor in Switzerland who might find themselves the lucky receiver of fate. My favorite part, though, is that the phone is on the ground, meaning that if anyone were to answer they’d have to sit on the floor like a child, excitedly sharing something just for them and the person on the other side.

All of this compounded by the fact that Walter apparently never actually used the phone and just ran away with the $200.

Crew of workers/artists engaged in drilling a hole exactly one kilometre deep into the center of Kassel, Germany, as part of Walter de Maria's artwork "vertical kilometre " for the 1977 Kassel Documenta.

Photo credit: [email protected]

For more on this story, follow this link