Walter de marias new york earth room
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An interior earth sculpture.
250 cubic yards of earth (197 cubic meters)
3,600 square feet of floor space (335 square meters)
22 inch depth of material (56 centimeters)
Total weight of sculpture: 280,000 lbs. Dia continues to maintain these works as well as De Maria’s The Vertical Earth Kilometer (1977) in Kassel, Germany, which is the companion piece to The Broken Kilometer.
Dia is pleased to share this film highlighting the work of Walter De Maria in celebration of our 50th anniversary.
De Maria’s preoccupation with material, natural environment, scale, and time is evident.
Following its closure due to COVID-19, The New York Earth Room reopens for timed visitation on October 10, 2020. Booking is available here.
At the same time, the New York Earth Room is imbued with meaning and truth, forcing a reflection on the world we live in, mainly through juxtaposition and contrast.
An Unchanging Piece That Evolves
Since De Maria’s death in 2013, the painter Bill Dilworth has been the public face of Earth Room.
With dirt running from wall-to-wall, the vantage point is fixed, encouraging the visitors to take the experience in.
In a 1972 interview with Paul Cummings, recorded for the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art, De Maria said:
Every good work should have at least ten meanings.
However, he was determined about staying silent on the intention behind the New York Earth Room, describing it only as “a minimal horizontal interior earth sculpture”. It is this very absence of imposed meaning that is essential to this work.
This profound monument to simplicity invites the viewers to rethink one’s relationship to nature. In addition to The New York Earth Room, Dia maintains a number of other permanent sites including De Maria’s The Broken Kilometer (1979) in New York City, The Lightning Field (1977) in western New Mexico, and The Vertical Earth Kilometer (1977) in Kassel, Germany.
New York's Earth Room - Walter De Maria's Masterpiece
Bridging multiple movements of artistic practice that blossomed in the 1960s, Walter De Maria challenged art in profound ways.
However, the nutrients that supported them were consumed over time.
In an attempt to describe the piece, Dilworth says:
It’s art, it’s earth, it’s quiet, and it’s time.
As he explains, because of its undefinedness, it is a generous work that is easy to like and easy to live with.
An interior earth sculpture spanning over 3,600 square feet of floor space and consisting of 250 cubic yards of earth, measuring 22 inches deep, it is the third Earth Room sculpture by the artist, being first installed in Munich, Germany in 1968 and then at the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, Germany in 1974.
While the first two installations no longer exist, the installation in New York from 1977 is still there, defying change.
In a bustling urban setting of New York, it proposes dirt as more valuable that it is often understood to be. Beginning in the mid-1970s, Dia Art Foundation commissioned some of the artist’s most significant site-specific works, including The Lightning Field (1977) in western New Mexico, and The New York Earth Room (1977) and The Broken Kilometer (1979) in New York.
By bringing to light De Maria’s lesser-known works, this book challenges established histories and methodologies for the art of the 1960s and ’70s, while also exploring De Maria’s own obsessions with art’s uttermost possibilities.
Walter de Maria 1 was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century having participated in four popular movements including installation art, minimalism 2, land art 3, and conceptual art 4.
He was an astute artist who drew upon elements of sublime and mathematical absolutes in some of his installations and large-scale 5 sculptures.
However, once the work was installed, Friedrich and his partners at Dia decided to transform the space into a permanent home for the work. The installation spans three gallery rooms, while a knee-high sheet of Plexiglas boxes off the viewing area, allowing you to see how deep the dirt is. Iconic De Maria’s works Lighting Field from 1977, Vertical Earth Kilometer from 1977, and Broken Kilometer from 1979 are also under the purview of Dia. “Bring the art to a place,” Friedrich stated once, “and let it speak over time.”
The Sanctuary of The New York Earth Room
In a big loft amidst the consumer chaos of Soho, in a city of New York where people are money crazed and desperate for space, there is a huge space filled with dirt, standing unchanged since the late 1970s.
Initially meant to last for only three months, the installation still bides its time. When he first started his job, half a dozen mushrooms would pop up a week. As he explains, it is the same earth as forty years ago and he attempts to keep it looking like it’s the first day. Indeed, with the right amount of time and space, the art comes to life. The New York Earth Room is permanent and unchanging in a city that is constantly evolving, a city predicated on relentless change.
(127,300 kilos)
The New York Earth Room (1977) is the third Earth Room sculpture executed by the artist, the first being in Munich in 1968. We take a deeper look at this groundbreaking piece.
Creating a Bridge Between a Man and Nature
An important figure in four 20th century movements – Minimalism, Land Art, Conceptualism, and Installation Art – Walter De Maria drew upon both mathematical absolutes and elements of the sublime in his large-scale sculptures and installations.
Even its caretaker, Dilworth, used less than ten words to describe the Earth Room, saying in an interview1213:
It’s art, it’s earth, it’s quiet, and it’s time.
The piece communicates our fundamental search for stability between the city and nature, and that alone is reason enough to make the Earth Room as precious and any other piece of artwork in the world.
Walter De Maria, The New York Earth Room
141 Wooster Street, New York
Wednesday–Sunday
12–3 pm and 3:30–6 pm
Admission is free.
The New York Earth Room reopened as a permanent installation that is free to the public in 1980.