The New York Earth Room
If you are familiar with New York, then you already know that Soho is the kind of neighbourhood filled with nooks and crannies where the oddest things can turn up. If you go to 141 Wooster, ring the buzzer and once admitted walk up the stairs, you will find the New York Earth Room. 280 000 pounds of dark soil, 22″ deep. It has been there since 1980. You may not touch or photograph the dirt. You may look at it, though, and contemplate it as much as you like. I have mixed feelings about this piece, but the reviews on Yelp are excellently touching and hilarious by turns.
Walter De Maria – “Earth Room”
New York Earth Room is a long-term installation by Walter De Maria, and is maintained by the Dia Foundation like many of De Maria’s other works such as The Broken Kilometer, practically around the corner at Broadway just south of Canal.
Admission is free, Wednesday-Sunday, 12-6 pm (closed from 3-3:30 pm)
Sadly, it is currently closed but will re-open September 12.
having grown up in Ottawa and fed a steady diet of minimal and conceptual art as a kid love it. The dirt room has always remained in the back of my head never really knowing where or who it was but knowing it was out there. Like Robert Morris felt lumps of carpet underlay or the t Nancy Graves three Camels. Conceptual minimal is about the reduction and the awe of an idea and carrying it out where time and process both intertwine. I am glad to know the room still exists, for a fun simple road trip read check out “Spiral Jetta” – a road trip in search of Land art installations in the USA
http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/348452.html
Thanks for the link, very interesting read. I didn’t realize Ottawa was such a hotbed of minimalism / conceptualism. That kind of explains a lot. :)