Art Outside the Box: The New York Earth Room

SoHo may have once a been haven for artists in the 1960s and 70s, but today you're more likely to see Calvin Klein and Chanel, rather than Chuck Close. The next time you're wandering the streets of SoHo, past the big box stores and galleries, be sure to pause for a moment at 141 Wooster Street. It's not a gallery or a collection of works, but a single art installation that has been in this exact location since 1977. Even if you're not a fan of modern or contemporary art, this is definitely a memory you'll take home with you.

Perched above the street is the New York Earth Room by Walter De Maria maintained by the DIA Art Foundation. Once you've rung the bell to enter, you ascend the staircase to the second floor and meet Bill Dilworth, the room's caretaker for the past 20 years.

What is the Earth Room? It's an earth sculpture. Too put it more plainly, it's an entire New York city loft filled with dirt. That's it, nothing else. If you're not familiar with Walter De Maria and his work, he's best well known for his involvement in the Earthworks movement of the the 60s and 70s, where the landscape creates the sculpture. His most well known work is the installation of 400 metal rods in the desert in New Mexico entitled Lightning Field.

I visited the Earth Room several years ago while taking an art history seminar in New York City. We spent a full day gallery hopping through Chelsea and then our professor shuttled us over to SoHo. Instead of being led into yet another white room of art to view, ponder and discuss how it related to Minimalism, I came face to face with knee deep dirt and was completely confused. The smell, the humidity, the warmth, and not to mention the fact that I was staring at dirt. The Earth Room did what any great work of art does, it gave me an experience and it made me think. About the juxtaposition of cityscape and landscape, or architecture and its relationship with the earth, and even the meaning of art and how this fits into the canon of art history. For you, it might make you think of something else entirely.

I recently stumbled across this video about the Earth Room's caretaker, Bill and his 20 year profession. That's a long time to have any job, especially one that stays the same. But to Bill, that's the beauty of the space. Despite the ever-changing New York City landscape that surrounds it, the Earth Room remains the same. I didn't realize it at the time, but I know now that I'm one of those squiggles in Bill's notebook and I hope you'll join me.

The New York Earth Room
Closed for summer, reopens September 15, 2010
Admission: free.