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If it were possible to define the place where it began and ended, the artist might say that he started the art in a simple white-stucco shop in Quemado, New Mexico. In a low-ceilinged room, guests may be reminded of a bumpy ride across uneven ground or an encounter with a snake. Above, a small orange is marked. The Lightning Field, a landscape art installation by Walter De Maria completed in 1977, is a place I’ve wanted to visit ever since I moved to the Southwest. Last month, I finally got my chance.
I tried twice to make a reservation the previous way. Previously a letter had to be sent by hand. An email will now be sent out with the expectation that it will be removed from the archive as soon as midnight on February 1, when reservations open each year. (More emails than ever were available.) When that didn’t work, I tried the reporter’s back door—by writing to the reporter.
I couldn’t have imagined that the installation would be any better: 400 steel poles strung across a stretch of high desert terrain, polished two-inch tubes holding sticks and sharp ends. of the needle. The poles are fixed in the ground so that their ends are at the same height, a horizontal plane of kilometers to miles, like a great bed of nails in the sky. The exhibition is open to no more than six visitors per day.
My wife and I drove five hours from Phoenix and followed directions to arrive at 2 pm sharp. Around 2:15 pm, we joined the rest of our group on the black Yukon and drove northeast through the broom-covered countryside. Being part of a club of only six is fun and intimate: We spend the night together in a renovated old guesthouse as part of the admission. In an essay that explains The Lightning Field Three years after its completion, De Maria wrote that part of the art of “important things” is the contrast between a large space and a small number of visitors, and that “the presence separate the essence of Country Art.”
I was torn. We live in a time when tours are written in cultural and natural places, to the point where enthusiasts have written entire lists of waterfalls, ancient religious sites, and Mediterranean cities” broken” by Instagram. I appreciate the privacy, more than the beautiful location. But if the landscape art movement arose as a response to the closed world of urban galleries and museums, I couldn’t help but think that conservation efforts in De Maria’s view also contributed to its re-creation. in the art world’s desire to reject and focus on power.
The Dia Art Foundation was created in 1974 to support works of art whose size or scope made it difficult to do and finance, and became a major supporter of De Maria. In preparation for construction The Lightning Field, De Maria crossed the Southwest by boat and small plane, and set out for the lightning strike in western New Mexico. He finally found the land Dia was selling—north of the Datil Mountains, near the land divide—through an advertisement in a local newspaper. “The land is not the place of work, but part of the work,” De Maria wrote.
We passed rotten fifth wheels and fifth wheels and a Let’s go Brandon We turn down shady roads lined with barbed wire, until I can’t see, the broom is gone, and all around us are bunches of grass, wildflowers, and trash. I was inspired by the fact that De Maria composed an artistic journey to the most distant places. At the end of the hour, like a mirage, the first pillars appeared on the right side of the road. From a distance, the finished structures look similar—radio antennae or tall fence posts.
Seeing the field through the window of a moving car, it’s like not seeing, like the drawing of an old woman who turns into a young woman, images that you can’t digest until you roll your eyes . . De Maria’s ban on photography and insistence on that The Lightning Field experience in doses of “at least 24-hours” and give our journey the feeling of a journey. We got out and took our stuff into an old log cabin 200 yards north of the field, which had been renovated as part of the site’s original construction. “You’re welcome The Lightning Field,” said our host Davey Hawkins. Hawkins, an artist who helped preserve De Maria’s work after his death, lives on the site seven months a year, and visitors return to Quemado seven days a week. week. He mentioned only two rules: no photos and no touching the posts.
Hawkins left. We went out the back door of the house to walk the perimeter. And just like that, the situation changes: The fear of nature is connected with the interest of going to the museum. The first pillar stood tall in the evening light, still held in the wind. The second was higher up on the hill left by the previous night’s rain and turned by day into a reflecting pool, a shiny metal sign that pierced the sky and the clouds in the sky. on the surface of the water. As I walked between the pillars, my eyes shifted between the macro and the micro, between the distant mountains on the horizon and the red-black flying beetles. at my feet. A storm will appear in the southern sky. As the evening wore on, the hues of the earth deepened, and the colors began to flow and melt into the night.
I had a conversation with one of our friends about the concept of fraud at the core of The Lightning Field. Here we were, happily spending hours wandering around a square of grass that didn’t really differ from the tens of thousands of other squares stretching out in all directions. Accurate measurement and unlimited viewing, The Lightning Field which reveals the source of his wonder. In hundreds of hours of driving in the Southwest, I’ve never stopped to enjoy the vastness of the country in the same way, traveling most of the square mile, winding interstate and the site. De Maria has given us one, we thought, and the power of his sculpture lies in its function as an observational tool, like a pair of binoculars scanning the infinite for our own imaginations. to ourselves..
In the weeks leading up to our trip, I tried to decide what I thought about the no-picture rule of art, and Dia carefully managed the experience. The simplicity of the house shows the touch of the guardian: there are no signs of decoration or painting on the walls, in the cabinet, six cupboards, six plates, six bowls. The details that seemed unexpected were the collection of bug spray and sunscreen left behind by previous guests. What an addition is independent, but also tend to limit the scope of The Lightning Field. While expanding access may cause harm to crime or environmental impacts, the approach to art discourages all but the most dedicated visitors. (Hawkin has pulled a few people through the “dirt nests” this time.) People are sure to be happy to visit for an hour, see some of the sights, or camp in one. nearby location. I struggled to see the point of keeping art forever to prevent more people from actually seeing it, or to prevent how they could interact with it. share the experience.
Alexis Lowry, a curator at Dia, said De Maria’s objection to photography on the site was based on the belief that artworks should not be shown before they are shown—photos can “denying and diminishing the experience before you see it.” Coming, as it were, ten years before the advent of cell phone cameras, De Maria’s desire was strange and visionary. . The release signed asked not to take pictures of De Maria’s view and “out of respect for Dia’s copyright.” But the idea of copyright in my opinion violates the spirit of The Lightning Fieldespecially if the land—studded with petroglyphs and Ancestral Pueblo pottery dating back thousands of years, and inhabited by the descendants of those traditions—is important to the art.
As the sun approaches, each pole lights up and, for a moment, the field turns into a birthday cake. Little clouds covered the shape of the Datils, and then they all disappeared. It rained for a long time while we were having lunch, and after dark we put on the rubber boots stored in the bedroom and went to see the lightning flash. the field. A pole crash is rare, but the weather still shows. We walk through mud that feels like cement, each foot carrying 10 pounds of wet soil as we place one shoe in front of the other. Locks from beyond the field burn the ends of the posts as a sign; the bars behind us illuminated the rows of glittering steel. In the morning, the desire to sit and look out was rewarded by the sight of three antelopes wandering between the pillars, their eyes black and white in the sea. brown “We’re doing what people don’t do,” one said: sit on the porch and watch the world go by. For once, it was easy to leave my phone in my pocket. Besides, De Maria was right. The photos are not accurate.
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