With close affinities, but decades apart, two artists sought to transform the experiences and perceptions of museum-goers.
Walter De Maria, The New York Earth Room, 1977. Long-term installation at Dia Art Foundation, 141 Wooster Street, New York City.
An interior earth sculpture.
197 cubic meters of earth
335 square meters of floor space
56 centimeters depth of material
Total weight of sculpture: 127,300 kilos
The New York Earth Room, 1977, is the third Earth Room sculpture executed by Walter de Maria, the first being in Munich, Germany in 1968. The second was installed at the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, Germany in 1974. The first two works no longer exist. The third was commisisoned and is maintained by Dia Art Foundation.
Olafur Eliasson, Riverbed, 20.8.2014 - 4.1.2015, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark.
"Olafur Eliasson's exhibition at Louisiana engages with the museum’s unique identity. The exhibition consists of three sections that each thematize the encounter between Eliasson’s art and Louisiana as a place. The central work, Riverbed (2014), is based on the unique connection between nature, architecture and art that characterizes the museum. Transforming the entire South Wing into a rocky landscape, Eliasson focuses on inhabiting space in a new way and inserts new patterns of movement into the museum."