When I was home last month for the holidays, I met up with an old friend for drinks and at some point the conversation steered towards art - Robert Smithson in particular. My friend had just discovered his work at an SFMOMA exhibition and was thrilled about finding beauty in such simple materials (in this particular work, dirt and mirrors). We also talked briefly about Smithson's well-known earthwork, Spiral Jetty, which is pivotal in contemporary art history (during the 1960's) as perhaps the best example of earthworks, or land art. And I started thinking about Dia: Beacon, my absolute favorite exhibition space, where many of the earthwork artists are embraced. Here, in the vast, empty, cavernous spaces of a former Nabisco warehouse, these large-scaled works can be displayed and enjoyed to their full capacity, as they were meant to be. A trip to Dia is an unique experience, something not replicated anywhere else in the country in typical museums or gallery spaces, simply because of the enormous scale of the warehouse and the vision & dedication of the board and founding directors.So when I first turned the corner at Dia many years ago and came face to face with Michael Heizer's North, East, South, West, I had a visceral reaction about seeing something the size and scale of which I had never seen before. I literally came to a complete stop and at once felt a sense of awe and fear, because instead of looking at sculptures rising up in front of me, I found myself peering down into the vast darkness and depth of Heizer's work. They are called "negative" spaces, bronzed forms that sink deep into the ground below. It was an awesome experience to see his work in person, for the first time, without knowing anything about it beforehand, just like my friend's discovery of old materials seen in a brand-new way.
Like Smithson, Heizer works with materials of the earth, or "within" the earth as these negative sculptures can attest to. And his work completely (and literally in this case) flips upside down the notions and assumptions we have about art. Standing in front of these perfectly bronzed interior spaces and being moved by them - displaced by them - is exactly what I believe the experience of viewing art is all about - the movement of something inside of the mind and soul, from knowledge to discovery, from assumptions and prejudgments to something entirely new. It's uplifting and renewing, thrilling and humbling. I can only begin to imagine - but perhaps not, if my theory is correct about the art experience being fundamentally unpredictable - what it must feel like to stand in front of Smithson's Spiral Jetty in Utah, or Heizer's outdoor sculptures in Nevada, or Walter de Maria's Lightning Field in New Mexico. One day, I hope to find out.
Michael Heizer, North, East, South, West, conceived in 1967
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