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Walter De Maria

Walter De Maria, TRUTH / BEAUTY, 1990–2016 Solid stainless steel and granite, Fourteen sculptures in seven sets, each sculpture: 7 ½ × 42 ⅛ × 42 ⅛ inches (19 × 107 × 107 cm)© 2016 Estate of Walter De Maria, photo by Joseph Asghar

Walter De Maria, TRUTH / BEAUTY, 1990–2016

Solid stainless steel and granite, Fourteen sculptures in seven sets, each sculpture: 7 ½ × 42 ⅛ × 42 ⅛ inches (19 × 107 × 107 cm)
© 2016 Estate of Walter De Maria, photo by Joseph Asghar

Walter De Maria, 5-7-9 Series, 1992/96 Stainless steel on granite, 27 parts each: 21 ⅝ × 12 × 26 ¾ inches (55 × 30.5 × 68 cm)© Walter De Maria, photo by Matteo Piazza

Walter De Maria, 5-7-9 Series, 1992/96

Stainless steel on granite, 27 parts each: 21 ⅝ × 12 × 26 ¾ inches (55 × 30.5 × 68 cm)
© Walter De Maria, photo by Matteo Piazza

Walter De Maria, Large Rod Series: Circle/Rectangle 11, 1986 Eleven 11-sided stainless steel rods, Each rod: 5 1/16 inches diameter (12.9 cm), 52 inches long (132.1 cm)

Walter De Maria, Large Rod Series: Circle/Rectangle 11, 1986

Eleven 11-sided stainless steel rods, Each rod: 5 1/16 inches diameter (12.9 cm), 52 inches long (132.1 cm)

Walter De Maria, 13 Sided Open Polygon, 1984 Solid stainless steel, 4 × 83 × 83 inches; ball: 3 ¾ inches diameter (10.2 × 210.8 × 210.8 cm; 9.5 cm diameter)Photo by Matteo Piazza

Walter De Maria, 13 Sided Open Polygon, 1984

Solid stainless steel, 4 × 83 × 83 inches; ball: 3 ¾ inches diameter (10.2 × 210.8 × 210.8 cm; 9.5 cm diameter)
Photo by Matteo Piazza

Walter De Maria, 16-Sided Open Polygon, 1984 Solid stainless steel with solid stainless steel ball, 4 × 98 ½ × 98 ½ inches (10.2 × 250.2 × 250.2 cm)© 2017 Estate of Walter De Maria, photo by Robert McKeever

Walter De Maria, 16-Sided Open Polygon, 1984

Solid stainless steel with solid stainless steel ball, 4 × 98 ½ × 98 ½ inches (10.2 × 250.2 × 250.2 cm)
© 2017 Estate of Walter De Maria, photo by Robert McKeever

About

Any good work of art should have at least ten meanings.
—Walter De Maria

In his sculptures, land works, and installations, Walter De Maria (1935–2013) explored the relationship between the relative and the absolute, using basic geometric components to produce sublime repetitions. By arranging forms according to mathematical sequences, he worked at the intersections of Minimalism, conceptual art, and land art—drawing attention to the limits of gallery spaces, prioritizing bodily awareness, and locating the content of an artwork in the viewer.

In 1960, after completing his master’s degree at the University of California, Berkeley, De Maria moved to New York City; two years later, he showed his work at a gallery he cofounded with Robert Whitman at 9 Great Jones Street. Influenced by his peers, including Donald Judd and Fluxus member La Monte Young, he produced serialized and numbered sculptural sets of cast and polished steel.

De Maria’s precise polygonal structures impart a sense of the absolute. 14-Sided Open Polygon (1984), a stainless steel tetradecagon containing a steel ball, is emblematic of this distillation. The Pure Polygon Series (1975–76) is a suite of seven pencil drawings of basic geometric outlines in which a single side is added sequentially to change each shape, beginning with a triangle and ending with a heptagon. In 1977 The Lightning Field was installed in a remote area of the desert in western New Mexico. The work comprises four hundred polished stainless steel poles installed in a grid measuring one mile by one kilometer; the poles, meant to attract lightning, measure over twenty feet tall and have solid pointed tips that define a horizontal plane. The visitor both walks within the grid and views it from afar, observing it over an extended period of time and through space. Other major installations include The Broken Kilometer (1979), five hundred identical brass rods arranged in five rows, which, if placed end to end, would measure one kilometer; The New York Earth Room (1977), a white-walled SoHo loft filled with 280,000 pounds of soil; and The Vertical Earth Kilometer (1977), a one-kilometer-tall brass rod that stretches toward the sky from Friedrichsplatz Park in Kassel, Germany.

Truth / Beauty (1990–2016), a series of fourteen sculptures in seven pairs, was installed at Gagosian on Britannia Street in London in 2016, then at Gagosian in Le Bourget in 2016–17. At Le Bourget, the works were visible from the gallery’s mezzanine passerelle, recalling the 1981–82 installation of De Maria’s 360° I Ching / 64 Sculptures at Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, where the rods were arranged within a sunken area of the museum’s lobby floor.

In 2017 the Walter De Maria Estate and Gagosian collaborated to posthumously complete the artist’s final work, Truck Trilogy (2011–17), comprising three 1950s Chevrolet pickup trucks, each stripped of all extraneous elements and fitted with three vertical stainless steel rods in its bed: one circular in section, one square, and one triangular. Truck Trilogy was installed at Dia:Beacon in 2017 for two years.

Walter De Maria

Photo: bpk Bildagentur/Angelika Platen/Art Resource, New York

Anna Weyant’s Two Eileens (2022) on the cover of Gagosian Quarterly, Winter 2022

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Winter 2022

The Winter 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Anna Weyant’s Two Eileens (2022) on its cover.

Black and white image of Walter De Maria, 1961. Photo: George Maciunas

Walter De Maria: The Object, the Action, the Aesthetic Feeling

The definitive monograph on the work of Walter De Maria was published earlier this fall. To celebrate this momentous occasion, Elizabeth Childress and Michael Childress of the Walter De Maria Archive talk to Gagosian senior director Kara Vander Weg about the origins of the publication and the revelations brought to light in its creation.

Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field, 1977, long-term installation, western New Mexico. Artwork © Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: John Cliett, courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York, and © Estate of Walter De Maria

Light and Lightning: Wonder-Reactions at Walter De Maria’s The Lightning Field

In this second installment of a two-part essay, John Elderfield resumes his investigation of Walter De Maria’s The Lightning Field (1977), focusing this time on how the hope to see lightning there has led to the work’s association with the Romantic conception of the sublime.

Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field, 1977. Entire field from northwest exterior looking southeast, summer 1979

A Day in the Life of The Lightning Field

In the first of a two-part feature, John Elderfield recounts his experiences at The Lightning Field (1977), Walter De Maria’s legendary installation in New Mexico. Elderfield considers how this work requires our constantly finding and losing a sense of symmetry and order in shifting perceptions of space, scale, and distance, as the light changes throughout the day.

Gerhard Richter’s Helen (1963) on the cover of Gagosian Quarterly, Spring 2021

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2021

The Spring 2021 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Gerhard Richter’s Helen (1963) on its cover.

Frieze Sculpture New York: An Interview with Brett Littman

Frieze Sculpture New York: An Interview with Brett Littman

The inaugural presentation of Frieze Sculpture New York at Rockefeller Center opened on April 25, 2019. Before the opening, Brett Littman, the director of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum and the curator of this exhibition, told Wyatt Allgeier about his vision for the project and detailed the artworks included.

Walter De Maria: Truck Trilogy

Spotlight
Walter De Maria: Truck Trilogy

Lars Nittve investigates Truck Trilogy, Walter De Maria’s last work, conceived in 2011 and premiered at Dia:Beacon in 2017.

Walter De Maria: Meaningful Work

Walter De Maria: Meaningful Work

Artist Terry Winters, longtime friend of De Maria and member of the installation crew for The Lightning Field, recounts a trip to New Mexico and the surrounding area and attests to the power—the “rhythm and pulse of ancient mystery”—that continues to imbue De Maria’s artworks into the present day.

Fairs, Events & Announcements

Walter De Maria, Large Red Sphere, 2002 © Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: Haydar Koyupinar

Installation

Walter De Maria
Ocean Music

July 25–30, 2023, 12–6pm
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
www.pinakothek.de

To mark the tenth anniversary of Walter De Maria’s death, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich will play Ocean Music (1968), a sound piece in which the artist combined his own recordings of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with his drum improvisation. The recording will play in the historic Türkentor (Turkish Gate) building, which houses De Maria’s sculpture Large Red Sphere (2002). On Thursday, July 27, the musical presentation will continue until 8pm. The event is free to attend.

Walter De Maria, Large Red Sphere, 2002 © Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: Haydar Koyupinar

Installation view, Walter De Maria: Boxes for Meaningless Work, Menil Collection, Houston, October 29, 2022–April 23, 2023. Artwork © The Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: Paul Hester

In Conversation

New Social Environment
“Walter De Maria: Boxes for Meaningless Work” featuring Michelle White and Amanda Gluibizzi

Friday, February 24, 2023, 1pm EDT

As part of the Brooklyn Rail’s online series New Social Environment, Michelle White, senior curator at the Menil Collection, Houston, joins Amanda Gluibizzi, an art editor at the Rail, for a conversation about the Menil’s current exhibition Walter De Maria: Boxes for Meaningless Work, on view through April 23, 2023. The talk will conclude with a poetry reading.

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Installation view, Walter De Maria: Boxes for Meaningless Work, Menil Collection, Houston, October 29, 2022–April 23, 2023. Artwork © The Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: Paul Hester

Installation view, Walter De Maria: Boxes for Meaningless Work, Menil Collection, Houston, October 29, 2022–April 23, 2023. Artwork © The Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: Paul Hester

Lecture

Donna De Salvo on Walter De Maria

Thursday, February 2, 2023, 7–8pm
Menil Collection, Houston
menil.org

Donna De Salvo, curator of special projects at Dia Art Foundation, will discuss the work and career of Walter De Maria in conjunction with the Menil’s exhibition Walter De Maria: Boxes for Meaningless Work, on view through April 23, 2023. Prior to the lecture, a reception will be held from 6 to 7pm in the Menil Bookstore, where copies of Gagosian’s recently published monograph Walter De Maria: The Object, the Action, the Aesthetic Feeling will be available for purchase. The event is free to attend.

Installation view, Walter De Maria: Boxes for Meaningless Work, Menil Collection, Houston, October 29, 2022–April 23, 2023. Artwork © The Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: Paul Hester

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Museum Exhibitions

Walter De Maria, Floating Mountain, c. 1961–64 © The Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: Rob McKeever

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Walter De Maria in
Of Mythic Worlds: Works from the Distant Past through the Present

March 8–May 14, 2023
Drawing Center, New York
drawingcenter.org

Of Mythic Worlds: Works from the Distant Past through the Present explores the ways in which rituals, myths, traditions, ideologies, and beliefs can intersect across cultures, histories, and time periods. The exhibition brings together fifty-three works by more than thirty artists including Walter De Maria. Spanning a wide range of historical periods and cultural traditions, it highlights the esoteric and often elusive pursuit of understanding phenomena that sit outside our objective experience of the world.

Walter De Maria, Floating Mountain, c. 1961–64 © The Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view, Walter De Maria: Boxes for Meaningless Work, Menil Collection, Houston, October 29, 2022–April 23, 2023. Artwork © The Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: Paul Hester

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Walter De Maria
Boxes for Meaningless Work

October 29, 2022–April 23, 2023
Menil Collection, Houston
www.menil.org

Walter De Maria: Boxes for Meaningless Work draws its title from the artist’s early interest in the concept of “meaningless work” and is the first museum exhibition to survey De Maria’s more than fifty-year-long career. Featuring works from the Menil Collection, the exhibition includes a large group of conceptual drawings and photography, sculpture related to the development of De Maria’s innovative Land art projects of the late 1960s and 1970s, examples of his sound and film work, and stainless-steel sculptures and monumental paintings from The Statement Series, made during the last decade of his life.

Installation view, Walter De Maria: Boxes for Meaningless Work, Menil Collection, Houston, October 29, 2022–April 23, 2023. Artwork © The Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: Paul Hester

Sally Mann, The Bath, 1989 © Sally Mann

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Monochrome Multitudes

September 22, 2022–January 8, 2023
Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago
smartmuseum.uchicago.edu

Revisiting classic modernist ideas about flatness, idealized form, and colors, this exhibition opens up the seemingly reductive format of the monochrome to reveal its global resonance and creative possibilities while working toward a more expansive narrative of twentieth and twenty-first century art. Work by Alexander Calder, Walter De Maria, Helen Frankenthaler, Theaster Gates, Frank Gehry, Sally Mann, and Richard Serra is included.

Sally Mann, The Bath, 1989 © Sally Mann

Walter De Maria, The 2000 Sculpture, 1992 © Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: Franca Candrian, Kunsthaus Zürich

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Walter De Maria
The 2000 Sculpture

August 27, 2021–February 20, 2022
Kunsthaus Zürich
www.kunsthaus.ch

Walter De Maria’s The 2000 Sculpture (1992) comprises a total of two thousand white plaster rods each 50 centimeters long and varying between 11.8 and 12 centimeters tall. The individual elements have five, seven, or nine sides. Following a specific rhythm, they are arranged on a surface covering 500 square meters, in a total of twenty rows each with one hundred rods. The result is a kind of herringbone pattern, with the rods seeming to move toward or away from the viewer, depending on where he or she stands. This creates a tension between predictable regularity and individual perception that is underscored by the light and space surrounding the arrangement.

Walter De Maria, The 2000 Sculpture, 1992 © Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: Franca Candrian, Kunsthaus Zürich

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Press

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