“When De Maria first showed it in New York, in 1977, the piece was listed as “for sale,” provided that any future installation maintained the artist’s specified cubic yardage of dirt; other iterations could offer two or more viewing areas, “providing that, if more than one room is used, the earth flows contiguously throughout the space used.” It has changed somewhat over the years, and needed to be topped off with new dirt in 2022; its former caretaker, who was behind the desk for 34 years, told the New Yorker in 2023 that he attributed this to the weight of his walking on it and visitors sneaking out with the occasional handful as a souvenir. (De Maria requested that visitors not take photos, and despite the fact that I would absolutely buy a T-shirt with the words EARTH ROOM on it, there is no gift shop.) The most dramatic change to the space was the addition of an HVAC system in 2023, which addressed longstanding issues of moisture and mold but, Artforum observed, “has greatly diminished its once-pungent scent.” There is a good deal of work involved in keeping the room the way it is, even beyond the watering and the raking required to keep the surface uniform. That Artforum story notes that mushrooms still grow in the Earth Room, and caretakers still cull them. There’s something alive in there.”
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“There are blocks where the storefronts seem to be looping like the backgrounds in old cartoons; walk a mile and the same wan and pricey tastefulness scrolls carelessly behind you. There are also blocks where expensively dressed young people wait to enter stores that seem to have almost nothing for sale; security, sometimes in formal dress, wear earpieces and sunglasses, as if they were Secret Service agents protecting the few mannequins within. On this last visit, my wife noticed storefronts for brands that she’d assumed existed only on her Instagram timeline.”
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“The reason that people who hate cities always describe them as dying or being killed or already dead—“nobody lives there except the criminals,” Donald Trump said earlier this month, “you can’t survive”—is because they do not like that they are alive in the first place. There is a sense of possibility inherent in that aliveness, and it is fundamentally opposed to the order that those people and their institutions are forever trying to impose on the things they aim to Take Back. I like to be surprised, and I like finding things where they are not supposed to be; making 280,000 pounds of weird wet earth at home in a walk-up apartment building more than qualifies, there. I also like—more than that, I depend upon—the idea that those out-of-place things can resist every force working to bring them to heel or make them impossible or just make them make sense, and that they might endure not despite but because of their strangeness, their uselessness, their simple defiant vitality. I love visiting the Earth Room because it is a piece of art that makes me feel something, but it is also important to me to be able to ring a buzzer and be admitted into a space like that. I need to believe that there are things going on upstairs that I do not know about, and could not imagine. I need to be reminded that it is true.” (Roth 2024)
In a way, the Earth Room feels a bit like a design conjecture. What if there was a room full of dirt in the middle of New York City? It’s random, it’s odd, and something maybe more surprising than stumbling upon a room full of dirt, is the fact that there’s quite a lot to be said about a pile of dirt.
First off, the dirt still needs to be taken care of. Even isolated from the elements and human footprint, the dirt still finds a way to change.
How can we remind visitors to Ohio’s state parks that even when environments are in a state of conservation/preservation, they are not static amenities?
Second, I find it funny that one of the past caretakers remarked that people will take handfuls of the dirt as a souvenir. This is likely a joke, and for those that haven’t been to the dirt room this might seem preposterous. Unlike artwork you would see exhibited in a museum, there’s no security guards looming in the corners keeping a watchful eye on the dirt. The service desk is completely out of sightline. As far as I could tell when I visited, there are no cameras. One of the artist’s requests is that no pictures be taken of the work, but there’s no glaring red sign strictly enforcing the request. When it’s just you and the dirt, you can make a choice. Although I’m sure some people do break the rules, the lack of security measures makes me think people do in reality respect the dirt.
What conditions would have to be set in order for Ohio state park visitors to refrain from disturbing the environment with limited signage and enforcement?
Lastly, the Earth Room‘s location adds a layer of tension to the work. It doesn’t exactly fit in amongst the high-end luxury retail shops of SoHo. While there’s no signage in the eye-catching store fronts telling the common folk of lower tax brackets to stay away, there’s no avoiding the discomfort of entering and taking up space within those shops. In contrast, the Earth Room is an out of the ordinary attraction hidden in plain sight. Its only landmark being a simple plaque on the interior of a door frame. It is a space you are welcomed into by invitation over a digital interface. You could easily walk up to the room, take in the sight, and walk out without interacting with a single person. Meanwhile, on the floor above you, someone might be milling around in their million dollar luxury apartment. Yet, something about the experience of entering the building to look at a pile of dirt seems to cancel out this hierarchy.
How might visitors be influenced to perceive the environments of state parks as worthy of high appraisal, while still maintaining a feeling of approachability?
Roth, D. (2024, June 27). The City Lives In The Earth Room. Defector. https://defector.com/the-city-lives-in-the-earth-room
