Walter De Maria
The New York Earth Room, 1977
141 Wooster Street
New York, New York

Walter De Maria
The New York Earth Room, 1977
An interior earth sculpture.
250 cubic yards of earth (197 cubic meters)
3,600 square feet of floor space (335 square meters)
22-inch depth of material (56 centimeters)
Total weight of sculpture: 280,000 pounds (127,300 kilos)
This is the third Earth Room sculpture executed by the artist, the first being in Munich,Germany, in 1968. The second was installed at the Hessisches Landesmuseum inDarmstadt, Germany, in 1974. The first two works no longer exist.
The New York Earth Room has been on view to the public since 1980. This work
was commissioned and is maintained by Dia Art Foundation.

About the artist

Walter De Maria was born in Albany, California, in 1935, and studied history andart at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1960 he moved to New York, where helived and worked until the end of his life. De Maria’s early work of the 1960s included
music, performance, and writing as well as sculptural and conceptual works. WithRobert Whitman in 1963, De Maria founded a gallery at 9 Great Jones Street inNew York and exhibited his sculptures there later that year. He also performed asa jazz percussionist with other musicians and joined the band the Primitives, which
later evolved into the Velvet Underground. After his first solo gallery exhibition in1965, De Maria’s work was included in the 1966 Primary Structures exhibition at
the Jewish Museum in New York. He began to create work outside the traditional
gallery space, presenting his Mile Long Drawing in 1968 in California’s Mojave Desert.
Beginning in the mid-1970s, Dia commissioned some of the artist’s most significant
site-specific works, including The Lightning Field (1977) in western New Mexico,and The New York Earth Room (1977) and The Broken Kilometer (1979) in New York.
Dia continues to maintain these long-term installations as well as De Maria’s The
Vertical Earth Kilometer (1977) in Kassel, Germany, which is the companion piece toThe Broken Kilometer. De Maria died in 2013.

The New York Earth Room is open Wednesday–Sunday, 12–3 pm, 3:30–6 pm.
An additional work of art by the artist, The Broken Kilometer, may be seen at
393 West Broadway, New York.
West Houston Street
The New York Earth Room141 Wooster Street

Greene StreetWooster Street

West BroadwayThompson Street

Prince Street

Spring Street
The Broken Kilometer
393 West Broadway

Broome Street

Dia Art Foundation is committed to advancing, realizing, and preserving the vision of artists.
Dia Beacon in the Hudson Valley presents Dia’s collection of art from the 1960s to thepresent as well as special exhibitions, new commissions, and public programs. Dia Chelsea
in New York presents temporary exhibitions, new commissions, performances, lectures,and readings. Dia also maintains several long-term sites, including Walter De Maria’s
The New York Earth Room (1977) and The Broken Kilometer (1979), Max Neuhaus’sTimes Square (1977), Joseph Beuys’s 7000 Eichen (7000 Oaks, which was inaugurated
at Documenta 7 in 1982), all of which are located in New York; Dia Bridgehampton, theDan Flavin Art Institute (established in 1983), on Long Island, New York; De Maria’s
The Lightning Field (1977) in western New Mexico; Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels (1973–76)
in the Great Basin Desert and Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970) in Great Salt Lake,Utah; Cameron Rowland’s Depreciation (2018); and De Maria’s The Vertical Earth Kilometer(1977) in Kassel, Germany.
Dia Beacon
Riggio Galleries
3 Beekman StreetBeacon, New YorkDia Chelsea
537 West 22nd Street
New York, New YorkDia Bridgehampton
The Dan Flavin Art Institute23 Corwith Avenue
Bridgehampton, New York

Cover: Walter De Maria, The New York Earth Room (detail), 1977. Installation view, 141 Wooster Street,New York, New York. © Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: John Cliettdiaart.org