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Walter De Maria
Walter de Maria was an American artist who worked in music, sculpture, painting, and illustration. During the avant-garde ferment of the 60s and 70s he befriended, collaborated with, and drew inspiration from many figures of the West and East coast art scenes, including LaMonte Young, John Cage, and Lou Reed and John Cale, with whom he performed in a pre-Velvet Undergound band.
“Walter De Maria’s six-decade career made lasting and profound contributions to contemporary art. A vanguard force within four major twentieth-century art movements—Minimalism, Land art, Conceptualism, and Installation art—De Maria drew upon both mathematical absolutes and elements of the sublime in his large-scale sculptures and installations” (Gagosian.com).
His best-known works, such as the New York Earth Room and the Lightning Field, explore the relationship between sculpture and the natural environment. The Lightning Field, for example, comprises 400 stainless steel poles arranged in a 1mi X 1km grid atop a plateau in New Mexico.
Works from “The Art Of Pilgrimage”
Readings
