Walter De Maria
Vertical Earth Kilometer, 1977

A km-long rod of metal was buried vertically in the ground. The boring of the shaft, which goes through six geological layers, took seventy-nine days. The continuous metal rod is made of 167 m-long rods, screwed tightly together. The sandstone square which surrounds the top of the shaft is at the intersection of two paths which traverse the Friedrichsplatz in Kassel, Germany, site of theinternational contemporary art serveys, Documenta. The work is only visible in section: the kilometer of metalplunged into the earth can be seen as a representation of time in a vertical dimension.

- from 'Land and Environmental Art' by Jeffrey Kastner and Brian Wallis, PHAIDON -

Walter De Maria
The Broken Kilometer, 1979

Courtesy Dia Art Foundation © the artist. Photo: John Abbott
500 brass rods, permanently installed at 393 West Broadway, New York City
Each rod 200x5cm

With The Broken Kilometer, De Maria had put in place the fourth and last stage of his multi-part sculptural system. While the solid brass work in Kassel plunged a kilometre into the ground and The Lightning Field in New Mexico marked out an area of one kilometre by one mile with poles that all reached the same, absolute height, in 1977 he created The New York Earth Room – apparently permanently – by covering the entire floor of a room in Friedrich’s other SoHo gallery with an even layer of earth. The work can still be seen on the second floor at 141 Wooster Street. Two years later, when The Broken Kilometer – filling the whole floor space of a gallery – was installed as a permanent exhibition, it was clear that the viewer who encountered the piece in astonishment could only respond in one way: silent contemplation. – Thomas Kellein director Kunsthalle Bielefeld.