We Asked People Checking Out a Room Full of Dirt: ‘What Does it Mean?’

I was 22 the first time I visited The New York Earth Room. I was sent by an eccentric friend of my parents. She’s the type of person who seldom seen without multiple scarves, has lengthy opinions about deconstructivism, and always seems to smell like cloves. When the friend found out I was heading to Manhattan she reached into her gigantic purse and pulled out a sharpie. On the back of an envelope she wrote the address 141 Wooster Street. The friend handed it over and said: it’s the second floor, get buzzed up, and don’t ask too many questions. At that age I tended to ignore most things said by adults—my teen angst lasted well into my 20s—but the set up was too good to turn down. My second day in New York I headed over to Soho. Without really knowing what I was looking for I located the building: a nondescript office, eight stories tall. I buzzed twice and the front door clicked opened. I slowly made my way inside, walked past the out of service elevator, and started up the stairs. The air was thick with must. The office smelled pleasantly of rain. At the end of an all white hallway there was a man sitting at a large desk. He noted my confusion then asked if I was here to see the exhibit. I shrugged. The man waved his hand motioning me around the corner.

Glassed off and spread evenly across the floor of the office was the most dirt I had ever seen. Like, more dirt than I thought reasonable. A stupefying amount of dirt. I looked for a moment and tried to piece together what I was seeing. Why was this here? Was I missing something? Why so much…soil? Dumbfounded I returned to the man at the desk. naively looking for an explanation. “What’s it all supposed to mean?” I asked. “It means what you want it to mean,” he said. I went back and looked at the dirt. Then I laughed and laughed and laughed.

The New York Earth Room was created In 1977 by musician and conceptual artist Walter De Maria, who had previously played drums in noise rock band The Primitives alongside a pre Velvet Underground Lou Reed. For the minimalist installation De Maria used 280,000 pounds of dirt spread over 3,600-square-feet of the Soho office building. Each week a caretaker waters and rakes the dirt to maintain its symmetrical layout and rich earthy smell. The exhibit, while open to the public, remains unadvertised. Defying the rapid gentrification of Soho the hidden, unexplained, installation has been there for forty-one years. It serves as a throwback to the neighbourhoods history of big ideas and weirdo art. Since my first visit I’ve been back to The Earth Room at least a dozen times. I’ve come to appreciate its duality. The Earth Room serves as a quiet refuge against a cityscape that can feel overwhelming. It’s a still an sereine environment and its emptiness works as the perfect backdrop for reflection. At the same time the exhibit as one of the greatest jokes I’ve ever. The buildings surrounding Earth Room are home to flagship retail stores and within blocks there are countless cocktail bars and Michelin star restaurants. The real estate for Earth Room, given the location and square footage of the office, would easily sell for millions of dollars. Devoting the space to an art exhibit is a romantic and admirable ideal to uphold. But devoting the space to an art exhibit that no one knows is there? That’s funny. The fact that De Maria famously would not explain the piece is even funnier. Here is a space that is worth more money than I will ever make in my lifetime. It’s valuable enough to pay for literally dozens of houses in a more reasonable landscape. And what have we decided to do with it? Fill the thing with dirt! Why? Won’t say! Where is it exactly? Not Telling! That’s very funny. That’s a great joke.

The New York Earth room is my favourite art exhibit. Over the years I’ve taken a handful of friends to look at the dirt with me. Before going in I’ve tried to give them as little information as possible. Below I asked a some of them to give their thoughts on the installation: Kyle Erf , New York’s Best Goth Comedian The Earth Room. I like to imagine someone was trying to make an indoor swimming pool and got the ingredients mixed up. You’ve got to hand it to them: there's something undeniably rock n' roll about buying an apartment, dressing it up like the a natural disaster came through, and getting it valued at over a million dollars. Just a big middle finger to… somebody? I’ve got some musician friends back home living in nearly the same conditions if anyone wants to endow them.

SoHo has flipped since the 70s. It’s one of the most expensive places to live but this loft full of dirt is still there. Other residents got priced out by literal dirt. Sorry, you don’t get rent control but a knee-high pile of soil does. That is the most New York thing imaginable. But at least it’s free. That’ll make it way harder for some big company to steal the idea and make a bunch of money off an even bigger room full of dirt. Kat Sandler , playwright

It seems like a dumb pun, but the whole thing was really grounding. Conceptually The Earth Room seems silly, but when you’re there it’s different. The smell is beautiful. The contrast between the soil and the white walls is pretty. It’s all very simple and clean. I felt a lot calmer after visiting. Chris Ross-Ewart, Sound Designer It’s stupid waste of time. A big room full of dirt. Yep, that’s a great idea. Let’s go look at that. Dumb. Amberley Baggett, toy expert

Nature within the Concrete Jungle. I get it. It’s just sad. An elitist joke on the common people that just don’t have the high class education to comprehend dirt in a room. It’s a grotesque display of aristocracy on a level I won’t put time into understanding. In the same breath, there’s something that lingers about Dirt Room. There is lots of art I’ve forgotten but this is something I still think about. Graham Isador lives in a room covered with dirty clothes but nobody believes it’s art. Follow him on Twitter.