Maya Lin: Three Ways of Looking at the Earth

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My intention is not to take you on a tour of the elements, but in the new exhibition of work of Maya Lin we move from the water of previous posts water to earth here.

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Banner for Lin on 22nd Street, not far from the gallery

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Once again Lin shows herself to be one of our best sculptors. In Three Ways of Looking at the Earth at Pace Wildenstein's 22nd Street gallery, Lin uses three topographic systems to depict specific environments, producing them in different materials on a scale that allows the viewer to navigate around and through them.

When I was there recently, two pre-teen girls scampered up a 10-foot hill of 2x4s. At first I thought it was a performance, but they were too young and they kept looking back toward Lin. Her children? This kind of joyous freedom seemed so antithetical to the gallery's attitude, but you can see them for yourself. (Normally Pace maintains a rigorous no-photography policy but when the kids started climbing, the cameras came out. )

It's tempting to think of Lin as the anti-Serra, working with the earth, or with the idea of earth, rather than imposing her will on it. But of course that's not true. Lin's work is every bit as assertive and dramatic (and her permanently installed Wave Field at Storm King shows you just how imposing she can be), just in a kinder, gentler way. The installation at Pace is up through October 24.

2x4 Landscape, composed of 50,000 vertical 2x4s, suggests a hill

The press release says the 10-foor-high installation occupies 1900 square feet of floor space. The climbers had someone's approval. Judging by the way Lin was watching them, and the way they surrounded her afterward, I'm guessing they were her kids. Certainly no one else attempted the same climb

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Walking the perimeter of the work, I shot it at its far end, taking in a bit of each of the other two works in the space

Blue Lake Pass, 20 units composed of contoured particle board

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Let me quote the press release here: "Based on terrain from the Rocky Mountains, Blue Lake Pass explores a specific region of Southwestern Colorado that is personally familiar to Lin, whose family vacations there each summer. Lin imposed a three-by-three-foot grid on the topography, which was then scaled down and sectioned into 20 individual units that form narrow passageways through the mountain pass."


Water Line, aluminum-wire , 19' x 34' 8" x 29' 2"

The contoured grid of this work suggests a mapped section of ocean in the Antarctic. The experience of walking on the ground through an airy grid meant to depict water is viscerally thrilling



The sculptor in conversation while the young climbers scaled the wooden hill just beyond her right shoulder .

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Update 10.6.09:

View Loren Munk's three-minute video of the installation

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