Hondalea, San Sebastián, 2021

Many years ago, I met Walter De Maria in his Manhattan home, a dilapidated, enormous, austere house where an elevator with an iron lattice gave a view of the several floors in which the artist lived and worked. On one were his bed and a kitchen that opened to a sort of living room with a large couch, a few chairs, and books on the floor that served as tables for the whisky and bites we shared until dawn. On another level were his various studios, cluttered with materials and prototypes. All the spaces in that indescribable building oozed mystery in a grisly gentle light. De Maria was perhaps a pioneer in making us take part in unexpected realities where elements and materials create their own universes, enticing the public to perceive its surroundings in a radically different way. I think, for instance, of Earth Room. This installation generates a silent ecstasy of the senses, taking them on a voyage to the depths of Earth. It has a dimension that feels private while taking its place in a public space: an anonymous room at street level in the heart of New York, an always fast-paced city...[+]