The Lightning Field, in images (or lack thereof)

Since artist Walter De Maria completed The Lightning Field in 1977, photography of the work has been strictly controlled. Visitors are not allowed to take photos on the site, and sign an agreement stating as much. Publishers and other media outlets who make a request to reproduce images are (it's fair to say) carefully screened, and approvals, when they're given, generally only grant use of a one or two of the few select images that the artist has officially approved.

Because of The Lightning Field's low visitorship (Dia Art Foundation estimates the figure at only 15,000 people since 1977) most of us know the work only through images. More specifically, most know the work in its most iconic photographic state, with lighting striking. Images like on the April 1980 cover of Artfourm (which featured a special feature on the Field, written and designed by De Maria himself), or the cover of Robert Hughes popular book, American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America. Of course, what most don't stop to realize, is that lightning strikes at The Lightning Field, are the exception, not the rule.

We use those images though because they're more dramatic, but how else can we image this work? Both for those that have never, and may never see it in person, and for those that have been there before. The follow-up question is of course, should we image it at all? But that's for another time.

This is the only image we included in Kenneth Baker's book on the Field. It was taken by the author and used with Dia's and De Maria's permission. Though it hardly does justice to the work or the experience of being there, it is, I think most past visitors to the site would agree, a better representation than the lightning strike images.

Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field, 1977. © Walter De Maria. Photo: Kenneth Baker.

These are images that couldn't have been taken on site (because as I mentioned, photography is not permitted), but in many ways, they're reminiscent of major parts of the experience of The Lightning Field.

  
Earth and Sky

Another perspective, aerial, which I quite like a lot. It's removed enough that it can't really color our vision of the work prior to seeing it, but I think it says something interesting about the work whether you've seen it or not. Something about patience, about careful looking, about the dramatic and inescapable effect our perspective has on our vision and understanding of the artwork, or of any artwork. If we could get a satellite image at sunset to go with it, it would be even better. (Be sure to click on the image below to expand, or download the 1890-pixel-wide version, 1.9MB.)

Unofficial aerial view of The Lightning Field.
Imagery © Digital Globe/Yahoo

Another way to image the work is not to photograph it all, but rather to draw it. I am surprised, actually, not to have ever seen many drawings of the Field at all. Perhaps because it would be hard to draw in any meaningful way, or because people tend to share their photos online so much easier than drawings or sketches. One notable exception is a feature in the Summer 2001 issue of Cabinet magazine that asked a half-dozen artists to "Please Draw That Famous Photograph of The Lightning Field from Memory". That in mind, along with the aerial view above, and a separate thought about an illustrated edition of Rosalind Krauss' essay on the grid in Modern Art; I'd propose another:

Grid drawing of The Lightning Field.

Finally in regards to imaging The Lightning Field, and also from that same issue of Cabinet (the theme of which was "Weather"), there is a terrific interview with photographer John Cliett. Just as the Dia Art Foundation hired Kenneth Baker to write about the work (the result of that commission is the first essay, "1978", in his book), they hired John Cliett to photograph it. The results—not the pictures, of which so few have ever been seen, but the story behind them—are fascinating.

Frank Gohlke on writing: "another mystery, just like photography"

The following is an edited transcript from the video of Frank Gohlke's talk at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, October 25, 2009. Gohlke will be speaking and reading from his book, Thoughts on Landscape: Collected Writings and Interviews, today, March 23, 2010, at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona. And don't miss the recent, in-depth review of the book at Design Observer. 

"I thought I might say something about what got me to take up the pen after starting photography. Taking up the pen for me was a very fraught action. I had stopped my study of English Literature because I couldn't write papers and the program I was in was all writing papers. You know, if they had given me an exam or something that would have been fine, I could study for it, I just couldn't write anything. So, photography was kind of rescue. 

"I don't think it was primarily because I couldn't figure out what else I was going to do—although that did play into it—it was that suddenly I could think. And I enjoyed thinking. I enjoyed reading and I enjoyed thinking about books too, but I was totally blocked, the words just wouldn't come out. With photography I could think and it was immediate. Either it was an interesting thought, or it wasn't, but the thinking itself was instantaneous, more or less. 

"Several years later I was asked to write something and I did everything I could to escape, but I was being prompted by some pretty heavy authorities. So I just sat down and did it. And it was just as painful as it ever was, but I could do it, I actually got the piece out. Over the years I did this more and more, and suddenly, at some point—probably about fifteen years ago—I realized, 'Oh, I like this. I like this process.' It's very different from photography, and that's great because as wonderful as photography is, when you're doing it for forty years there's a certain degree of boredom that sets in. Writing seemed a perfect compliment because it was not instantaneous, because it was something that I could begin, and shape, and be surprised by in the same way that photographs surprised me. The surprises were of a very different order and no less controllable by me, but emergent rather than immediately existent. 

"So, now, I wouldn't claim to be a writer, but I like to write. Of course when I re-read what I've written I'm mostly aware of how short it falls of what I consider great writing, but it's there and I don't disown the thoughts. Sometimes the way I express them is less elegant or accurate that I would like, but there it is. And now I've got a book of writing. A pretty storage experience, I can tell you, having been driven from graduate school by a total sit-down strike of my inner writing-implement. I now have a book, and it's got lots of pages. I mean, I look at it and I think where the hell did all those come from? When did I have time to do all this? So, you know, it's another mystery, just like photography." --Frank Gohlke