A piece in today's NYT about James Turrell's Roden Crater got me thinking about all the modern-day art pilgrimage sites. People make the long, inconvenient journey to Roden and other one-man, remotely located projects like it (Chinati, Lightning Field) in search of…what? Spiritual content untainted by organized religion? Perhaps, but I'd argue there is something in the insider-yness and exclusivity — and, yes, the will of an individual being sensationally exercised over nature — that appeals to art world denizens. Roden Crater was already spectacular (and pristine) before Turrell started his gigantic project. Has he made it better? Have the multi-decade and multi-million-dollar overruns been worth it? What will a visitor get from a visit to the finished Roden Crater that he wouldn't have gotten from the original version? Having not seen it in person, I can't answer these questions; but I do question why the NYT would spend a full page of Sunday art coverage on a story that says little else beyond, in essence, it's still there, he's still working on it, and he still needs more money — oh, and don't bother trying to visit unless you're willing to write a check or you've got serious desert survival/trespassing skills.
The road more or less traveled
