The Broken Kilometer is a hidden, widely unknown treasure of sublime spirituality in the heart of Manhattan. Less famous than The New York Earth Room, the experience it grants is far more intense and shocking.
Both are sculptures by Walter de Maria maintained by Dia Foundation and open to the public since 25 years ago. They were born with me. They are in me.
The awe-inspiring sensation of The Broken Kilometer is reinforced by the impacting contrast it offers with SoHo, that sad and degrading theme park of senseless consumerism, upscale boutiques, street vendors; posies, poshies, fakies; noise, crowds, tourists. No trace of the art scene that changed the world in the 70’s and 80’s.
Then I go inside the loft that shelters The Broken Kilometer. I cross a corridor, and another corridor. Silence, white spaces, columns. And the floor covered by polished metal rods, almost blinding in their intense fulgency. Extending like a menacing presence over the whole surface, they powerfully overwhelm the soul and the mind, the senses. You cannot proceed, go on, walk through the poles; touch them or feel them. You feel their brutal presence that disarms you and bares your soul, but you are disabled to respond. Again like in The New York Earth Room, but more subtly, a barrier shuts down the action, putting despair upon the already conflicted feelings of the viewer.
Another world, a mysterious place. A sanctuary; mystic retirement where the golden of the blazing brass illuminates the room like gold and glitter, in an embracement of awkward pureness and painful silence. Creating a unique environment estranged from any urban perception.
I let myself lose into the magic and irresistible attraction of such an alien creation, a place where 500 rods of impossible mathematical perfection lay scattered all over the floor to human amazement and awe.
And I get out to the street, 393 West Broadway. I get disturbingly woken up from the daydream, and SoHo- with all its commercial rottenness and flocks of tourists, reminds I am in New York City, not in another planet or an arid mesa of the desert in the American West.
