The art that escapes the walls: What we really buy when we acquire land art
The wind gusts across the Great Salt Lake, kicking up clouds of white dust that dance above the black rocks. As far as the eye can see, a giant spiral coils into the brackish waters, like some fossil unearthed from the depths of time. Spiral Jetty, Robert Smithson’s mythic work, belongs to no one an
By Artedusa
••9 min read
The art that escapes the walls: what we really buy when we acquire land art
The wind gusts across the Great Salt Lake, kicking up clouds of white dust that dance above the black rocks. As far as the eye can see, a giant spiral coils into the brackish waters, like some fossil unearthed from the depths of time. Spiral Jetty, Robert Smithson’s mythic work, belongs to no one and yet to everyone. Or almost. Because while you can’t take this jetty of basalt and salt into your living room, you could, in theory, buy a parcel of it. Or a photograph. Or a certificate. Or even the right to walk on its stones—provided you book your visit months in advance.
Land art, born in the 1960s as a rebellion against galleries and museums, poses a dizzying question: what is left to own when art becomes landscape, when the canvas turns to desert, when the frame stretches to infinity? Between land ownership, archival documents, and certificates of authenticity, collectors and contemporary art lovers have had to invent new forms of acquisition. But beware: here, buying does not always mean possessing. Sometimes, it is the work that possesses you.
When the earth becomes canvas: the paradox of untransportable art
Imagine for a moment that you are a collector accustomed to old master paintings hanging in gilded frames. One day, a gallerist offers you Double Negative, a monumental 457-meter-long gash carved into the Nevada desert by Michael Heizer. The price? An astronomical sum, of course. And also… a problem of scale. Because Double Negative does not come off the wall. It is the wall. Or rather, it is the desert.
What makes land art so fascinating is how it has pushed the boundaries of artistic ownership to the point of absurdity. How do you sell a work that weighs several tons, spans hectares, and often degrades over time? The movement’s artists had to get creative. Some, like Walter De Maria, devised conceptual solutions: for The Vertical Earth Kilometer (1977), he buried a kilometer-long brass rod in the ground in Kassel, Germany. What did the buyer receive? A simple certificate attesting to the work’s existence. No photograph, no model—just a promise buried underground.
Others, like Nancy Holt, played with access rights. Sun Tunnels, her four concrete cylinders aligned in the Utah desert, can only be visited by reservation. The owners of the adjacent land could, in theory, restrict access—or turn it into a paid attraction. But Holt, like many of her peers, ensured her works remained open to the public. A generosity that complicates matters for collectors: how do you own what everyone can see?
Archives, or the art of collecting the ephemeral
If you can’t buy Spiral Jetty, you can instead acquire one of the original prints of the famous black-and-white photograph taken by Smithson himself. Or better yet: a copy of the film he made in 1970, where the jetty emerges from the water like a mythological serpent. These documents, often overlooked by the general public, have become collectible objects in their own right. And for good reason: they are sometimes the only remnants of works that have since disappeared.
Take Asphalt Rundown (1969), a stream of asphalt Smithson had poured down a Roman hillside. The work did not withstand time—the asphalt cracked, eroded, and was absorbed by the earth. But the photographs that remain, printed in limited editions, now fetch high prices at auction. At Christie’s or Sotheby’s, these images are not mere reproductions: they are fragments of history, tangible proof of an art that exists only by proxy.
The most astute collectors have grasped this subtlety. They do not seek to own the work itself, but its memory. Films, preparatory sketches, letters exchanged between artists and patrons—all of this constitutes an alternative form of possession. In 2013, a first edition of Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings sold at auction for over $20,000. Not bad for a book of essays. But then, what remains of Partially Buried Woodshed, the cabin Smithson half-buried in 1970 and which was destroyed a few years later? Words. Images. Ideas.
The desert as gallery: when collectors buy land
If archival documents offer an elegant solution, some are not afraid to think bigger. Much bigger. In 2015, the Dia Art Foundation, which manages Walter De Maria’s The Lightning Field, acquired 160 hectares of land around the work to preserve its integrity. A decision that speaks volumes about the symbolic—and financial—value of these landscapes transformed into art.
But not all collectors have Dia’s resources. Some opt for a more modest approach: buying parcels of land near iconic works. In the Utah desert, where Spiral Jetty and Sun Tunnels are located, investors have acquired plots in the hope of benefiting from the sites’ notoriety. A strategy not without risks: in 2008, a developer nearly built a hotel complex a few kilometers from Spiral Jetty, before being stopped by an international outcry.
Even bolder: some artists have outright sold usage rights. In 1977, Dennis Oppenheim created Annual Rings, a series of circles traced in snow at the Canada-U.S. border. The work, ephemeral by nature, left no physical trace. Yet Oppenheim sold its reproduction rights to a collector, who could thus claim intellectual ownership. A way of possessing the idea without the matter.
Certificates, or the art of selling wind (with elegance)
If you can’t buy the land, the archives, or even access rights, you still have one last option: the certificate. A sheet of paper, often signed by the artist, attesting that you own… something. But what, exactly?
In 1969, artist Robert Barry sold "certificates of presence" for his Inert Gas Series, a series of interventions where he released rare gases into the atmosphere. Buyers received a document confirming they owned a part of the work—even if it had long since dissipated into the air. A joke? Not quite. Today, these certificates trade like collectibles, proof that conceptual art has turned the intangible into an object of desire.
More recently, some contemporary artists have pushed the concept even further. In 2021, Refik Anadol sold an NFT work titled Machine Hallucinations – Earth, tied to satellite data of the planet. A way of digitally owning a piece of the globe. A logical evolution for a movement that has always played with the limits of ownership.
But beware: not all certificates are equal. In 2018, controversy erupted around The Lightning Field when collectors discovered that the visitation certificates they had purchased granted them no special rights to the work. Walter De Maria, who died in 2013, had always refused to monetize access to his masterpiece. A humbling lesson for those who believe they own art: sometimes, art reminds you that you are only its temporary guardian.
The invisible guardians: who really protects land art?
Behind every land art work stands an army of invisible guardians: foundations, curators, lawyers, and sometimes even environmentalists. Because these works, often located in protected areas, are subject to strict regulations. Spiral Jetty, for example, is managed by the Dia Art Foundation, which ensures visitors do not trample the rocks or leave any waste. Sun Tunnels, meanwhile, is protected by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which limits the number of annual visitors.
These constraints complicate life for collectors. In 2012, Nancy Holt’s family sued Dia, accusing the foundation of mismanaging Sun Tunnels. The conflict dragged on for years, revealing tensions between artistic legacy and commercial interests. Because while the works theoretically belong to everyone, their upkeep is expensive. Very expensive.
Some artists anticipated these problems. Michael Heizer, for City, created his own foundation, the Triple Aught Foundation, to control access to his monumental work. The result: City is not open to the public, and likely never will be. A radical decision, but one that guarantees the artist total control over his work. For collectors, this means one thing: if you want to see City, you’ll have to settle for photographs. Or a certificate.
The legacy of land art: when art becomes heritage
Today, land art is no longer just an artistic movement: it is a heritage. A fragile heritage, threatened by erosion, climate change, and sometimes even indifference. Spiral Jetty, once submerged by water, now reappears more frequently due to drought. Double Negative, carved into an unstable mesa, is slowly degrading. And The Lightning Field, despite its stainless steel structure, remains vulnerable to the elements.
Faced with these challenges, institutions have had to innovate. In 2020, the Holt/Smithson Foundation launched a restoration program for Sun Tunnels, partly funded by private donations. Dia, for its part, implemented an online reservation system for The Lightning Field to limit visitor impact. As for Spiral Jetty, it is now monitored by cameras and sensors that track its evolution through the seasons.
For collectors, these initiatives offer new opportunities. Some invest in preserving the works, funding scientific studies or restoration campaigns. Others buy adjacent land, not to profit from it, but to protect it. A discreet form of patronage, where money does not serve to possess, but to preserve.
Owning the impossible: a lesson in humility
At its core, land art teaches us a valuable lesson: art is not always meant to be owned. Sometimes, it is there to remind us that certain things—a desert, a mountain, a spiral of salt—escape our grasp. Whether you buy a photograph, a certificate, or even a hectare of land, you never truly acquire the work. You merely become its guardian, for a visit, a season, or a lifetime.
And perhaps that is the most beautiful acquisition of all: not ownership, but the relationship. The one that binds you to a place, an idea, a moment suspended in time. Like those visitors who, after traveling hundreds of kilometers to see Sun Tunnels, lie down in the desert and watch the sun set through the concrete cylinders. They own nothing. And yet, they leave with something infinitely more precious: the echo of an experience that has transformed them.
So, what can you really buy when you take an interest in land art? Perhaps simply the right to stand, for a moment, at the edge of the impossible. And to wonder, gazing at the horizon, if art is not, in the end, what escapes us.
The art that escapes the walls: What we really buy when we acquire land art | Buying Guide
