Storm King Wavefield, 2009
Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY
240,000 square feet
410’ x 490’ x 15’ tall
Photography: Jerry Thompson, courtesy Storm King Art Center
Storm King Wavefield encompasses an 11 acre site, with the artwork covering four acres, at the southwest edge of Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, NY.
The Wavefield is comprised of seven rows of undulating rolling waves of earth and grass. The waves range in height from 10-15 feet, with a trough to trough distance of approximately 40 feet. The work at Storm King is the largest site specific art installation that Lin has created, and it marks a culmination in Lin’s series dedicated to the exploration of water wave formations that are translated into large scale, site specific earth works. Because it is executed in the same scale as an actual set of waves, the viewer’s experiences is similar that of being at sea, where one loses visual contact with adjacent waves. The curvature in plan and in section creates a compound curve that allows for a complex and subtle reading of the space— in the form of an environment that pulls the viewer in to its interior and allows for a sense of total immersion.
The Storm King project was preceded by two other wave fields: The Wave Field (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1995) was the first in the series and was based on a naturally occurring water wave, called a Stokes Wave. With repetitive cupped waves ranging in scale from 3- 6 feet in height, it is 10,000 square feet in size (100’ x 100’) and is situated in the interior courtyard of the FXB aerospace and engineering building at the University of Michigan; and Flutter, installed at the Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. Federal Courthouse in Miami, FL in 2005, which took its form from the shallow wave formations that are created in sand by wave action. Each row formed a continuous wave pattern with the height fluctuating from 2-4 feet and an overall size of 90,000 square feet.
The site Lin selected is an environmental reclamation project, in compliance with The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The Storm King project involves the reclamation of a former gravel pit. For this project, Lin worked with landscape designer Edwina von Gal and horticulturist Darrel Morrison to create a low impact grass planting scheme.
Related Press:
Greenberger, Alex. The 20 Best Environmentalist Artworks of the Past 50 Years. ARTnews (April 22, 2020)
Cotter, Holland. Always In Its Element, No Matter the Weather. The New York Times (September 7, 2010: C1, C9)
Cotter, Holland. Where the Ocean Meets the Catskills. The New York Times (May 8, 2009: C23, C28)
Kino, Carol. Once Inspired by a War, Now by the Land. The New York Times (November 9, 2008)
