Structure for Viewing Land, for Dead Furrow,

1967

These two works document an unrealized project by Dennis Oppenheim titled Dead Furrow. The artist proposed a tall viewing platform made of precast concrete and metal pipes. Its design was probably inspired by a structure in Monte Albán, in Oaxaca, Mexico, one of the earliest Mesoamerican cities and the center of Zapotec cultural and religious life from about 500 B.C. to A.D. 1000.
Dead Furrow belongs to Oppenheim's Viewing Stations, a series of outdoor boxes and platforms from 1967 that prefigured his slightly later experiments with Earth art and performance art. Oppenheim characterized the Viewing Stations as "works to view from," rather than objects to look at. As such, they demonstrated his fascination with Ancient American temples, which functioned both as places of worship and stages for the performance of acting, seeing, and being seen.