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50-461: Star Axis is an earthwork built by American sculptor Charles Ross to observe the stars, which is considered to be a defining example of land art . The roughly eleven-story architectonic sculpture and naked-eye observatory is situated on a mesa in the eastern plains of the New Mexico desert. It incorporates five main elements that include apertures framing several earth-to-star alignments, which allow

100-597: A burn series of the month corresponding to his astrological sign, Leo. Ross's most well-known solar burn installation is Year of Solar Burns (1994), commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture for permanent installation in the fifteenth-century Chateau d'Oiron in the Loire Valley . It includes 366 solar burns (one per day) hung on the site's walls and a bronze inlay in the floor, which reflects and recreates Ross's discovery that laying each solar burn end to end for

150-557: A catalyst—creating an instrument that removed his own presence as artist and enabled material representations of the raw power of sunlight "drawn by the sun itself." Beginning on the autumnal equinox of 1971, he meticulously recorded a year's worth of daily solar burns on carefully positioned, fire-treated white planks of wood exposed to sunlight passing through a large lens. Each day's burn resulted in charred impressions with delicate, multidimensional feathered edges reflecting variations in weather patterns, day length, and factors related to

200-431: A ceiling that is twenty-three feet in height. It includes design elements that echo traditional religious architecture, but was conceived by Dwan as a secular space and contains no specific symbology. Ross contributed solar spectrum artwork in the form of 24 enormous prisms strategically placed in the structure's apses and skylights, as well as astronomical design elements such as the building's orientation. Aligned with

250-442: A circular space designed for ceremonial performances. The installation Spectrum Chamber , (2018, Museum of Old and New Art , Tasmania) was a collaboration with architect Nonda Katsalidis . It employs a Corten steel cube with notches cut into it that house thirteen prisms refracting sunlight into rainbows across white porcelain-tile interior walls. Ross made two films in the 1970s: the 25-minute Sunlight Dispersion (1971) and

300-492: A human scale within enormous celestial cycles. For example, as visitors ascend the central "Star Tunnel", a 147-step stairway parallel to Earth’s axis, they can experience all of the circumpolar orbits of the north star, Polaris , throughout the 26,000-year cycle of axial precession . The "Star Tunnel" is mostly open to the sky with a circular aperture at the top framing all of Polaris's circumpolar orbits. The sculpture's other chambers include: an "Equatorial Chamber" that frames

350-418: A juxtaposition of aesthetic and conceptual appeal with the immediacy of natural forces that he records and displays. It has been described as a "cocktail of science and art," employing sculpture as an instrument for perception. Curator and writer Klaus Ottmann has written that all of Ross's work emanates from "an early and enduring excitement about geometry" and a "preoccupation with the substance of light,

400-505: A large skylight, which projects the solar spectrum into the terminal in continually changing patterns. In 1992, Ross created Solar Spectrum , commissioned by architect Moshe Safdie for his round, non-denominational The Class of 1959 Chapel at the Harvard Business School . The installation uses a tracking system that realigns its prisms to meet morning and afternoon light; its light-emanating solar spectrum—along with that of

450-401: A purely scientific demonstration of "the sun’s flaring majesty into a work of abstract, searing beauty." In 1971, Ross conceived of his large-scale earthwork project, Star Axis , an architectonic sculpture and naked-eye observatory situated on the eastern plains of New Mexico that Klaus Ottmann regards as "a summary of Ross's lifelong pursuit of the dynamics of human interaction with light and

500-544: A visitor to experience them in human scale. Ross conceived the project in 1971, began construction in 1976, and as of fall 2022, had targeted 2025 for its completion. Art historian Thomas McEvilley places the work in the lineage of monuments of archaeoastronomy such as the Great Pyramids , Stonehenge , El Caracol, Chichen Itza and the 15th-century Ulugh Beg Observatory . Curator and writer Klaus Ottmann has described Star Axis as "a summary of Ross's lifelong pursuit of

550-448: A visual experience to involve the entire body. Walking through the tunnel and up the stairway would be, in effect, like walking into the eye of a telescope. The artist wants the natural observatory to be a doorway to the stars." In 2021, Artforum critic Dan Beachy-Quick wrote of the effect of Star Axis , "It is this radical tension between the universe, the tool, and the human by which Star Axis gains its great power. The structure in

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600-410: Is a complex architectural sculpture that is roughly eleven stories high, one-tenth mile wide, and composed of earth, granite, sandstone, concrete, bronze and stainless steel. It is situated on a 400-acre site within a 76,000-acre cattle ranch in the New Mexico desert. The work and its views are carefully constructed to align with astronomical phenomena, recalling ancient structures that are also aligned to

650-434: Is a solar spectrum installation with 36 acrylic and optical fluid prisms, each weighing about 450 pounds, located in the skylights and window walls of an atrium. Other installations include Light, Rock and Water (1986, San Diego), a wall of prisms installed on a polished granite pedestal rising from a black-tiled pool of water; and Light Line (1987, San Francisco Airport), a 76-foot-long prismatic sculpture suspended across

700-558: Is about having your feet on the ground and your head in the sky." Construction began in 1976, with the building of a five-mile dirt road. Between 1976 and 1980, Ross excavated a seven-story-deep half-cone out of the mesa, seeking to "enter the Earth to reach the sky." Since starting, he has alternated between summer oversight of construction and winters in New York. When at Star Axis , he lives on-site with his wife, artist Jill O'Bryan (and during

750-489: Is located at the bottom of the Star Tunnel and frames the passage of the sun on the equinox through an opening at the top enabling viewers to also observe the stars that travel directly above the equator. The top third of the Star Tunnel continues into the 52-foot-high "Solar Pyramid," whose angles were determined by the summer and winter solstices . It casts shadows like a sundial , marking daily and seasonal sun movements on

800-415: The 1960s at the advent of minimalism and is considered a forerunner of "prism art." His bodies of work include installations in which he choreographs solar spectrum moving through architectural spaces by way of large prism sculptures that he fabricates; "Solar Burns", created by focusing sunlight through lenses onto wooden planks; paintings made with dynamite and powdered pigment; and "Star Maps." Many of

850-404: The 8-minute Arisaig (Solar Eclipse) (1972). The New York Times described the former as combining scientific filming technology with "a truly artistic appreciation of colors" in its recording of prismatic changes of hue on a cup, chair, room and hand. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ross also introduced new bodies of drawings and paintings. His performative "Explosion Drawings" were visualizations of

900-735: The Dwan Sanctuary—have been described as counterpoints to the Rothko Chapel 's light absorbing murals, all three serving as spaces of contemplation. Ross also created Spectrum 12 (1999) for Saitama University in Japan, and Spectrum 8 (2004) for the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI); the NMAI work features a "ladder" of eight prisms within a tall atrium window that cast spectrums into

950-620: The John Weber Gallery in New York, and conceived his large-scale earthwork project, Star Axis , which is still under construction. At that time he also purchased a larger, top-floor studio on Wooster Street, where he made some of his first solar burns on the roof. In subsequent years, he has shown at Franklin Parrasch in New York and Parrasch Heijnen in Los Angeles. Critics note in Ross's work

1000-522: The United States. He created Rock Bow (1983) for a Chicago rapid-transit station—a 22-foot prism column that refracts sunlight entering the station through a dome with a 100,000-pound Indiana limestone base. His solar spectrum commissions use multiple large-scale prisms strategically placed to choreograph sunlight through their spaces. Lines of Light, Rays of Color (1985, Plaza of the Americas, Dallas)

1050-468: The aperture, at the top of the Star Tunnel stairs, it frames Polaris’s largest circumpolar orbit 13,000 years from now and 13,000 years in the past. The Star Tunnel is entered through an enormous excavation of two 30-foot-tall, curved sandstone walls rising up to an elliptical opening that traces the path Earth's axis draws throughout precession. The other chambers of Star Axis embody additional celestial phenomena. The relatively small "Equatorial Chamber"

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1100-546: The apex due to the alignment of the structure. Ross has called Star Axis a work of "earth/sky art," rather than land art, stating "this art, this architecture, is an instrument for perception—a place to sense how the earth's environment extends into the space of the stars." His concept involved gathering various star alignments in different time scales and building them into sculptural forms, so that enormous celestial cycles could be experienced and felt at human scale. In 1986, Michael Brenson described Ross's concept as "enabl[ing]

1150-537: The artists associated with land art, including Ross, were involved with minimalist and conceptual art and had a connection to Virginia Dwan and the Dwan Gallery. Ross's professional relationship with Dwan began in 1967 and included exhibitions between 1968 and 1971 (when the gallery closed), their joint project, the Dwan Light Sanctuary (1996), and her longstanding financial support of Star Axis . Star Axis

1200-502: The bowtie-shaped, exterior "Shadow Field," which is bounded by the tracings of the longest shadow at winter solstice and the shortest at summer solstice. Inside the Solar Pyramid in the "Hour Chamber," which includes a 29-foot-high, 15˚ triangular aperture framing one hour of the earth’s rotation; in that time, any given star will take sixty minutes to arc from the opening’s left (west) edge to the right (east) edge, while Polaris remains at

1250-415: The cosmos." The complex and massive sculpture comprises five architectural chambers and is roughly eleven stories high, one-tenth mile across, and composed mainly of granite and sandstone. The sculpture and its views are carefully constructed to align with astronomical phenomena such as the vernal equinox sunrise, echoing ancient structures that are also aligned to the sun and stars. Ross discovered

1300-484: The dynamics of human interaction with light and the cosmos." Charles Ross (born 1937) is known for conceptual sculpture that employs geometry, time, scientific concepts and natural processes to harness natural light and planetary motion in order to record and reveal optical, astronomical and perceptual phenomena. He initially studied physics and mathematics (BA, 1960) before turning to sculpture (MA, 1962) at University of California, Berkeley . As an artist, Ross emerged in

1350-487: The early prism works described them as offering a threshold into "a mode of contemplation that is exceedingly elemental, nearly imperceptible … Ross's humble objects are an art of philosophic passivity. They let enter into them the forces that enter us all [and] give us a glimpse of the cosmic realities that more truly house our lives." In his later work with prisms, Ross became interested in them as transmitters of light rather than objects. These works spread white light into

1400-401: The existence of its physical, quantum, and metaphysical expressions." Ross's major bodies of work consist of prism sculptures, Solar Burns using focused sunlight, the earthwork Star Axis , solar spectrum installations, explosion works made with powdered pigments, and "Star Maps." Ross's early work varied in both focus and materials, and included sculpture, environments, and collaborations with

1450-630: The experimental Judson Dance Theater and choreographer Anna Halprin . This work often showed an interest in process and motion—recurring themes in his art—as in Room Service (1963), a large, dynamic sculpture he created for a Judson Dance performance, which evolved in response to the movement of dancers. In 1965, after a detailed dream about building a prism, Ross made a complete break from his assemblage work. He began using acrylic to construct transparent geometric forms of varying shapes filled with liquid that functioned as prisms—his first foray into

1500-484: The historically significant artist cooperative at 80 Wooster Street organized by Fluxus founding member George Maciunas ; the cooperative has been credited by cultural observers with the development of Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood into an art-world hub. After moving to San Francisco, Ross began his longstanding investigation of light in 1965, with the creation of large-scale prisms assembled in his warehouse studio. He returned to New York in 1967 and began showing at

1550-431: The interaction of light and matter at the smallest scale, which referenced Richard Feynman's diagrams demonstrating principles in quantum mechanics. He created them by sprinkling powdered pigments in twelve spectrum colors on top of dynamite Primacord and fuses, then detonating them, causing the pigments to be thrust down into the paper and upward in dispersed clouds. His "Star Maps" (1975/1986) are two-dimensional maps of

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1600-700: The light-themed work that would be the enduring focus of his career. He showed prism works in solo exhibitions at Dilexi Gallery (1965, San Francisco), Park Place Gallery (1966, New York), and Dwan Gallery (1968, 1969, 1971). His early prisms were modestly scaled, minimal variations on cubes that functioned as geometric objects and perceptual vessels, displaying different views and perspectives within their shapes. The subsequent "Prism Walls" (tall prism columns set side-by-side with space between them) and Coffin (1968)—a large pentagonal, human-sized piece—were increasingly complex in terms of their fragmentation and dislocation of perspectives. A 2020 Artforum review of

1650-454: The next five years making drawings, consulting with astronomers and engineers, and searching the American southwest for a place within open, vast land that suggested "standing at the boundary between the Earth and the stars." In 1976, he discovered the project's site in the New Mexico desert. While driving on backroads of a private ranch, he was approached by a cowboy on horseback whose father owned

1700-460: The noted Dwan Gallery—prominent in both the minimalism and land-art movements —after being introduced to Virginia Dwan by conceptual artist Sol LeWitt , whom critics cite as an influence in Ross's work. Ross showed there until 1971 when the gallery closed, and continued a professional relationship with Dwan that culminated in their joint 1996 project, the Dwan Light Sanctuary. In the early 1970s, he began showing at other galleries, including

1750-476: The orientation of the Earth's axis in time. He titled the 366-plank work Sunlight Convergence/Solar Burn: The Equinoctial Year, September 23, 1971–September 22, 1972 and showed it in a solo exhibition at John Weber Gallery. According to art historian Thomas McEvilley , pop artist Andy Warhol brought The Rolling Stones ' Mick Jagger to the opening, where they searched out the planks corresponding to their birthdays. Warhol later commissioned Ross to create

1800-477: The passage of the sun on the equinox through an opening at the top; the "Hour Chamber," which frames one hour of the earth's rotation through a triangular opening; and the to-be-completed "Shadow Field," which holds all of the shadows cast throughout the year by another feature, the "Solar Pyramid," a tetrahedron built to solstice alignments. Ross has produced more than twenty permanent, site-specific commissions, including works in Japan, Australia, and throughout

1850-468: The project has also been financed with foundational support from organizations including the Andy Warhol Foundation , John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation , Someland Foundation and Thaw Charitable Trust. In 2017, Ross sold a large portion of his Manhattan loft to partially finance the nonprofit Land Light Foundation, directed by O'Bryan, which has raised money for the project and will maintain

1900-587: The site for perpetuity. As of fall 2022, work was ongoing with completion set for 2025/26. Charles Ross (artist) Ross has exhibited at venues including the Museum of Modern Art , PS1 , Dwan Gallery , Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles , and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago . His artworks are collected by the Whitney Museum of American Art , Centre Georges Pompidou , and Los Angeles County Museum of Art , among other institutions. In 2011, he

1950-558: The site in 1976 and secured its use with the owner of the land, W.O. Culbertson Jr., a former state representative, cattle rancher and member of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. He began work on Star Axis that year, and has since alternated between summer oversight of the construction and winters in his New York studio; as of late 2021, work was ongoing and reported to be near completion. The chambers and apertures of Star Axis frame several earth-to-star alignments, revealing

2000-514: The solar spectrum, creating a dynamic interaction between the prisms, the sun's movement across the sky, and viewers, notably in the Dwan Light Sanctuary (1996). The sanctuary is a structural artwork located in Montezuma, New Mexico , on the campus of the United World College, and a collaboration with Virginia Dwan and architect Laban Wingert. The circular structure has an open interior and

2050-465: The spare elegance of its geometry invokes the ancient temple, pyramid, ziggurat … the presence of something unfathomably larger than oneself." Ross conceived Star Axis in 1971, as an outgrowth of his work on a series of drawings about the Egyptian pyramids and their star alignments, which peaked an interest in the geometry of earth-star alignments, particularly the south-to-north celestial pole. He spent

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2100-458: The sun and stars. The sculpture's "Star Tunnel" is the central feature, a 147-step, nine-story stairway, exactly parallel to Earth’s axis. Ascending the Star Tunnel stairs, a visitor can "walk through" and experience all of the orbits of Polaris —the current north star—throughout the Earth’s 26,000-year cycle of astronomical precession . When a viewer enters the Star Tunnel at bottom, the aperture at

2150-438: The sun to project different seasonal spectrum events and to evolve throughout the day with the earth's turning, the prisms cast immense rainbows in slashing patterns and shades that move around the room's curved plaster walls. In the 1970s, Ross introduced a new body of work, his "Solar Burns" which employed an opposite approach to the prisms by focusing light rather than spreading it. His process has been described as that of

2200-440: The top appears to be the size of a dime held at arm’s length and frames the smallest circumpolar orbit of Polaris corresponding to the view in the year 2100 CE. As a visitor climbs the stairs, they can see increasingly larger views of the sky framing larger and larger circumpolar orbits of Polaris. The aperture is a 40-inch oculus—the width of the human field of peripheral vision when standing right in front of it. At this proximity to

2250-887: The universe forming a human-sized sphere when assembled, which he created from 428 photographs from an atlas of the stars covering the celestial sphere from pole to pole; he showed them in the exhibition "Lo Sapzio" at the Venice Biennale in 1986. Ross's work belongs to the public collections of the Berkeley Art Museum , Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art , Indianapolis Museum of Art , Los Angeles County Museum of Art , Musée National d'Art Moderne (Centre Pompidou, Paris), Museum Kunstpalast (Germany), National Gallery of Art , Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art , Nevada Museum of Art , New Mexico Museum of Art , Walker Art Center , Weisman Art Museum , and Whitney Museum, among others. He has received fellowships and grants from

2300-465: The vast expanse of land; he soon secured the use of a 400-acre parcel with the owner, W.O. Culbertson Jr., a former state representative, cattle rancher and member of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, who to Ross's surprise, sparked to his idea for a naked-eye observatory. Ross told the New York Times' s Kay Larson that he picked this site, "because the land and sky seemed equal in weight... This piece

2350-449: The work's first decade, with his former wife, artist Elizabeth Ginsberg). The construction has generally been undertaken with small, four-to-six-person crews and local stonemasons, several of whom have worked on the project for decades. Ross has contributed funding to Star Axis through sales of his other artwork, the support of patrons like Virginia Dwan (a sponsor since its inception), and donated building materials. In more recent years,

2400-547: The year formed a double spiral. In later solar burn pieces, he has explored various mathematical phenomena, including the number 137 (coined "the God number" by physicist Richard Feynman ), magic squares , and the Fibonacci sequence . Art in America' s Jan Ernst Adlmann wrote that Ross's 2012 exhibition "Solar Burns" (Gerald Peters Gallery) translated "mathematical mystifications" and

2450-422: Was already moving towards art after taking a sculpture course to fulfill a liberal-arts requirement; he was attracted to the medium as a means of making abstract ideas physical. After earning an MA in sculpture from Berkeley in 1962, he spent the early years of his career in New York, initially producing assemblage works concerned with balancing shape and form. He was one of the original artist residents to join

2500-516: Was named a Guggenheim Fellow . He lives and works in SoHo, Manhattan and New Mexico with his wife, painter Jill O'Bryan . Ross was born December 17, 1937, in Philadelphia and grew up in the nearby suburb of Glenside. He studied physics for two years at Penn State before transferring to the more liberal University of California, Berkeley in 1958. In 1960, he graduated with a BA in mathematics, but

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