Opus 40
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Opus 40 is a large Earth art installation in Saugerties, NY, created by sculptor and quarryman Harvey Fite (1903--1976). It comprises a sprawling series of dry-stone ramps, pedestals, platforms, etc. covering 6.5 acres of a bluestone quarry. Fite, then a professor of sculpture and theater at Bard College, purchased the disused quarry site in 1938, expecting to use it as a source of raw stone for his ordinary representational sculpture. Instead, inspired by a season of work restoring Maya sculpture in Honduras, he began installing his sculptures in the quarry space itself. To organize this exhibition, he quarried additional stone to build ramps and walkways to lead to the individual works. As the rampwork expanded, Fite abandoned the idea of merely showcasing smaller sculptures, and spent the rest of his life on expanding the dry-stone assemblage as a sculpture in its own right.
All of the quarrying and walling work on Opus 40 was done by hand, using traditional hand tools; this includes the erection of a 9-ton granite monolith at the highest point of the site. Many of Fite's tools, as well as others he collected, are exhibited at a small museum at the Opus 40 site. The sculpture is now owned by a nonprofit group, and is open to the public as a tourist attraction and a wedding and concert venue.
External links
- http://www.opus40.org/
- http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/travel/escapes/02trip.html
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