Death Valley Project; A Film By Goldwell Open Air Museum
To celebrate International Sculpture Day, we are sharing our 2004 documentary "Death Valley Project, A Film by Goldwell". It’s an intimate look at footage from 1984 and the Belgian Sculptor Albert Szukalski came to America to create “in relative obscurity” in the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada, USA. Funded in part by the Nevada Arts Council & National Endowment for the Arts. The DVD is available for streaming here & available for purchase here.
You might be surprised to learn that Rhyolite’s “Last Supper” is the second iteration of the sculpture, the first being made in 1974 in Belgium. The version we all know and love was originally installed by the train station of the ghost town, eventually being moved to it’s current and final location.
The following is an essay by William L. Fox from the DVD’s pamphlet.
"The Amargosa Valley straddles the California-Nevada border, paralleling the state line as it breaks southeast toward Las Vegas. To its west are the mountains beyond which sink Death Valley; east is the Nevada Test Site, one of the most radioactive wastelands on the planet. In the middle and toward the southern end of the valley are a handful of ranchers and farmers who use the underground waters of the Amargosa River to irrigate their modest crops.
Not far away is the 300-foot-high Big Dune, the sands of which sing underfoot during certain atmospheric conditions. The sediments in the mountains to the east are severely deformed and upended, evidence of the ongoing apocalypse to which this arid landscape falls prey. At the northern end of the valley lie the towns of Beatty and Rhyolite. Beatty serves as a modest tourist stop along State Highway 95, traversing the western half of Nevada. In contrast, Rhyolite stands as a ghost town of considerable fame, once a bustling mining hub but now characterized by abandoned buildings and dirt roads.
Since 1984, it has become a gathering place for those who identify with Christ and his disciples, symbolized by the Last Supper tableau. Nearby, various sculptures dot the landscape, adding to its mystique. Icara, the female counterpart to Icarus, perches atop telephone poles, while Don Quixote, depicted in rusting armor, can be found nearby, adding a touch of literary allure to the scene. The Venus of Nevada overlooks the town, her pink cinderblock form seemingly directing attention towards Las Vegas.
Nevada's history is marked by the rise and fall of over 500 towns in the past 150 years, many of which were mining camps constructed from wood. Today, little remains of these settlements beyond piles of rusting tin cans, as weather and relic hunters have erased much of their existence. However, Rhyolite stands out due to its enduring stone and concrete buildings.
Founded in 1904 following the discovery of a gold-bearing vein of quartz in the surrounding red hills, it experienced a rapid boom in population, reaching a peak of 8,000 residents. However, the financial panic of 1910 led to a drastic decline, reducing the population to less than a tenth of its zenith. During the late 1980s, the Barrick Mining Corporation took over nearby claims, reshaping the landscape by terracing the hills to resemble Aztec temples. Despite this transformation, the mine operated successfully until its closure in 2000, yielding as much as 25 tons of gold during its peak years.
In 1984, Albert Szukalski, a lanky, dark-haired Belgian sculptor with a striking resemblance to the late rock star Jim Morrison, arrived in the valley. Originally intending to create artwork within Death Valley National Park, Szukalski redirected his efforts to Rhyolite after encountering restrictions. With its abandoned buildings and desolate atmosphere, Rhyolite became the canvas for Szukalski's artistic vision. The artist set about recreating a sculpture he had first executed in West Flanders, Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. He talked his friends into posing for him, draped wet burlap over their bodies, then coated it with plaster. It was September, a month when temperatures in Rhyolite routinely remain well over a hundred even when the sun goes down, and no one caught pneumonia. Szukalski unveiled his sculpture in late October 1984.
Crouching inside one of the twelve figures to have their picture taken is a favorite stunt pulled by tourists, but inserting oneself gingerly into the sculpture can also have the unanticipated effect of making you feel as if you've assumed a position in history. What from the outside can seem like a coy bit of surrealism suddenly assumes a much more poignant context, the gold mines to your right reminding you that a disciple would soon trade the master's life for such a precious mineral.
The placement of an icon in Western art history into the desert loses its smirk and becomes a serious reflection about what it means to refashion entire mountain ranges into forms resembling temples. Szukalski died of throat cancer in 2000 and was buried in a cemetery in Belgium, but the sculptures that he and other artists created remain in place. The Nevada desert is an environment that human cognition, its neurophysiology evolved in a temperate savanna, has profound trouble even perceiving, much less understanding. As a result, the hyper-arid landscape offers little in the way of objective correlatives to constrain our imaginations; hence we film science fiction movies in it and build fantasies such as the Las Vegas Strip.
The Goldwell Open Air Museum demonstrates how it is possible to bend history into art in a place where it seemingly shouldn't be, yet takes us closer to reality at the same time."
- Essay by William L. Fox for Goldwell Open Air Museum's "Death Valley Project" DVD.
Het Laatse Avondmaal * sculpturen * almetingen niet bekend * Kapellen, 1974
Above are the two different iterations Albert Szukalski made of his sculpture, “The Last Supper”. These two pictures show the growth of the concept from when he first started utilizing plaster as a primary process to when he brought the concept to the American Southwest desert of the Armagosa Desert.
The pictures are taken with permission via Verbeke Foundation’s retrospective publication on Szukalski’s early life & works, “Eenvoudig dus moeilijk”, which translates to “simple, therefore difficult”. We are thankful for their incredible insight provided in this book and highly recommend purchasing a copy if you are interested in more context on what led the young Belgian artist to Rhyolite, and what led up to his legacy which is now celebrating it’s 40th year anniversary.