About this time last summer Erin Hogan loaded up her Volkswagen with protein bars and sunblock and drove off in search of the greatest works of Land Art of the 1970s and ’80s. She plotted a loose course through Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and the desert art outpost of Marfa, Texas, and recorded the results in a new book, Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip through the Land Art of the American West (University of Chicago Press), set to be published later this month.

Hogan, who is director of public affairs at the Art Institute of Chicago, has a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Chicago, but she warns, “I don’t in any way, shape, or form consider myself an art historian.” She’s certainly funnier than most art historians, with a wit that darts nimbly between James Joyce and ZZ Top (she also memorably dubs Michael Heizers Double Negative a “vagina dirtata”). But between mini-dramas of coaxing her city-slicker car up a vertical gravel slope and finding an actual vodka tonic near Flagstaff, Arizona, Hogan folds in serious musings and critical dialogues about Robert Smithsons Spiral Jetty, James Turrells Roden Crater, and Walter De Marias Lightning Field. She recently spoke to ARTINFO about seeking the sublime in artworks rooted in the earth.

How many miles did your Jetta log during this trip, and is it still ticking?

The Jetta is still ticking! I probably put about four, five thousand miles on it.

What did you set out to do here?

I was trying to put together a driving trip that would be a lot of fun. So I thought, how about going to see all that Land Art that I’ve been reading about for years and have never actually looked at? I really did want to approach this as a tourist, and not necessarily as someone who had studied art history.

You are upfront about your biases in the book — your not wanting to let your knowledge of art history overtake your experience of the art, and what you repeatedly refer to as your “urban handicap.” How did they influence your trip?

Well, one thing that I was always very conscious of was that I was out in other people’s backyards. A lot of people who live out by Land Art have very little use for it. In Overton, I had to ask a whole bunch of people where Double Negative was before I found anybody who’d even heard of it. I tried to be respectful of that, and not go in there like I was looking for the holy grail.

Would you say that aloneness is essential for viewing these works?

I think it’s really critical. I think you are meant to spend a sustained amount of time with all of these things. That was one of the real revelations for me. Land Art is not really about land [or space], it’s about time. You have to be quiet and let the work do its work on you.

Did you ever have moments of real doubt about the works themselves?

I wondered if these things were not having the effect on me that they were supposed to, and I didn’t know if it was them or me. You hear about people who go out and have these amazing experiences. Spiral Jetty looks so perfect and beautiful and monumental in all the images you see of it. And then I get there, and it’s this bleached, parched, crowded thing. I wouldn’t say I was disappointed by it, just that all of a sudden my frame of reference had completely changed. I got the most — and expected the least — out of Lightning Field.

Can you talk about your experience of Lightning Field?

It really snuck up on me. When the sun is high, the work doesn’t really do that much. I had wandered around and I was feeling very disappointed. It was hot and there were bugs out. And I just thought, "I can’t believe I came all the way for this." So I sat down on the porch with my back to the Lightning Field, at like 5 o’clock in the afternoon, and my fellow visitors and I opened our bottles of wine and were sitting, talking. Then one of the women with us said, “Oh my goodness, look!” And I turned around and literally the whole thing completely transformed. It was immediate. I talk in the book about Greenberg’s idea of “alloverness,” where all of a sudden everything is apparent. I really did have that experience of the Lightning Field once the sun started to set and the light started hitting the poles. In the course of 45 minutes it turned from a nothing into a something. 

Let’s talk about the parallels you found between Heizer’s Double Negative and works by painters like Newman, Pollock, and Rothko.

Heizer creates volume out of air, and he creates masses that approach you and surround you, and that made me think of Barnett Newman’s writings on the Native American mounds in Ohio. Newman didn’t want to give you a painting; he wanted to give you a particular kind of experience of space. He was just doing it in two dimensions.

How about the threats facing Land Art, from tourist-induced erosion at Double Negative to the proposed drilling at Rozel Point near Spiral Jetty? How can people protect such works? And should they?

I do believe an artist’s wishes should be respected. If Michael Heizer wants Double Negative to be clean and less eroded, measures should be taken to do that, although of course that would give you a different experience of the work. I have to wonder if it’s impacted Heizer’s decision to be building City [Heizer’s biggest work, an ongoing massive earth-and-concrete complex begun in 1972 in Lincoln County, Nevada]. It seems like the kind of thing that will not change. And as far as I know there’s no projected date for completion.

Is there any advice you would give would-be art pilgrims?

Don’t wear as much black as I wore. Don’t bring things that will melt in your car. And have a little faith.