City, a vast complex of outdoor structures and landmasses the Land artist Michael Heizer began constructing in the desert of Nevada in 1970, will finally begin welcoming public visitors next month. The site’s opening on 2 September, more than 50 years after work at the site began, marks the fulfillment of Heizer’s most ambitious and career-defining project. — The Art Newspaper
Get ready to weep (assuming you are among the select art tourists willing to travel to the site-specific installation, as Heizer intended): The 50-year saga surrounding the National Mall-sized sculpture is over, and the Triple Aught Foundation, which manages the site, will begin accepting up to six visitors a day in an outcome that has at times seemed impossible.
Heizer's masterpiece has been the subject of an Obama-era protective designation (a measure first proposed by the late Senator Harry Reid) and later the failed Trump Administration attempt to open up the 740,000-acre tract to mining and development. Plans were originally for the earthwork to be made public in 2020. LACMA director Michael Govan says it is "an artwork aware of our primal impulses to build and organize space."
As the artist, who began the piece in 1970, told the Los Angeles Times in 2012: "The size thing is not some gimmick or attention-getting trick but a genuine undercurrent of the work. Frank Gehry for instance likes to imagine his buildings as sculptures. I like to imagine my sculptures as architectural."
4 Comments
Did David Booth hire him to build one for him in Austin?
Here's a google earth pic
Maybe! There's some press articles out there that mention a Heizer piece in Booth's collection.
Another take that might be of interest to some...
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.