Michael Heizer

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MICHAEL HEIZER Michael Heizer, b. 1944 Berkeley, California Artist Michael Heizer is considered one of the original and most prominent “land artists” in the world. His work de- buted at the Dwan Gallery’s influential “Earth Works” show and then at the Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Munich, where he removed 1,000 tons of earth in a conical shape to create Munich Depression. Soon after he created one of his best known sculptures Double Negative on the Mormon Mesa in Nevada. Over the past four decades he has made incredible sculpture and earthworks, often inspired by native american forms, that appear in museums and public spaces worldwide. Prominent exhibitions include Gagosian Gallery, New York; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany (1979), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California (1984), and Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy (1996), the Whitney Museum of Fine Art. His most recent sculpture at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Levitated Mass, is a 21/1 x 21 /12 foot granite boulder installed atop a 456-foot-long trench outside LACMA that people can walk under. The long channel, de- scends to a depth of 15 feet set in a field of polished concrete slices. Since 1970 Heizer has been working on an enormous complex in the desert of Nevada, where he lives. Covering a space approximately one and a quarter miles long and more than a quarter of a mile wide (2 km by 0.4 kml), City is one of the largest sculptures ever created. The sculpture is currently supported by Dia and Lannan Foundation and is not yet open to the public. DURHAM PRESS 892 Durham Road | PO Box 159 | Durham, Pennsylvania 18039 | 610-346-6133 | www.durhampress.com.

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Michael Heizer Selected Bibliography
G A G O S I A N Michael Heizer Selected Bibliography Selected Books and Catalogues: 2019 Fox, William. Michael Heizer: The Once and Future Monuments. New York: Monacelli Press. 2017 Voorhies, James. Beyond Objecthood: The Exhibition as a Critical Form since 1968. Boston: MIT Press. Celant, Germano and Chiara Costa. Virginia Dwan: Dwan Gallery. Lausanne: Skira. 2015 Fine, Ruth E., Kara Vander Weg and Michael Heizer. Michael Heizer: Altars. New York: Gagosian Gallery. 2014 Cameron, Dan. The Avant-Garde Collection. Newport Beach, CA: Orange County Museum of Art. Kaz, Leonel, ed. Inusitada Coleção De Sylvio Perlstein. São Paolo: Museu de Arte de São Paolo Assis Chateaubriand. 2013 Allen, Gwen L., Pierre Bal Blanc, Claire Bishop, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Charles Esche, et al. When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013. Milan: Fondazione Prada. 2012 Lippard, Lucy R. and Jeff Khonsary. 4,492,040 (1969–74). Vancouver: New Documents 2010 Jensen, Susanne, Susanne Lenze, and Reinhard Onnasch. “Michael Heizer: Untitled.” In Nineteen Artists. Berlin: El Sourdog Hex; Bielefeld, Germany: Kerber Verlag. 2011 Reifenscheid, Beate. Die Letzte Freiheit: Von den Pionieren der Land-Art der 1960er Jahre bis zur Natur im Cyberspace. Milan: Silvana. 2010 Goldman, Judith. Robert & Ethel Scull: Portrait of a Collection. New York: Acquavella Gallery. Marcoci, Roxana, ed. The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today. New York: Museum Of Modern Art. 2009 Grabner, Roman, Thomas Kellein, and Felicitas von Richthofen. 1968: Die Große Unschuld. Cologne: DuMont. 2008 Semff, Michael. Künstler Zeichnen. Sammler Stiften, 250 Jahre Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München. Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz. Lara, Cathy, ed.
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Citeations Dramatically Assertive
Cite Spring 1985 Citeations dramatically assertive. The sheer bulk of the installation creates an experience that is essentially confrontational: 45". 90°. 180° is not a piece to be taken in at a 45°, 90°, 180° glance; one must walk around it, measure oneself against it. Sculpture by Michael Heizer However, it would be a mistake to view Engineering Court 45°. 90", 180" as yet another example of Rice University overblown public sculpture, a piece pumped with steroids to fit a prescribed Reviewed by Alison de Lima Greene space. The manipulation of scale and per- ception has been one of Heizer's chief The image of the standing stone - isolated, concerns since his first mature works of enigmatic, evocative - was rediscovered by the late 1960s. For example, his Nine the Romantic painters of the early 19th Nevada Depressions of 1968, in which the century. The German Caspar David Fried- dry-lake floor of the desert became the rich populated his landscapes with dol- arena for a series of site-specific cuttings mans which acted as silent witnesses to a into the ground measuring up to 120 feet primordial Nordic heritage. In England, in length, is balanced by Windows of William Blake employed Stonehenge as a 1969, etched into a single basalt block of setting for illustrations of his poems "Mil- sidewalk, each cutting roughly the size of a ton" and "Jerusalem." John Constable also match stick. The scheme of 45°. 90°. 180° turned to Stonehenge, sketching it severjl itself has undergone a number of permu- times. He described the monument in the tations.
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THE STORY of LAND ART a Film by James Crump
VITO ACCONCI CARL ANDRE GERMANO CELANT PAULA COOPER WALTER DE MARIA VIRGINIA DWAN GIANFRANCO GORGONI MICHAEL HEIZER NANCY HOLT DENNIS OPPENHEIM CHARLES ROSS PAMELA SHARP WILLOUGHBY SHARP ROBERT SMITHSON HARALD SZEEMANN LAWRENCE WEINER THE STORY OF LAND ART a film by james crump PRESENTED BY SUMMITRIDGE PICTURES AND RSJC LLC PRODUCED BY JAMES CRUMP EXECUTIVE PRODUCER RONNIE SASSOON PRODUCER FARLEY ZIEGLER PRODUCER MICHEL COMTE EDITED BY NICK TAMBURRI CINEMATOGRAPHY BY ALEX THEMISTOCLEOUS AND ROBERT O’HAIRE SOUND DESIGN AND MIXING GARY GEGAN AND RICK ASH WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY JAMES CRUMP photograph copyright © Angelika Platen, 2014 troublemakers THE STORY OF LAND ART PRESS KIT Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art A film by James Crump Featuring Germano Celant, Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Dennis Oppenheim, Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, Vito Acconci, Virginia Dwan, Charles Ross, Paula Cooper, Willoughby Sharp, Pamela Sharp, Lawrence Weiner, Carl Andre, Gianfranco Gorgoni, Harald Szeemann. Running time 72 minutes. Summitridge Pictures and RSJC LLC Present a Film by James Crump. Produced by James Crump. Executive Producer Ronnie Sassoon. Producer Farley Ziegler. Producer Michel Comte. Edited by Nick Tamburri. Cinematography by Alex Themistocleous and Robert O’Haire. Sound Design Gary Gegan and Rick Ash. Written and Directed by James Crump. Troublemakers unearths the history of land art in the tumultuous late 1960s and early 1970s. The film features a cadre of renegade New York artists that sought to transcend the limitations of paint- ing and sculpture by producing earthworks on a monumental scale in the desolate desert spaces of the American southwest. Today these works remain impressive not only for the sheer audacity of their makers but also for their out-sized ambitions to break free from traditional norms.
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Size, Scale and the Imaginary in the Work of Land Artists Michael Heizer, Walter De Maria and Dennis Oppenheim
Larger than life: size, scale and the imaginary in the work of Land Artists Michael Heizer, Walter De Maria and Dennis Oppenheim © Michael Albert Hedger A thesis in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Art History and Art Education UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES | Art & Design August 2014 PLEASE TYPE THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES Thesis/Dissertation Sheet Surname or Family name: Hedger First name: Michael Other name/s: Albert Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: Ph.D. School: Art History and Education Faculty: Art & Design Title: Larger than life: size, scale and the imaginary in the work of Land Artists Michael Heizer, Walter De Maria and Dennis Oppenheim Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE) Conventionally understood to be gigantic interventions in remote sites such as the deserts of Utah and Nevada, and packed with characteristics of "romance", "adventure" and "masculinity", Land Art (as this thesis shows) is a far more nuanced phenomenon. Through an examination of the work of three seminal artists: Michael Heizer (b. 1944), Dennis Oppenheim (1938-2011) and Walter De Maria (1935-2013), the thesis argues for an expanded reading of Land Art; one that recognizes the significance of size and scale but which takes a new view of these essential elements. This is achieved first by the introduction of the "imaginary" into the discourse on Land Art through two major literary texts, Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) and Shelley's sonnet Ozymandias (1818)- works that, in addition to size and scale, negotiate presence and absence, the whimsical and fantastic, longevity and death, in ways that strongly resonate with Heizer, De Maria and especially Oppenheim.
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The Deiro Collection (CAE0901)
The Deiro Collection Collection CAE0901 Introduction/Abstract The Deiro Collection contains materials relating to early earthworks by Michael Heizer, Walter De Maria, and Charles Ross, collected by Count Guido Robert Deiro, Airline Transport Rated pilot and project consultant. Biographical Note: Count Guido Robert Deiro Count Guido Robert Deiro grew up in Las Vegas, worked on a ranch and then in casinos as a young man, and became an Airline Transport Rated pilot. He was hired by Howard Hughes first as an administrative assistant, and was working at Hughes Aviation as Director of Aviation Facilities in Las Vegas when he met Michael Heizer in late 1968/early 1969. The artist hired him to scout locations for Double Negative and then the City project; Heizer was joined by Walter De Maria and Charles Ross, who also worked with Deiro to scout property for their own projects, including De Maria’s The Lightning Field. Deiro’s employment with Hughes gave him access to aircraft, vehicles, photographic equipment, and free time to work with the artists. By 1972 he was devoting all his time to assisting Heizer and De Maria to secure property and water rights at their desert locations, and leasing and buying the requisite heavy equipment for Heizer’s work in Garden Valley, Nevada. In 1974 Deiro cut back to flying occasionally for Heizer and De Maria, and went back to work as a shift supervisor at a Las Vegas casino. He later started a real estate auction company, which enabled him to help Heizer obtain additional property in Garden Valley during the 1990s.
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MICHAEL HEIZER Metropol Kunstraum
MICHAEL HEIZER Metropol Kunstraum MICHAEL HEIZER Metropol Kunstraum EINLEITUNG Michael Heizer ist ein fast vergessener Künstler, dessen Werk in großen Teilen zerstört ist. Und doch sind seine Projekte Teil der Kunsterfahrung einer bestimmten Epoche geworden ist. Als einer der wich- tigsten Protagonisten der Land Art / Earth Art hat er die Erweiterung des Kunstbegriffs in den 60er Jahren maßgeblich mitbestimmt. Für das Publikum, das die Arbeiten gesehen, erlebt, betreten hat, hat sich die Wahrnehmung der Welt ein Stück weit gewandelt. Heizers Zitat „There is nothing there, yet there is a sculpture“ über sein erstes wichtiges Werk (Double Negative) fasst dies eindrucksvoll zusammen. Die kleine Ausstellung im Metropol Kunstraum stellt die die Großprojekte umgebenden Arbeiten auf Pa- pier vor. Sie machen in einer eigenständigen künst- lerischen Ausdruckweise das Gedankenwerk von Heizer präsent und zeigen den ihm eigenen Umgang mit Materialen auch in diesem Format. Ich danke Philipp von Rosen für seinen einfühlsamen Text zu den Arbeiten und S.K.H. Herzog Franz von Bayern sowie der Staatlichen Graphischen Sammlung und Dr. Michael Semff für die Leihgaben, ohne die diese Ausstellung sehr rudimentär geblieben wäre. Auch Galerie Häusler Contemporary sei herzlich für die Leihgabe gedankt. Nov 2013 MM MICHAEL HEIZER, ZEICHNUNGEN AUS DEN oder Land Artists subsumiert werden –, wird deren SPÄTEN 1960ER UND 1970ER JAHREN: ‚Auszug‘ aus der Galerie und der Gang in die Wüste stets mit der gezielten Abkehr vom städtischen Leben „I don‘t paint around the edge“, „ich male nicht um und vom ‚System Kunst‘, bestehend aus Galerien, die Bildkante herum,“ erklärte Frank Stella 1964 in dem Handel und den Museen, begründet.
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Official Visitor's Guide 2019
discover los angeles download the app LOS ANGELES OFFICIAL VISITOR’S GUIDE VISITOR’S ANGELES LOS OFFICIAL PRESENTED BY THE LOS ANGELES TOURISM & CONVENTION BOARD & CONVENTION TOURISM ANGELES LOS THE BY PRESENTED official visitor’s guide 2019 discoverlosangeles.com 2019 LOS ANGELES TOURISM & CONVENTION BOARD Located in the center of the creative capital of the world, come take in the 360° skyline views from California’s tallest open-air terraces. If you’re looking for a thrill, ride the 45-foot all-glass Skyslide nearly 1,000 ft. above downtown LA or soak in the sun and sip locally sourced wine and beer. For a truly Only-in-LA experience, play with the interactive screens that highlight the views, and the vibrant culture that stretches as far as the eye can see. BUY TICKETS at OUE-SKYSPACE.COM 213.894.9000 | @SKYSPACELA WELCOME! authentic L.A. Tap into the city’s creative spirit to plan a one-of-a-kind experience. Welcome to Los Angeles, TCL CHINESE THEATRES a dynamic, ever-evolving ARCHITECTURE destination that’s set against a backdrop of authenticity, optimism, and the unexpected. A place where our rich ethnic and cultural diversity is celebrated throughout the city’s distinct neighborhoods. We invite you to be a free spirit here, to be WALL BEAUTIFICATION different, to be bold, and to have fun. IN THE ARTS DISTRICT Be ready to become passionately inspired with creativity at nearly every turn. The birthplace of Hollywood and the epicenter of entertainment, Los Angeles has long served as a beacon for dreamers and innovators.
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Michael Heizer
Michael Heizer In the mid-1960s, Michael Heizer made a series of trips to his home states of The simplified geometric forms of North, East, South, West suggest the underlying Nevada and California to experiment in the American desert landscape. Originally Euclidean lexicon of basic three-dimensional forms—box, cone, and wedge— a painter, Heizer had already made several works in which geometric shapes essential for all sculpture, ancient and modern. The architectural scale and con- were carved out of canvases. Soon he set out to undertake the same operation struction of Heizer’s work call forth comparisons to the megalithic monuments of in larger dimensions and in open space, free from the constraints of the stretcher ancient cultures—a comparison that is explicitly addressed in his Negative Megalith and canvas, the exhibition and, ultimately, the urban context. The first in his series #5 (1998), a natural, menhir-like stone inscribed in a rectangular niche, installed of monumental Land art works, titled North, East, South, West, was to consist of in a neighboring gallery. The son of an anthropologist, Heizer acknowledges numerous four excavations in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California that echoed the ancient sources for some of his forms but sees the comparison as more apt in shapes in his paintings. It was only partially completed in 1967, when North and the realm of effect than of specific reference: South were produced in painted wood and metal, respectively, at 4 feet across “It is interesting to build a sculpture that attempts to create an atmosphere of awe. and 4 feet deep.
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Levitated Mass
CLASSROOM ACTIVITY Exploring and Experimenting with Size, Scale and Proportion in Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ABOUT THE PROJECT ABOUT THE ARTIST Artist Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass is a 456-foot- Michael Heizer was born in Berkeley, California, long slot cut into the earth, over which rests a 340- in 1944. He attended the San Francisco Art ton boulder. As visitors walk along the slot, the Institute and moved to New York City in 1966, path gradually descends to fifteen feet deep before where he produced small-scale paintings and ascending back up again. Moving toward the sculptures. In the late 1960s, Heizer left New boulder, the massive object appears to rise as the York for California and Nevada, where he began path descends. A 200-foot-long transporter almost to produce large-scale works that could not fit three freeway lanes wide will carry the boulder 110 in a museum setting. Heizer is a pioneer of Land miles to LACMA’s campus. It can safely travel at only Art, or Earth Art, a movement where artists 5 to 8 miles per hour. moved out of studios and galleries and into the landscape, sometimes actually engaging the land Height of boulder: 21.5 feet as a sculptural medium. Weight of boulder: 340 tons Length of slot: 456 feet Depth of slot: 15 feet Width of slot: 15 feet THE BIG IDEA STIMULATING CONVERSATION Size, scale, and proportion are relative terms. In Break down the numbers. If one ton is equal order for these qualities to have meaning, they to 2,000 pounds, how many pounds does this must be in relationship to some system of boulder weigh? If one foot equals 12 inches, measurement.
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Public Art Review Public Art Review Issue 51 • Fall/Winter 2014 • Publicartreview.Org
YOKO ONO’S EARTH PEACE | MAPPING | BERT BENALLY AND AI WEIWEI IN THE DESERT ART VS. OIL | MARY JANE JACOB ON CURATION | LEXINGTON TATTOOS ITSELF Public Art Review Public Public Art Review Issue 51 • Fall/Winter 2014 • publicartreview.org Barbara Grygutis Issue 51 • JR’s Big Vision • Art vs. Oil • Artists & Fabricators • Nantes • Mapping 51 South Park Bridge Entry Monuments and Pedestrian Railing Seattle, Washington T: 520.882.5572 520.907.9443 Repurposed steel rocker arms from the historic 1930 drawbridge flank the approach. M: 3200 ft. of artist-designed railing is inset with original gears and other salvaged components. [email protected] BIG VISION JR talks about boundaries, limits, seeing barbaragrygutis.com $16 .00 USD Commissioned by 4Culture, King County Public Art Collection people, and being bold Fabrication: Jesse Engineering, Tacoma, WA Photo:Spike Mafford Grygutis South Street Bridge PAR FINAL.indd 1 10/18/14 6:34 PM BOOKSBOOKS & MEDIA Publications and reviews Fiery Passion Why do 70,000 people trek into the desert for Burning Man? It’s the art. BY SHAUNA DEE BURNING MAN: ART ON FIRE Jennifer Raiser Photography by Sidney Erthal PUBLIC ART REVIEW PUBLIC ART and Scott London Introduction by Larry Harvey New York: Race Point Publishing, September 2014 | VOL. 26 | NO. 1 Much of the focus of Burning | ISSUE 51 Man coverage in the media of | PUBLICARTREVIEW.ORG late has been the inﬂux of high- end trailers with extravagant catered meals for the Silicon Valley elite. But the art at Burning Man, still the focal point of the weeklong annual festival, deserves documentation in a hardcover 86 art book ﬁlled with large, beautiful photos and compelling stories.
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Michael Heizer: 'I'm a Quiet Man. I Just Make Art' | Art and Design | The
Michael Heizer: 'I’m a quiet man. I just make art' | Ar... http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/... Michael Heizer: 'I’m a quiet man. I just make art' The creator of the magisterial City is back in New York with a new exhibition. He tells Jason Farago how he went about making his latest giant rock works Jason Farago Monday 18 May 2015 16.23 EDT To meet Michael Heizer, the sculptor and pioneer of Land Art, usually entails an arduous trek through the desert. I only have to take the subway. Heizer has been creating large-scale artworks in Garden Valley, Nevada out of stone and earth – and one in particular, the magisterial City, has occupied him for decades. Yet this May, for the first time in 25 years, Heizer has come back to New York: the city he left in the late 1960s when his work outgrew lofts and galleries, and his ambition grew with it. Heizer, 70, is presenting a new exhibition at Gagosian that features three massive boulders suspended in steel frames and a suite of “altars”: room-filling, inclined steel sculptures in the shapes of wishbones, barbells, boomerangs. The altars feel slightly underwhelming at first if you expect the mass and size of Heizer’s outdoor sculptures. But as you begin to pass through the gallery, their inscrutable, see-sawing forms begin to take on hieratic significance. As for the rocks, the largest of which weighs 18 tons (more than 16,000kg), they hover in custom boxes as if they were light as air.
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Why a Mouse? Public Art in Houston
Cite Pall 1990 17 the building that he thought were reason- • « i • able or necessary. "I suppose they take that to say that everything that is put there is totally with my approval, which is of course not so at all," he rejoins. For many architects, Johansen's Mummers has been a compelling and influential source, occupying a special niche in the history of 1960s design. Is it inconceivable 8858 pi that in 50 years' time there will be a move- ment to restore the Mummers' original «H» Hi appearance? The case of the Mummers and the recent furor over the now-canceled \ \ 7»"nnin Kimbell Art Museum addition underscores the need for landmark recognition of significant buildings that are fewer than I1IIII3III 50 years old by the National Register. The llllllli ^•t arts council would do well to consider M IIIP1I. ii l l l l l i r during its renovation that this intervention is bin i he beginning of a new act in the continuing history of this much-loved and much-maligned building. The vulnerability of monuments of modern architecture is an issue that has recently been addressed in Kurope at the inaugural conference of Docomomo, held in September in The Netherlands; this ? European pressure group was formed to grapple with the problems of documenta- tion and conservation of important modern buildings. The need for a similar Claes Oldenburg, Houston exhibits public art in all its organization in the United States is all too Geometric Mouse X, 1971. Central Library Building, varieties, functions, and range of meanings.
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