Editing Michael Heizer (section)

==Work==
Heizer began his artistic career in New York in 1966 with a series of geometric canvases painted with [[Polyvinyl acetate|PVA]] latex.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/michael-heizer--november-05-2016 |title = Michael Heizer: New Paintings and Sculpture, Beverly Hills, November 5–December 21, 2016 {{!}} Gagosian| date=April 12, 2018 }}</ref> The paintings that would follow, characterized by non-traditionally shaped canvases, demonstrate Heizer's early exploration of positive and negative forms; such harmonies of presence and absence, matter and space, are essential to his art. In ''Trapezoid Painting'' (1966) and ''Track Painting'' (1967), he emphasizes the perimeters of raw canvases by painting them black, while the white interiors are perceived as negative spaces. These hard-edged "displacement paintings" parallel the immense geometries he achieves when moving earth. The slate grey contours of ''U Painting'' (1975), for example, anticipate the shapes of the depressions and angular mounds that appear in one of his latest projects ''[[City (artwork)|City]]''.<ref name="NYT-20220819">{{cite news |last=Kimmelman |first=Michael |title=It Was a Mystery in the Desert for 50 Years - In a remote Nevada valley, the artist Michael Heizer's astonishing megasculpture is finally revealed.|url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/19/arts/design/michael-heizer-city.html  |date=August 19, 2022 |work=[[The New York Times]] |accessdate=August 24, 2022 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/michael-heizer--may-09-2015 |title = Michael Heizer: Altars, 555 West 24th Street, New York, May 9–July 2, 2015 {{!}} Gagosian| date=April 12, 2018 }}</ref>

In the late 1960s, Heizer left New York City for the deserts of California and Nevada, where he began making his first "negative" sculptures.<ref name="NGA"/> These works were created by removing earth to shape subterranean negative forms directly into desert floor. Completed in 1967, ''North, East, South, West'', consisted of several geometrically shaped holes dug in the [[Sierra Nevada (U.S.)|Sierra Nevada]]. The following year Heizer completed ''Nine Nevada Depressions'', a series of large negative sculptures located primarily on [[dry lake]]s throughout the state, [[Jean Lake|Jean Dry Lake]], [[Black Rock Desert]] and Massacre Dry Lake, near [[Vya, Nevada]]<ref>[http://clui.org/ludb/site/isolated-mass-circumflex Michael Heizer, ''Isolated Mass/Circumflex (#2)'' (1968-72)] [[Center for Land Use Interpretation]], Los Angeles.</ref> among them. In 1969, Heizer made the series ''Primitive Dye Paintings'', in which white [[Lime (material)|lime]] powder and concentrated [[aniline]] dyes were spread over the dry desert landscape, covering large areas that, when viewed from the air, formed amorphous, organic shapes. The culmination of this critical early period was the creation of ''[[Double Negative (artwork)|Double Negative]]'' in 1969, a project for which he displaced 240,000 tons of rock in the [[Great Basin Desert|Nevada desert]], cutting two enormous trenches—each one 50-feet-deep and 30-feet-wide and together spanning 1,500 feet—at the eastern edge of Mormon Mesa near [[Overton, Nevada]].<ref>Christopher Knight (June 3, 2012), [https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-knight-land-art-review-20120602,0,328769.story Art review: 'Ends of the Earth' brings Land art indoors] ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''.</ref>

Heizer has since continued his exploration of the dynamics between positive forms and negative space. His ''[[Adjacent, Against, Upon]]'' (1976) juxtaposes three large [[granite]] slabs in different relationships to [[Precast concrete|cast concrete]] forms; the 30–50 ton granite slabs were quarried in the [[Cascade Range|Cascade Mountain Range]] and transported by barge and train to [[Myrtle Edwards Park]].<ref>[http://www.seattle.gov/arts/publicart/permanent.asp?view=2&img=0&cat=1&item=1 Michael Heizer, ''Adjacent, Against, Upon'' (1976)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120727065833/https://www.seattle.gov/arts/publicart/permanent.asp?view=2&img=0&cat=1&item=1 |date=July 27, 2012 }} Seattle Public Art</ref> For ''Displaced/Replaced Mass'' (1969/1977), later installed outside the [[Marina del Rey, California]], home of Roy and Carol Doumani, he planted four granite boulders of different sizes from the [[Sierra Nevada (U.S.)|High Sierra]] into lid-less concrete boxes in the earth so that the tops of the rocks are roughly level with the ground.<ref name="calling">Jori Finkel (May 25, 2012), [https://web.archive.org/web/20120527074717/http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/25/entertainment/la-et-lacma-rock-sculptor-20120525/2 Michael Heizer's calling is set in stone] ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''.</ref> For a 1982 work at the former [[590 Madison Avenue|IBM Building]] in New York, Heizer sheared off the top of a large rock and cut grooves into the surface before setting it on supports hidden within a stainless steel structure. Designed as a fountain, the boulder appears to float over running water. He called it ''Levitated Mass'', a title he would use again in the future.<ref name="calling"/> Commissioned by the president of the [[Buffalo Rock State Park & Effigy Tumuli|Ottawa Silica Company]], the ''Effigy Tumuli'' earthwork in [[Illinois]] is composed of five abstract animal earthworks reclaiming the site of an abandoned [[Surface mining|surface coal mine]] along the [[Illinois River]]; the shapes (1983–85)—a frog, a [[Gerridae|water strider]], a catfish, a turtle, and a snake—reflect the environment of the site, which overlooks the river. In 1983, Heizer received a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]]<ref>{{Cite web
| url = https://www.gf.org/fellows/michael-heizer/
| title = Michael Heizer - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
| website = www.gf.org
| access-date = 2024-05-30
}}</ref> for Fine Arts. 

In 2012, Heizer completed ''[[Levitated Mass]]'' (2012). On permanent installation at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, ''Levitated Mass'' is a massive white, diorite boulder (21.5 feet wide and 21.5 feet high) that sits atop a 456-foot-long sloped walkway, allowing viewers to experience the weight of the rock as they walk through the empty space below. It took eleven nights, from February 28 to March 10, 2012, to move the 340-ton rock from [[Jurupa Valley, California|Jurupa Valley]] to the museum. The installation is situated in a field of polished concrete slices, set at a slight angle between the Resnick Pavilion and Sixth Street.<ref>Christopher Knight (June 22, 2012), [https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-knight-heizer-rock-20120623,0,3962065.story Review: LACMA's new hunk 'Levitated Mass' has some substance] ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''.</ref> Heizer opened the exhibit on June 24, 2012.<ref>Deborah Vankin (September 22, 2011), [https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-xpm-2011-sep-22-la-et-heizer-rock-20110922-story.html LACMA set to roll away the stone] ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''.</ref> A feature documentary,<ref>[http://www.dougpray.com/theboulder.html ''The Boulder''] (Doug Pray/[[Jamie Patricof]])</ref> also named ''Levitated Mass'', was directed and edited by the filmmaker [[Doug Pray]]. It details the making of the sculpture as it relates to Heizer's career while portraying the boulder's 105-mile journey through Los Angeles and the public's reaction to its installation. Other recent public artworks by Michael Heizer include ''Tangential Circular Negative Line'' in [[Mauvoisin]], Switzerland, commissioned by Fondation Air&Art directed by Jean Maurice Varone, as well as ''Collapse'' (1967/2016) and ''Compression Line'' (1968/2016) at [[Glenstone]], Potomac, Maryland.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.glenstone.org/artist/michael-heizer/ |title = Michael Heizer {{!}} Glenstone}}</ref>

[[File:Collapse, 1967-2016, Michael Heizer at Glenstone.jpg|thumb|right|''Collapse'' (1967/2016) at [[Glenstone]] in 2023]]

In the early 1970s, Heizer began work on ''[[City (artwork)|City]]'', an enormous complex in the rural desert of [[Lincoln County, Nevada]].<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Keats |first=Jonathon |date=September 1, 2022 |title=Michael Heizer Took 50 Years To Make An Artwork As Big As A City, But It Might Take Another 5,000 Years To See The Point Of It |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathonkeats/2022/09/01/michael-heizer-took-50-years-to-make-an-artwork-as-big-as-a-city-but-it-might-take-another-5000-years-to-see-the-point-of-it/ |access-date=2022-09-05 |magazine=Forbes |language=en}}</ref> His work on the project continues to this day, supported by the [[Dia Art Foundation]] through a grant from the [[Lannan Foundation]]. Limited public access to ''City'' began in 2022.

A campaign to have the Basin and Range area around ''City'' designated as a [[national monument (United States)|national monument]] to protect it from development took place, and a group of American museums, including the [[Los Angeles County Museum of Art]] (LACMA), the [[Museum of Modern Art]], the [[Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston]] and the [[Walker Art Center]], have joined to draw public attention to a petition urging preservation of the area.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Tennent|first1=Scott|title=Protect Michael Heizer's "City"|url=http://unframed.lacma.org/2015/03/18/protect-michael-heizers-city|website=LACMA|accessdate=19 March 2015|date=18 March 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Burns|first1=Charlotte|title=Museums unite in campaign to save massive land art project|url=http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Museums-unite-in-campaign-to-save-massive-land-art-project/37356|website=The Art Newspaper|accessdate=19 March 2015|date=18 March 2015}}</ref> In July 2015, President [[Barack Obama]] signed a proclamation (using his authority under the [[Antiquities Act of 1906]]) creating the [[Basin and Range National Monument]] on 704,000 acres in Lincoln and [[Nye County, Nevada|Nye]] counties, an area including Heizer's ''City''.<ref>Steve Tetreault & Henry Brean, [http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada/done-deal-obama-create-basin-and-range-monument A done deal, Obama to create Basin and Range monument], ''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' (July 9, 2015).</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-reid-heizer-legacy-20161220-story.html |title=The artist and the senator: One built a desert masterpiece, the other a Nevada legacy |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |first=Lisa |last=Mascaro |date= December 20, 2016  |access-date=27 December 2016}}</ref>

Heizer's artworks are represented in museum collections and public spaces worldwide.