Editing Michael Heizer

{{Short description|American artist associated with Land Art movement}}
{{for|the biblical scholar|Michael S. Heiser}}
{{use mdy dates|date=September 2022}}
{{Infobox artist
| name             = Michael Heizer
| image            = Double Negative north trench.jpg
| imagesize        = 275px
| caption          = ''Double Negative'', 1969, Nevada
| birth_name       = 
| birth_date       = {{birth date and age|1944|11|4}}
| birth_place      = [[Berkeley, California]], US
| death_date       = 
| death_place      = 
| field            = [[Land art]], [[sculpture]]
| training         = [[San Francisco Art Institute]]
| movement         = 
| works            = 
| patrons          = 
| influenced by    = 
| influenced       = 
| awards           = 
}}

'''Michael Heizer''' (born 1944) is an American [[land art|land artist]] specializing in large-scale and site-specific sculptures.<ref name="NYT-20220819" /> Working largely outside the confines of the traditional art spaces of galleries and museums, Heizer has redefined sculpture in terms of size, mass, gesture, and process. A pioneer of 20th-century [[land art]] or Earthworks movement, he is widely recognized for sculptures and environmental structures made with earth-moving equipment, which he began creating in the American West in 1967. He currently lives and works in [[Hiko, Nevada]],<ref name="NGA">[http://nga.gov.au/internationalprints/Tyler/DEFAULT.cfm?MnuID=2&ArtistIRN=20765&List=True Michael Heizer] [[National Gallery of Art]], Washington, D.C.</ref> and [[New York City]].<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/29/michael-heizers-city |title = Michael Heizer's Monumental "City" {{!}} The New Yorker| magazine=[[The New Yorker]] | date=August 22, 2016 }}</ref>

==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.

==Major permanent commissions==
* ''Tangential Circular Negative Line'' (2012), Mauvoisin, Switzerland, an Air&Art Foundation commission directed by Jean Maurice Varone
*''[[Levitated Mass]]'' (2012),  Resnick Pavilion North Lawn at [[LACMA]], [[Los Angeles, California]]
*''Effigy Tumuli'' (1985), Buffalo State Park, Ottawa, Illinois
*''45 Degrees, 90 Degrees, 180 Degrees'' (1984), [[Rice University]], [[Houston, Texas]]
*''Levitated Mass'' (1982), 590 Madison Avenue, New York. EJM Equities Collection, New York
*''North, East, South, West'' (1982), 5th and Flower Streets, Los Angeles<ref>Christopher Knight, A rock star is born–or is it?, ''Los Angeles Times'', March 13, 2012</ref>

==Other works==
* ''[[Isolated Mass/Circumflex (Number 2)|Isolated Mass/Circumflex (#2)]]'' (1968–72), Nine Nevada Depressions, [[Menil Collection]], [[Houston, Texas]]
* ''Rift # 1'' (1968–72; deteriorated), Nine Nevada Depressions, Massacre Dry Lake, Nevada
* ''Windows and Matchdrops'' (1969), seven small rills in the floor in front of the [[Kunsthalle Düsseldorf]] entrance, Germany
*''Displaced/Replaced Mass 1, 2 & 3'' (1969), Silver Springs, NV. No longer extant.
* ''[[Double Negative (artwork)|Double Negative]]'' (1969–70), located near [[Overton, Nevada]]
*''Dragged Mass'' (1971), [[Detroit Institute of Arts]], Detroit
* ''[[City (artwork)|City]]'' (1972, completed 2022), [[Lincoln County, Nevada]]<ref name="NYT-20220819" />
* ''Adjacent, Against, Upon'' (1976), [[Myrtle Edwards Park]], [[Seattle, Washington]]
* ''This Equals That'' (1980; removed<ref>[[Daniel Sturm|Sturm, Daniel]] (November 12, 2003). [http://lansingcitypulse.com/archives/031112/031112tet.html "The disturbing remains of 'This Equals That'"]{{Dead link|date=November 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}. ''City Pulse''. Retrieved March 11, 2017.</ref>), [[Michigan State Capitol]] Complex, Lansing, Michigan
* ''North, East, South, West'' (1967/2002), [[Dia Art Foundation|Dia:Beacon]], [[Beacon, New York]]

==Exhibitions==
In 1968, Heizer was included in ''Earth Works'', the influential group show at [[Virginia Dwan]]'s gallery, and then in the [[Whitney Museum]] painting annual in 1969, where his contribution was a huge photograph of a dye painting in the desert.<ref name="cowboy">[[Michael Kimmelman]] (February 6, 2005), [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/magazine/06HEIZER.html Art's Last, Lonely Cowboy] ''[[The New York Times]]''.</ref> For his first one-person show, at the Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Munich in 1969, he removed 1,000 tons of earth in a conical shape to create ''Munich Depression''. In 1977, he was included in ''[[Documenta|documenta 6]]'', Kassel. Major exhibitions of his work have been staged at institutions such as the [[Museum Folkwang]], Essen (1979), the [[Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles]] (1984), and [[Fondazione Prada]], Milan (1996).<ref>[http://www.diaart.org/exhibitions/artistbio/83 Michael Heizer] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120628013751/http://www.diaart.org/exhibitions/artistbio/83 |date=2012-06-28 }} Dia Art Foundation.</ref> Recent gallery exhibitions have been held at [[Gagosian Gallery]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.gagosian.com/artists/michael-heizer/artist-exhibitions |title = Michael Heizer {{!}} Gagosian| date=April 12, 2018 }}</ref>

===Selected solo exhibitions===
*1971 ''Michael Heizer: Photographic and Actual Work.'' [[Detroit Institute of Arts]], Detroit
*1979 ''Michael Heizer.'' [[Museum Folkwang]], Essen. Travelled to [[Rijksmuseum]] Kroller-Muller, Otterlo, Netherlands.
*1984 ''In Context: Michael Heizer: 45°, 90°, 180°/Geometric Extraction.'' [[Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles]]
*1985 ''45°, 90°, 180°: A Sculpture for Rice University.'' Farish Gallery, School of Architecture, [[Rice University]], [[Houston]]
*1985 ''Michael Heizer: Dragged Mass geometric.'' [[Whitney Museum of American Art]], New York
*1988 ''Michael Heizer: New Sculptures.'' Akira Ikeda Gallery, Tokyo
*1996 ''Michael Heizer: Negative – Positive +.'' [[Fondazione Prada]], Milan
*2010 ''Michael Heizer: Works from the 1960s and 70s.'' [[David Zwirner]], New York
*2012 ''Michael Heizer: Actual Size.'' [[Los Angeles County Museum of Art]], Los Angeles
*2015 ''Michael Heizer: Altars.'' [[Gagosian Gallery]], New York
*2016 ''Michael Heizer.'' [[Whitney Museum of American Art]], New York
*2018 [[Le Bourget]], Paris<ref name="gagosian.com">[https://gagosian.com/media/artists/michael-heizer/Heizer_Michael.pdf Heizer, Michael] gagosian.com</ref>

===Selected group exhibitions===
*1966 ''The Annual Invitational Exhibition.'' [[Park Place Gallery]], New York
*1968 ''Earthworks'' Dwan Gallery, New York
*1968 ''1968 Annual Exhibition: Contemporary American Sculpture.'' [[Whitney Museum of American Art]], New York
*1969 ''New Media: New Methods'' [[Montclair Art Museum]], Montclair, NJ; Organised by [[Museum of Modern Art]], New York.
*1969 ''Op Losse Schroeven: Situaties en Cryptostructuren (Square pegs in round Holes).'' [[Stedelijk Museum]], Amsterdam. Travelled to: ''Verborgene Strukturen.'' [[Museum Folkwang]], Essen.
*1969 ''Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form.'' [[Kunsthalle Bern]], Bern, Switzerland. Travelled to: Museum Haus Lange, Krefield, West Germany; [[Institute of Contemporary Arts, London]].
*1969 ''Land Art: Long, Flanagan, Oppenheim, Smithson, Boezem, Dibbets, De Maria, Heizer.'' Fernsehgalerie Gerry Schum, Berlin. Televised April 15, 1969.
*1969 ''1969 Annual Exhibition: Contemporary American Painting.'' [[Whitney Museum of American Art]], New York
*1970 ''XXXV Esposizione internazionale d’arte di Venezia'' Venice
*1970 ''Information.'' [[Museum of Modern Art]], New York
*1971 ''Sixth Guggenheim International Exhibition.'' [[Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum]], New York
*1971 ''VII Biennale.'' Parc Floral de Paris, Paris
*1973 ''American Drawings 1963-73.'' [[Whitney Museum of American Art]], New York
*1976 ''Drawing Now.'' [[Museum of Modern Art]]
*1977 ''Biennial Exhibition.'' [[Whitney Museum of American Art]], New York, NY. 
*1977 ''[[Documenta]] 6.'' Museum Friedericianum, Kassel, Germany.
*1980 ''L'Amérique aux Indépendants, 1944-1980 : 91ème Exposition, Société des Artistes Indépendants.'' [[Grand Palais]], Paris, France.
*1984 ''Collectie Becht. De verzameling Agnes en Frits Becht.'' [[Stedelijk Museum]], Amsterdam, Netherlands.
*1986 ''Individuals: A Selected History of Contemporary Art, 1945–1986.'' [[Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles]], CA.
*1987 ''American Drawing and Watercolors of the Twentieth Century. Selection from the Whitney Museum of American Art.'' [[National Gallery of Art]], Washington, D.C.; traveled to [[The Cleveland Museum of Art]], Cleveland, OH.; Achenbach Foundation, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA; [[Arkansas Arts Center]], Little Rock, AR; [[Whitney Museum of American Art]], Stamford, CT. 
*1987 ''Photography and Art: Interactions since 1946.'' [[Los Angeles County Museum of Art]], Los Angeles, CA; traveled to The Museum of Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale,
*1988 ''Vital Signs: Organic Abstraction from the Permanent Collection.'' Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, NY
*1989 ''20 Jahre Internationale Kunstmesse Basel.'' Galerie Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf, Germany.
*1990 ''Pharmakon ’90.'' Nippon Convention Center, [[Makuhari Messe]], Tokyo, Japan.
*1997 ''47th International Art Exhibition – [[La Biennale di Venezia]].'' Venice, Italy.
*2009 ''Photoconceptualism, 1966–1973.'' [[Whitney Museum of American Art]], New York, NY.
*2010 ''The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today.'' [[The Museum of Modern Art]], New York, NY; traveled to [[Kunsthaus Zürich]], Zurich, Switzerland.
*2013 ''When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013.'' Ca’ Corner della Regina, [[Fondazione Prada]], Venice, Italy.<ref name="gagosian.com"/>

==Homages==
* Mungo Thomson, ''Levitating Mass'' (2012),<ref>[[Aspen Art Museum]], July 4, 2012, [http://www.aspenartmuseum.org/mungo_thomson.html exhibition]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> [[Aspen, Colorado]].
* Régis Perray, ''340 grammes déplacés... during Levitated Mass by Michael Heizer'' (2012),<ref>Observatoire du Land Art, Feb 29 - March 10, 2012, [http://www.regisperray.eu/news/index.php/2012/02/29 transatlantic action]</ref> [[Nantes]], [[France]].
*[[Jack Daws]], ''Life on the Farm (Heizer)'', 2010<ref>Greg Kucera Gallery http://www.gregkucera.com/_images/daws/daws_life-on-the-farm-heizer_web.jpg</ref>

==See also==
* [[Charmstone (sculpture)|''Charmstone'' (sculpture)]], Houston

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100405223946/http://www.diacenter.org/exhibitions/introduction/83 Webpage of Heizer at the Dia Art Foundation]
* [https://www.loc.gov/item/2013632451/ Levitated Mass (Library of Congress)]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110926095145/http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/levitated-mass ''Levitated Mass''] Michael Heizer in the spotlight of California. [http://obsart.blogspot.com/2012/01/levitated-mass-2012-world-press-review.html (world press review)]
* [http://nga.gov.au/InternationalPrints/Tyler/Default.cfm?MnuID=3&ArtistIRN=20765&List=True&CREIRN=20765&ORDER_SELECT=13&VIEW_SELECT=5&GrpNam=13&TNOTES=TRUE Michael Heizer in the National Gallery of Australia's Kenneth Tyler Collection]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heizer, Michael}}
[[Category:1944 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Artists from Berkeley, California]]
[[Category:Berkeley High School (Berkeley, California) alumni]]
[[Category:Land artists]]
[[Category:San Francisco Art Institute alumni]]
[[Category:Sculptors from California]]