''City'' is a

land art Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mo ...

sculpture by

Michael Heizer Michael Heizer (born 1944) is an American land artist specializing in large-scale and site-specific sculptures. Working largely outside the confines of the traditional art spaces of galleries and museums, Heizer has redefined sculpture in term ...

in Garden Valley, a desert valley in rural Lincoln County in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

. More than a mile long, it is the largest contemporary artwork ever built. It was begun in 1972, took 50 years to complete, and cost an estimated $40 million. ''City'' is maintained by the Triple Aught Foundation and opened on September 2, 2022, to limited, reservation-only viewing by a maximum of six visitors per day.

Concept

Like Heizer's ''

Double Negative A double negative is a construction occurring when two forms of grammatical negation are used in the same sentence. This is typically used to convey a different shade of meaning from a strictly positive sentence ("You're not unattractive" vs "You ...

'' (1969), ''City'' is designed and executed on a massive scale. Covering a space approximately one and a quarter miles long and more than a quarter of a mile wide (2 km by 0.4 km, roughly the scale of the

National Mall The National Mall is a Landscape architecture, landscaped park near the Downtown, Washington, D.C., downtown area of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institu ...

), ''City'' is one of the largest sculptures ever created. Using local dirt, rock, sand, and concrete as building materials, and assembled with heavy machinery, the work is composed of five phases, each consisting of a number of structures called complexes, with some of the structures reaching a height of . ''City'' attempts to synthesize

ancient monument An ancient monument can refer to any early or historical manmade structure or architecture. Certain ancient monuments are of cultural importance for nations and become symbols of international recognition, including the Baalbek, ruins of Baalbek ...

minimalism In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

, and industrial technology. Heizer's inspiration for the work came while he was visiting Yucatan and studying

Chichen Itza Chichén Itzá , , often with the emphasis reversed in English to ; from () "at the mouth of the well of the Itza people, Itza people" (often spelled ''Chichen Itza'' in English and traditional Yucatec Maya) was a large Pre-Columbian era, ...

Management

''City'' was financed by several patrons, including the Dia Art Foundation and Lannan Foundation, with an estimated cost of well over $40 million. Heizer completed the work in 2022 with a team of roughly a dozen after previously anticipating completion by 2010. ''City'' is owned and administered by the nonprofit Triple Aught Foundation with a board including Heizer and leaders from arts organizations. It is open to the public as part of the terms of their conservation agreement. It is open to viewing by online reservation only on a limited number of days, with visitors transported to and from the site. Admission is free to residents of Lincoln, Nye, and White Pine Counties in Nevada and $150 for all others.

Conservation

Garden Valley has been eyed for several major projects in the years since Heizer started working on his sculpture. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the government planned to crisscross the valley and others nearby with railroad tracks that would carry

MX missile The LGM-118 Peacekeeper, originally known as the MX for "Missile, Experimental", was a MIRV-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) produced and deployed by the United States from 1986 to 2005. The missile could carry up to eleven Mar ...

s to and from hidden silos. The program was vetoed by President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

. The proposed Yucca Mountain Repository, a U.S. Department of Energy terminal storage facility for spent nuclear reactor and other

radioactive waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. It is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, nuclear decommissioning, rare-earth mining, and nuclear ...

would have included a new railroad line across Garden Valley, and would have come within its sightline. Heizer reportedly considered burying ''City'' if this line was built. In September 2014, U.S. Senator

Harry Reid Harry Mason Reid Jr. (; December 2, 1939 – December 28, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States Senate, United States senator from Nevada from 1987 to 2017. He led the Senate Democratic Caucus from 2005 to 2 ...

of Nevada introduced the Garden Valley Withdrawal Act, a bill that would preserve the land around ''City'' and protect 805,100 acres of federal land from mineral and energy development.Helen Stoilas (November 3, 2014)
Move to protect Heizer's City from development
''

The Art Newspaper ''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments i ...

''. Reid had visited the area around ''City'' in 2007, and tried to pass a similar bill in 2010 that would designate part of Garden Valley and nearby Coal Valley as a national conservation area.Steve Tetreault and Henry Brean (October 21, 2014)
Sen. Reid quietly moves to block development of 800,000 acres in central Nevada
''

Las Vegas Review-Journal The ''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' is a daily subscription newspaper published in Las Vegas, Nevada, since 1909. It is the largest circulating daily newspaper in Nevada and one of two daily newspapers in the Las Vegas area. The ''Review-Journal' ...

''. In early 2015, a group of American museums, including the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...

, the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill, Minneapolis, Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in ...

, and the Nevada Museum of Art joined together to urge preservation of the area. In July 2015, the area became part of the newly created Basin and Range National Monument. The national monument designation prevents new railroad or power lines and other development.Secretary Jewell Applauds President Obama's Designation of Basin and Range National Monument in Nevada: President's Action Preserves Sweeping Landscapes & Ancient Rock Art, Protects Existing Ranching & Military Uses
(press release), United States Department of the Interior (July 10, 2015).

External links

''Los Angeles Times'', Mar 24, 2015. Includes photos of the project.
''City'' Installation
Photo gallery
Art for No One
''YouTube'', published on March 25, 2024, a video essay by Jacob Geller focused largely on the project
Basin and Range
Photos of City under construction in 2017

References

{{Dia Art Foundation Buildings and structures completed in 2022 Land art Buildings and structures in Lincoln County, Nevada Outdoor sculptures in Nevada Tourist attractions in Lincoln County, Nevada