The City, by Michael Heizer, has been getting a lot of attention lately. After over 50 years of design, fundraising, and earth moving, one can now make arrangements, through a non-profit foundation, to see it at its remote location in Nevada. Much has been made of its enormous size (the site is over 1 and 1/2 miles long, by about 1/2 mile wide), its enormous expense (over $40 million), its inaccessibility (only six people per day will be allowed to see it) and the half century of its gestation.
I haven’t made up my mind what to think about it. Is it possible to form a sound aesthetic judgement on something I will never see?
Anyway, a lot of questions come to mind from the bare information I have. For instance, does it have to be that big? Would it have worked at one-half, or one-quarter, or even a tenth of the scale? Given everything that is happening on Earth in the Twenty-first Century, is it OK for one man to impose his will over such a large section of land? Did a man really build a monument to himself bigger than The Great Pyramids? Will any aesthetic joy felt by its few visitors ever justify all the bother?
Ed Ruscha’s paintings had a huge effect on me when I first saw them when I was in high school. They opened me up and made me realize art could be nearly anything. It could be funny. It could be sarcastic. It could be about ordinary daily life. It didn’t have to be all that …
Mondrian’s work has been a big influence on me, and my approach to art. When I first encountered his paintings, I was struck by how spare, flat, and organized they were.
The City by Michael Heizer
The City, by Michael Heizer, has been getting a lot of attention lately. After over 50 years of design, fundraising, and earth moving, one can now make arrangements, through a non-profit foundation, to see it at its remote location in Nevada. Much has been made of its enormous size (the site is over 1 and 1/2 miles long, by about 1/2 mile wide), its enormous expense (over $40 million), its inaccessibility (only six people per day will be allowed to see it) and the half century of its gestation.
I haven’t made up my mind what to think about it. Is it possible to form a sound aesthetic judgement on something I will never see?
Anyway, a lot of questions come to mind from the bare information I have. For instance, does it have to be that big? Would it have worked at one-half, or one-quarter, or even a tenth of the scale? Given everything that is happening on Earth in the Twenty-first Century, is it OK for one man to impose his will over such a large section of land? Did a man really build a monument to himself bigger than The Great Pyramids? Will any aesthetic joy felt by its few visitors ever justify all the bother?
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