sᴇʟᴇᴄᴛᴇᴅ ᴀʀᴛᴡᴏʀᴋ: ᴍɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ ʜᴇɪᴢᴇʀ, ᴅᴏᴜʙʟᴇ ɴᴇɢᴀᴛɪᴠᴇ, 1969-70


                95 - 96

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             Early Career
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born in Berkeley, California in 1944

father was archaeologist and professor of
anthropology at UC Berkeley,, excavate extensively
in CA, NV, Mexico

when Heizer was 12, took year away from school to 
make site drawings for dig in Mexico

1963-64: San Francisco Art Institute

abandon school, relocate to NY

paint lofts, pursue own art

met Robert Smithson, wife Nancy Holt

help acquaint them with land of American West, also 
help Walter de Maria

burgeoning movement called Land art/Earthworks

2 earliest exhibitions of land art:

Earthworks at Virginia Dwan's NY gallery in 1968

Earth Art - Willoughby Sharp at Cornell U in 1969,
use semi-bulldozer to dig pit 15ft in diameter, displace
dirt claimed by another artist

Dwan, heir to manufacturing fortune, supported her
artists in whatever they pursued, even if unsaleable


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           Minimalism to 
              Land Art

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Land art categorized as Post Minimalism

art historian Rosalind Krauss - 1977 book Passages
in Modern Sculpture, position land art at end of her 
history

Heizer and Smithson's work in landscape offer experience
that decenters and disorients our bodies

project long before minimalism, reach apex in sculptural
practices of 1960s

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               Analysis
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situated on Mormon Mesa in Nevada

2 sloped gashes blasted out of side of small valley

work with assistant to blast 240,000 tons of rock

visitors can stand on mesa and see both ramps

critic Philip Leider - Artforum in September 1970,
visit work with Serra and video/performance artist
Joan Jonas

range of consequences in doing it wrong

Virginia Dwan maintain ownership, free for public

1980s - donated to Museum of Contemporary Art, LA

Heizer request museum raise funds to restore work


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               Land Art
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Land artists have different approach to photographic
representation to their work

Heizer - most negative

Smithson, Dennis Oppenheim - used it

2012 exhibition Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974,
Philipp Kaiser, Miwon Kwon argued for documentation

as early as 1969, rely on documentation, or stayed unseen

emphasis on bodily experience

2d image highlight land art's reliance on line, shape

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