1970: Michael Heizer "City", advent of Land Art

Heizer came up with the idea for "City" in 1970, when he was in the Yucatan studying the serpent motif in the ball court at Chichen Itza. He was 24. The previous year he finished "Double Negative," a spectacular 1,500-foot-long, 50-foot-deep, 30-foot-wide gash cut onto facing slopes of an obscure mesa in Nevada, a project that required blasting 240,000 tons of rock. It was quickly recognized as the archetype of what people were beginning to call Land Art or Earth Art or Environmental Art. It made a huge impact. [more...]

(Apparently the angled front wall is designed to serve as a blast shield, deflecting the power of a nuclear bomb.)