Michael Heizer

Michael Heizer (born 1944) with De Maria and Smithson helped to create a new genre of art which used the earth as its medium. In 1967 Heizer began creating large earthworks. For his first one-person show, at the Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Munich, in 1969, he removed 1,000 tons of earth to create Munich Depression. He followed this with Double Negative, a displacement of over 240,000 tons of earth to make two vast incisions opposite one another on Mormon Mesa in Nevada. His next one-person show was at the Dwan Gallery, New York, in 1970, that same year he exhibited in the International Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Exhibitions of his work have been staged at the Museum Folkwang, Essen (1979), and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1984). Heizer lives in Nevada, where he continues to work on City, a land art complex begun in 1972.

THE STORY OF LAND ART