Netjets US Autumn 2022

THE SMART GUIDE
SCENES FROM “CITY”
Every corner of the astonishing
work (below and previous page)
by Michael Heizer (above)
presents a new perspective.
is now known as Land Art,
along with Nancy Holt, Robert
Smithson, Richard Long and,
perhaps most famously, Christo
and Jeanne-Claude. The works
of all these artists involve the
earth itself as a part of the
piece, whether it is excavating
and reshaping the soil or
framing the landscape in a
novel way.
The pieces are often jawdropping
in scale—and the
newly opened work by Heizer
in the American desert, “City,”
is no exception, stretching 1.5
miles by 0.5 miles, an expanse
that is best appreciated from
an airplane but is intended to
be experienced on the ground.
TODD HEISLER / THE NEWYORKTIMES / REDUX / LAIF
As such, it unfolds slowly as
you pace through the imposing
site, continually surprised by its
angular concrete constructions
and mammoth earthforms that
evoke both ancient ceremonies
and modern metropolises.
Both the historic and the
contemporary resonances are
intentional here, just as
they are at other Land Art
masterpieces: The shadow
of conceptual art, which also
developed in the 1960s, looms
large over the movement
and the resulting conceptual
sophistication adds depth
to the visceral experience
of the works. Questions of
mortality, of Sisyphean futility
and, naturally, of legacy all
intermix—and you can’t fail
to appreciate, here in the
middle of the high desert of
Basin and Range National
Monument, why this massive
creation might outlive most
of our contemporary feats of
architecture.
The American West has long
been a popular home for these
creations of otherworldly scale,
from Robert Smithson’s iconic
“Spiral Jetty” (1970) near the
Great Salt Lake in Utah to light
artist James Turrell’s “Roden
Crater” in Arizona, which he
began in the 1970s and is still
ongoing, though the two-milewide
crater is only sometimes
accessible to the public (and,
in 2019, to Kanye West, who
filmed an IMAX-format music
video there). But America is
not the only setting where a
sense of our infinitesimality is
apt, and such works have been
proliferating in recent years in
places like Patagonia and the
Australian Outback.
Most recently, a new site
has been announced for a
series of huge projects: AlUla
in Saudi Arabia, where the
new Valley of the Arts will be
home to five new permanent
installations in the next two
years, including a work by
Heizer and another by Turrell.
Will it become the world’s
largest sculpture park, a
supersized version of the
soul-stirring Château La Coste
in Provence? Or will it be
something closer to a sculpture
graveyard, as a few of the
trendy art parks are sadly
becoming?
Impossible to say now—but
one thing is clear: largescale
outdoor art is here to
stay, and Heizer’s “City” will
almost certainly outlast us all.
tripleaughtfoundation.org
COMPLEX ONE, CITY; © MICHAEL HEIZER; COURTESY TRIPLE AUGHT FOUNDATION; PHOTO BY MARY CONVERSE
CEDAR CITY AIRPORT TO GREAT BASIN NATIONAL RESERVE: 142 miles
12 NetJets