LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Limited visits to the enormous sculpture known as “City” will be available by reservation starting on Sept. 2.
The sculpture is more than a mile and a half long and a half-mile wide. It was built out of rock, concrete and compacted dirt at Basin and Range National Monument about four hours north of Las Vegas.
Artist Michael Heizer began work on the project more than 50 years ago. He has been described as “one of the greatest innovators of our time.” He was born in Berkeley, California, in 1944, and lives in Hiko, Nevada, near the “City.”
“More than half a century in the making — a time scale suggestive of the immemorial cultures that have inspired it — the City is as monumental as an ancient, pre-Columbian complex or Egyptian ceremonial structures and is as starkly uncompromising as the high desert of Nevada’s Basin and Range National Monument, the environment that is its setting and substance,” according to a news release.
© Michael Heizer/ Triple Aught Foundation. Courtesy of the artist and Triple Aught Foundation. Photo: Ben Blackwell 
45°, 90°, 180°, City. © Michael Heizer/ Triple Aught Foundation. Courtesy of the artist and Triple Aught Foundation. Photo: Ben Blackwell 
Complex One, City. © Michael Heizer/ Triple Aught Foundation. Courtesy of the artist and Triple Aught Foundation. Photo: Mary Converse 
© Michael Heizer/ Triple Aught Foundation. Courtesy of the artist and Triple Aught Foundation. Photo: Mary Converse 
Complex One and Complex Two, City. © Michael Heizer/ Triple Aught Foundation. Courtesy of the artist and Triple Aught Foundation. Photo: Joe Rome 
© Michael Heizer/ Triple Aught Foundation. Courtesy of the artist and Triple Aught Foundation. Photo: Joe Rome 
© Michael Heizer/ Triple Aught Foundation. Courtesy of the artist and Triple Aught Foundation. Photo: Joe Rome 
Complex Two, City. © Michael Heizer/ Triple Aught Foundation. Courtesy of the artist and Triple Aught Foundation. Photo: Joe Rome 
45°, 90°, 180°, City. © Michael Heizer/ Triple Aught Foundation. Courtesy of the artist and Triple Aught Foundation. Photo: Joe Rome 
Complex One, City. © Michael Heizer/ Triple Aught Foundation. Courtesy of the artist and Triple Aught Foundation. Photo: Joe Rome
Art critic Dave Hickey describes his visit to the site: “Approaching the cut on foot from the north or south, elements of a cityscape seem to be rising or falling from within the excavation that cuts flat into the rising ridge. … As one walks up to an overlook, Heizer’s cultural interventions open out the space. The roads and domes and pits within the excavation are elegantly curbed into long, quiet Sumerian curves. They restore our sense of distance and scale, so the complexity of City reveals itself as a gracious intervention in the desert … composed and complete.”
The Triple Aught Foundation, a not-for-profit organization responsible for overseeing the sculpture, announced the opening in a news release today. It said visits will be limited for the first year of operation. The foundation has established an endowment for the City with initial funding close to $30 million.
Heizer is known for producing large outdoor “earthwork” sculptures including “Double Negative” at Mormon Mesa, just northeast of Valley of Fire State Park.
Heizer’s is also known for “North, East, South, West,” a sculpture built from 1967 to 2002 that is on display at Dia Beacon in New York.https://www.diaart.org/collection/collection/heizer-michael-north-east-south-west-19672002-2003-174-1-4
