{"data":{"id":"594","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":594,"topgoose_id":3105,"tms_id":594,"display_name":"Michael Heizer","sort_name":"Heizer Michael","display_date":"1944–","begin_date":"1944","end_date":"0","biography":"\u003cp\u003eSince the late 1960s, sculptor and Land\nart pioneer Michael Heizer has produced\nlarge-scale works that engage with the\nnatural environment, either in sculptural form\nor through acts of carving and displacing\nearth. For his first prominent earthwork,\n\u003cem\u003eDouble Negative \u003c/em\u003e(1969), he gouged deep\ntrenches into Mormon Mesa, near Overton,\nNevada, displacing more than 240,000\ntons of rock into a gap at the mesa’s\nedge. The work consists of these negative\nspaces, both natural and man-made.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHeizer’s\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/10937\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eActual Size: Munich Rotary\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\nis a mediated, “screened” version of\nanother of his 1969 earthworks,\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;Munich\nDepression\u003c/em\u003e, in which he removed 1,000 tons\nof earth in a massive conical shape\nnear Munich, Germany. Using six custom-\nmade steel projectors, each holding a\nblack-and-white photographic positive on\na glass plate, Heizer projects documented\nimagery of the Munich excavation as a\ncontinuous, panoramic landscape at\na 1:1 scale, displacing the original earthwork\ninto the gallery space and placing the\nviewer inside the depression, where every\ndetail appears life-sized. The materiality\nof the installation’s heavy steel projection\nequipment references construction\nmachinery and the act of excavating the\noriginal site. Yet \u003cem\u003eActual Size: Munich Rotary\u003c/em\u003e\nconsists of what is not physically there—\nwhat has been displaced. The visual\nexperience of the installation amplifies this\ndisplacement, since the imagery becomes\nincreasingly blurry as the viewer approaches\nit. Heizer’s work has consistently reflected\non the relationships between the natural\nand technological and their transformations\nand displacements. As the artist has put\nit: “We live in a world that’s technological and\nprimordial simultaneously. I guess the idea\nis to make art that reflects this premise.”\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500023902","wikidata_id":"Q558432","created_at":"2017-08-31T10:21:54.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-31T07:03:55.809-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/594/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/594/exhibitions"}}}}