Desert Lighthouse is a full-size functioning lighthouse in the

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in ...

near Hinkley, California, United States. It was built in 2017 by artist

Daniel Hawkins Dan Hawkins (born 1960) is an American football coach and former player and sportscaster. Dan, Danny or Daniel Hawkins may also refer to: * Dan Hawkins (footballer), Welsh footballer for Salford City * Dan Hawkins (musician) (born 1976), English ...

after nearly 10 years of planning and unexpected setbacks.

Background

Sometime after 2010, Hawkins had previously built a lighthouse nearby in the

Lucerne Valley Lucerne Valley is a census-designated place (CDP) and valley landform in the southern Mojave Desert, in western San Bernardino County, California. Geography The geographic valley is defined by the surrounding Granite Mountains, Ord Mountains, ...

area of the Mojave Desert but it was subsequently destroyed and dismantled by vandals and scavengers. In 2014, Hawkins presented an exhibition title "Desert Lighthouse Ultimatum" at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

, Riverside's Culver Center for the Arts Museum. The theme of his exhibition was the return of his effort to establish a permanent lighthouse in the

. Three years later on July 1, 2017 the Desert Lighthouse was unveiled to the public during an evening "Launch Event".

Reviews

Art critic Doug Harvey referred to the Desert Lighthouse as, "...one of the most complex and coherent translations of 1960s and ’70s

Land Art Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mov ...

into a 21st-century context. Hawkins’s most recent ''Desert Lighthouse'' embodies both the doomed, abject heroics of

Robert Smithson Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and m ...

and company, and a post-apocalyptic, DIY absurdism that has already made it a populist icon among the survivalist locals."

Memorial

In late 2018, a small group of makeshift memorials were left by visitors near the base of the lighthouse in memory of their passed loved ones. Since then the memorials have grown in size. Two identified memorials are: Bruce Mace and Alicia Maria Hilton. The memorial was later expanded in late 2019.
Desert Lighthouse Memorials

Current

The Desert Lighthouse continues to operate. The lighthouse and its creator, also known as "The Keeper of the Hinkley Light", will be the subject of a documentary to be released in 2023.

References

{{authority control Lighthouses completed in 2017 2017 establishments in California Lighthouses in California Land art Art in Greater Los Angeles Public art in California Mojave Desert