''Double Negative'' is a piece of

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, & mo ...

located in the Moapa Valley on Mormon Mesa (or Virgin River Mesa) near Overton,

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

. ''Double Negative'' was created in 1969 by artist

Michael Heizer Michael Heizer (born 1944) is an American land artist specializing in large-scale and site-specific sculptures. Working largely outside the confines of the traditional art spaces of galleries and museums, Heizer has redefined sculpture in term ...

, and consists of a trench dug into the earth.

Description

The work consists of a long trench in the earth, 30 feet (9 m) wide, deep, and 1500 feet (457 m) long, created by the displacement of 244,000 tons of rock, mostly rhyolite and sandstone. Two trenches straddle either side of a natural canyon (into which the excavated material was dumped). The "negative" in the title thus refers in part to both the natural and man-made

negative space In art and design, negative space or negative volume is the empty space around and between the subject(s) of an image. In graphic design this is known as white space. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, not th ...

that constitutes the work. The work essentially consists of what is not there, what has been displaced. Double Negative can be reached by following Mormon Mesa Road north-eastward from Overton to the top of the mesa, continuing across it for 2.7 miles, turning left at the opposite edge onto a smaller path that extends along the rim of the mesa, and then following the path north for 1.3 miles.

History

In 1969 the art dealer Virginia Dwan funded the purchase of the 60-acre site for ''Double Negative'' and, in turn, the artist transferred the property deeds to Dwan. In 1971 Heizer prevented the Dwan Gallery from selling the work. Dwan then donated ''Double Negative'' to the

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's ori ...

(MoCA) in 1984, with Heizer’s blessing, to coincide with “In Context: Michael Heizer, Geometric Extraction”. Among the terms of the agreement with the museum is the fact that, according to the artist's wishes, MoCA will undertake no conservation of the piece as Heizer indicated that nature should eventually reclaim the land through weather and erosion. Since then, Heizer has expressed a contrasting wish to restore the piece, perhaps in opposition to

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 mu ...

's support for the principle of entropy. For the solo exhibition "In Context: Michael Heizer, Geometric Extraction", MoCA was able to include a photographic panorama of Heizer’s work. For the large-scale, historical survey of land art “Ends of the Earth” at MoCA in 2012, Heizer did not want any representation of Double Negative to be included in the exhibition. A good aerial photograph appears in the catalogue, but Heizer reportedly worried that documentation in a museum gallery would misrepresent a sculpture that he felt could be known only through physical experience. In 2021, plans for a solar development project near ''Double Negative'' were rejected due to resident protests against the project's effect on the artwork. The work is currently owned by MoCA and is accessible by

four-wheel drive A four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, is a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case pr ...

vehicle or motorcycle.

References

External links

*
A Las Vegas Sun story and panorama about the work

''Double Negative'' on Youtube

double negative: a webpage about michael heizer (includes description and driving directions)
{{coord, 36.61586, -114.34455, region:US_type:landmark, display=title Land art 1970 sculptures Outdoor sculptures in Nevada Buildings and structures in Clark County, Nevada