Showing posts with label Double Negative. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Double Negative. Show all posts
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Five Hours at Double Negative - Mormon Mesa, Nevada
The directions on the Internet are very difficult to decipher - we ended up in the wrong location several times. As soon as we put down the map and used common sense by following the rim of the mesa, we found the earthwork. If someone ever writes "less traveled road" as a choice to follow, you are screwed. All the roads are less traveled - just don't drive off the cliff in the process. There could have been a Thelma and Louise repeat here. Be very careful (and bring lots of water). Also, we never found any sand on the road, an oft described feature of the drive to this earthwork. All the sand was located in the sculpture and we didn't even need a four wheel drive for this portion of our trip.
It was over 100 degrees and we somehow managed to spend five hours out in the heat, taking several breaks in the car to chug water and soak up the A/C. Hello sunburns on top of sunburns - we wore 55 sunblock and still were scorched as we kept sweating it off.
There is no way we could ever know what this work is like without being there. The scale is so vast and unable to be described in photographs, it needs to be experienced in person. Forty years after this sculpture was created, the degradation does not affect the monumentality. It is incredible and unlike any of the earthworks we've seen thus far. The space in between both cuts is like it's own artwork - sand falling down the cliffs with sagebrush clinging to survive. Upon climbing down the SW cut, we encountered lizards and bottle rockets (no snakes).
After seeing erosion and time at play in Bryce Canyon, this was a very different experience to see the striated rocks blown from the crevasses. The main element of passing time are the rocks that have fallen since 1969 and now cover the ground inside the sculpture. One does not think of the elements of destruction when viewing photographs of Double Negative but that is an important aspect when visiting in person.
On our way out, we encountered an installation whose text encouraged us to protect the land. After viewing Heizer's piece, we felt a reminder of humanity's destruction upon the environment and each other. Our only regret is that we were not able to drive to the other side and view the NE cut and see the space where we spent most of our day contemplating from the other side.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
28 days to go: Michael Heizer's "Double Negative"
I am spending the afternoon researching Michael Heizer's Double Negative. The most important information I've found is how to get there!
By descending steep ramps at the ends of the trenches, visitors can enter a long, narrow lane that reveals a view across the ravine to the trench on the opposite side. Heizer stipulates that we should spent one whole day with the sculpture in order to understand it: to grasp its size, surfaces, spatial structure, and transformation in light and shadow. Bring lots of water and snake repellent. It's going to be the trip's #1 scorcher.
Construction of the SW cut from the NE Cut, December 1969
Michael Heizer: "It is interesting to build a sculpture that attempts to create an atmosphere of awe. Small works are said to do this but it is not my experience. Immense, architecturally sized sculpture creates both the object and the atmosphere. Awe is a state of mind equivalent to a religious experience. I think if people feel commitment they feel something has been transcended. To create a transcendent work of art means to go past everything."
Construction of the SW cut from the NE Cut, December 1969 (2 weeks later)
From an essay entitled “Rend(er)ing” by Mark C. Taylor:
Edmond Jabès once stated: “You do not go into the desert to find identity but to lose it, to lose your personality, to become anonymous. You make yourself the void. You become silence. It is very hard to live with silence. The real silence is death and this is terrible. It is very hard in the desert. You must become more silent than the silence around you. And then something extraordinary happens: you hear silence speak.”
Looking toward the SW Cut, 1970
Mark C. Taylor: “To reach Double Negative, it is necessary to go past everything. The drive from Las Vegas to Overton passes through 80 miles of desert. The mineral landscape appears more stark and cruel from the road than from the air. This desert is unforgiving. The height of Mormon Mesa looms larger when driving up the twisting and turning red dirt road that leads to its top. From ground level, the barrenness of the earth’s surface is violated not only by scrub sage but also by tracks of errant vehicles. Even a person who knows his way gets lost in this terrain. We roamed for a long time but could not find Double Negative…. With darkness approaching, our search became more agitated. We drove ever closer to the mesa’s precipitous edge. At every turn, the cut seemed to appear. But as we drew near, the illusion of the cut’s presence was broken and the mirage lifted. Turning the truck around to make a final sweep, the cut or cuts unexpectedly opened in front of us.”
Looking toward the SW Cut, 1986
“To enter the tear, I had to descend the steep and uneven slope of the rent earth. Only beneath ground level did the stunning proportions of this extraordinary work clearly emerge…. From the bottom of the cut, the precision of the lines, surfaces, and planes dissolves. The work is eroding. It’s walls crumbling and its floor littered with refuse and debris from ancient eons, the Negative is a constantly changing ruin. This work of art was not constructed to escape time but to embed us in it ever more deeply. As I passed below the surface, I realized the profound truth of what I had long suspected: to dig down is go back… back through layers and layers of space and time to an arche that is, perhaps, “older” than the beginning of our world, the world, any world.”
Inside Walls of the NE Cut, 1969
“With night drawing near, I lingered in the Negative. I picked up a fragment from the debris in the midst of the tear. It was a remarkable object or assemblage of objects. Ancient, yet fragile, terribly fragile. Its shape, almost pyramidal; its size no bigger than the palm of my hand; its colors multiple. Pink, rose, brown, amber, umber, lavender, rust, red, yellow, orange, black, white, and charcoal – pebbles and crystals held together by sand strong enough to withstand the shifting winds of time and weak enough to crumble when touched. It would be hard to imagine a more intricate or more successful work of art.”
East Wall of the SW Cut, 1970
“Lost in reflection, the silence that surrounded me was suddenly shattered. At first, I thought a violent desert storm had erupted. The walls of the rift shook. Sand, stones, and gravel slid to the bottom of the Negative and beyond to the canyon far below. Startled, I turned toward the distant mountains. Framed by the trembling walls of Double Negative, I caught a fleeting glimpse of two fighter bombers in mock combat, disappearing over the horizon. As the deafening noise of the planes waned, Heizer’s words echoed in my ears. ‘We live in a schizophrenic period. We’re living in a world that’s technological and primordial simultaneously. I guess the idea is to make art that reflects this premise.’”
Two views of Double Negative from 2007
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Shawn Patrick Landis's "Air Check" in Double Negative, 2003
Chet told me to look this up from the cover of Sculpture magazine July/August 2008.
It looks like Landis had to clear a bunch of the boulders that had fallen inside of it out. Another thing I keep thinking about... there won't be any grass around these earthworks to merit buying a lawnmower!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
