Environment and Time

Heizer's Double Negative

'Double Negative' from when it was completed.

For Michael Heizer, the art of destruction begins on the ground, when he used machines to excavate desert sandstones to create a trench 30 feet wide and 50 feet deep³. “Double Negative” was created in 1969 and was made with clean, hard edges on the desert surface, reminiscent of Minimalism². Since then, however, those edges have now soften and looks less like a piece of art. In the course of time, “Double Negative” has blended in to its environment as nature has taken it back. Is “Double Negative” still art after years without conservation?

Heizer bulldozed 240,000 tons of sandstone from the Nevada dessert³, leaving a large imprint, akin to a cut. Critics proclaimed that land art may have a moral and haphazard effect on the environment, but that the damage depends on the value of the art itself. Value can be understood financially: creating the project costed $25,000 for the artist with added cost of insurance and tax³. The environmental costs can be seen through the destruction of natural elements already there. Critics saw this as an attack to nature, which was not meant to be touched by man. They are worried that when the artist make their art, they are altering the physical landscape of nature¹. With “Double Negative”, nature can be seen restoring itself. It is much alive as ever, despite a 15,000 feet cut in its center.

Through Heizer’s hand in cutting open the piece of land, the viewers can witness the power of nature in repairing itself, especially after machines and dynamites have taken its toll on the desert rocks. This shows that nature can assume control and can eventually return back to normal. When observing “Double Negative” now, one could see years of erosion take place; they could no longer see the hands of the artist. The hard edges on the walls of the trenches turned into ridges that are no longer flat and smooth. Time caused the hard, flat edges of the trenches to break down and lose its crispness. Therefore, the art that was done in 1970 is a different piece today due to weather and erosion through time.

'Double Negative' showing signs of erosion.

Rather than man interrupting the nature, nature now became the interrupter of a work that was created years ago. Elizabeth Umbanhowar, author of Public Art: Linking Form and Meaning, stated that a part of an environmental artist’s intent is to interrupt nature through manmade objects². However, setting a work in natural environment outside the proximity of museums leaves the work free to diminish in time, through weathering and erosion. This makes “Double Negative” a temporary work that could be completely gone when the earth fills in the gaps of the trenches.

It was all in Heizer’s plan. He wanted nature to take control of the desert even after he created his art, according to Richard Koshalek, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Los Angeles³. Since it was the artist’s intent was to allow nature to restore itself, his part in the interruption stopped when he began the cut in 1969. The work, however, transforms years after.

Unlike the industrial pieces known in Minimalism, “Double Negative” broke the conventions of contemporary art simply through its construction and existence. The work is owned by MoCA and must be accessed by driving to the site³. It broke the standard of an outdoor museum exhibition, miles away from the museum. Museums are also expected to replenish and fix the art when it withers in time, but Heizer demanded that they do not conserve the piece. Most importantly, this let the work change its form through time and allow the viewers could witness the healing process unfold.

Rather than having the work slowly get destroyed through time, it merely transforms into a different organic structure – a structure that came out of the manmade cut in 1969. The whole process of nature healing itself is part of the art that was indeed the best way to preserve the piece. Allowing erosion to occur without any efforts to touch-up the piece invites the same artistic unpredictability as an Expressionist painting. The flat surface Heizer created was the blank canvas waiting for signs of artistic expression. The expression turned out to be the tremendous healing force of nature. In the meantime, “Double Negative” and its transformation is a work of art in itself.

So let nature and time dictate what you’ll see next.

Edit (2/24): "Double Negative" broke many grounds. Not only was it a large-scale piece, but that it was difficult to present it for commercialism. Having the work outside of museums made it troublesome to access the work. It makes it difficult to identify as art and also to sell.

But the most notable differences is its monumental cut in the earth's surface. Since it is located in a desert miles away from the nearest city, many regard nature as pristine and untouched. Heizer's use of explosives and machines to cause a cut deep enough to cover the Empire State Building is symbolically a cut into something that was not meant to be touched at all. Even if he did not excavate trees or of anything of important resource, the act of intruding on nature, and outside of conventional museums, is intrepid territory.4

However, despite the raw environmental criticism, Heizer made his dent with the careful precision one would expect from an architect. The sharp edges on the side of the trench were architecturally pleasing and that, again, broke grounds for shaping nature into architectural work. Nature, beloved for its unstructured elements, have now been shaped and carved into man-made aesthetics. The erosion that occurred since then are Mother Earth's signs of fixing itself.

by Jennifer Hinh

Sources:

¹Fisher, J. A. (2007). Is It Worth It? Lintott and Ethically Evaluating Environmental Art. Boulder: University of Colorado.

²Umbanhowar, E. (n.d.). Public Art: Linking Form Function and Meaning. Art and Ecological Process.

³Wilson, W. (1985, December 10). New Moca Acquisition Is A Hole In The Ground. Los Angeles Times.
4Wainwright, H. L. (2006). New Paradigms in Aesthetics: The Challenge of Environmental Art. ProQuest.