Universal Principles of Art

46 LAND ART

TRANSFORMING THE GREAT OUTDOORS

Site-specific outdoor art is generally known as land art. Although humans have made outdoor constructions since prehistoric times, often for religious purposes, the practice of making pure art in this way dates from the late 1960s. One of the first practitioners was Michael Heizer (1944–), a California artist who began to make simple ephemeral works in the desert, often consisting of groups of geometric trenches dug into the desert floor. These would be photographed and the resulting documentation displayed in a gallery or museum. Heizer was quickly joined in this kind of enterprise by Walter de Maria (1935–2013), Robert Smithson (1938–73), and a host of lesser lights. It soon became clear that gestures ...