Michael Heizer
Michael Heizer
Michael Heizer is a contemporary artist specializing in large-scale sculptures and earth art. He currently lives and works in Hiko, Nevada...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionArtist
CountryUnited States of America
frank genuine gimmick instance likes sculptures size trick work
The size thing is not some gimmick or attention-getting trick but a genuine undercurrent of the work. Frank Gehry for instance likes to imagine his buildings as sculptures. I like to imagine my sculptures as architectural.
academic art books educated frame historical looking provide reference similar usual work york
I wasn't an academic looking in books for ideas. But I educated myself about historical work that was similar to mine, to provide a frame of reference that wasn't the usual frame of reference of the New York art world and Europe.
promoting
I come from an academic background. I wasn't raised to be into promoting myself.
admitted bolivia dad father finished good high later lived mexico school straight student taken
I was taken out of school by my dad when I was 11 and lived in Mexico City, then later in Paris. I went with him to excavate in Bolivia and Peru. I never finished high school. I was a straight F student anyway. My father admitted to me later that he'd thought I would come to no good.
art artwork business commercial hurry
Artwork is not like a commercial business; there is no such thing as a schedule for art. You can't hurry art.
self dialogue entertaining
I’m self-entertaining. My dialogue is with myself.
sculpture likes imagine
Frank Gehry for instance likes to imagine his buildings as sculptures. I like to imagine my sculptures as architectural.
art writing rights
I wasn't political enough to write articles about myself or go to cocktail parties, meaning that not only has my art been pirated and my intellectual property rights stolen, but my work has been misrepresented.
theme painter sculptors
This theme of bigness — all painters and sculptors have dealt with it ever since.
mean say-anything copying
The trouble is, once you say something about a source, then you've pegged it down, and so now I'm reluctant to say anything. If I say I developed 50 different shapes from Mississippian tumuli, that doesn't mean they're copies of tumuli - I'm not ripping off those shapes.
raised promoting
I wasn't raised to be into promoting myself.
photograph can-not i-can
I have looked at so many photographs, I can not see them anymore.
art museums metropolitan
They are works of art that can be considered works of art but don't have to be in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum.
strong art people
A strong work of art really leaves people speechless. They feel a little angry because they don't understand it.