Special Events
"Double Negative"MFA student Jenna Price writes about
"Double Negative:"
Heizer made 2 huge holes in the ground
almost 40 years ago.
They are undeniably big, but in the place
that they exist, with the huge flat open
mesa, alluvial fans, and mountains, they
feel small in very way. Heizer dug into the
ground and took something away, or more
accurately, he moved something. He did not
build anything on top of or rising out of
the Earth, and he did not add materials to
the site. His act of subtraction admits
somewhat humbly that what is going on around
the thing is more beautiful than the thing
he created. His cuts into the ground seem
absurd next to the huge natural drop off of
the mesa which exists on a completely
different scale.
Heizer performed a potentially aggressive
and dominating act onto the Earth using
dynamite and bulldozers, but "Double
Negative" does not feel aggressive or
dominating, it feels sort of absurdly humble
and quiet. Right now "Double Negative" is
eroding and the becoming less crisp. I
think allowing the thing to eventually
deteriorate back into the earth poignantly
adds to the things I have mentioned.
