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
simple profound type
The type of work I like is pure and simple and profound.
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.
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.
gentle image
I'm not a dogmatic, purist psychopath. There's an unfair image of me - mean, crazy, hostile. I'm really a very gentle person.
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.
theme painter sculptors
This theme of bigness — all painters and sculptors have dealt with it ever since.
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.
strong art people
A strong work of art really leaves people speechless. They feel a little angry because they don't understand it.
views ecosystems differences
Landscape to me is a planar thing, just a view. Environment is everything down to the ecosystem. Big difference.
art static
I make static art, not dynamic art. That's what I do.