NYAB Event - Michael Heizer "Markings"

Michael Heizer "Markings"

Nohra Haime Gallery

This event has ended.

Driven by his explorations of land sites and familiarity with the topography of arid regions, Heizer conveys through markings his concern with the concepts of time, movement, space and emptiness. This is certainly revealed in his paintings of 1978-79 where on a white surface, layers of earth-tone pigment are applied with paint rollers following free-hand vertical lines- gestural and dynamic method. Heizer creates subtle shade variations and intricate broken patterns through overlapping wide slabs of paint in rectangular configurations, changing the pressure he uses to apply the paint. The combination of the whole results in rugged, yet controlled abstractions that have affinities with forms– depressions, nets and ripples– found in the desert landscape.

Like land that has been attacked, the complex rhythms and flickering forms seen in his monochromatic works of 1978– executed with brown latex– seem to suggest traces left on the earth’s surface by the effects of weathering and erosion.

At the same time, the fragmented strokes may be associated with tracks derived from tractors employed for massive earth moving. This is manifested, for instance, in Untitled (Black and Gold), 1979 where with a roller the artist builds up coarse layers of aluminum powder mixed with oil– a new medium Heizer began to employ in 1979. However, it may be suggested that some patterns take the form of rock drawings and inscriptions made by prehistoric Native Americans, most likely informed by Heizer’s archaeological explorations. With this in mind, the shadowed areas that give the sense of volume may be read as terrain elevations, or ancient ceremonial mounds, which Heizer knew existed throughout the Midwest.

Although the forms in these compositions may spring from Heizer’s recollections of his ventures into the mountains of Mexico, Central America and the deserts of California and Nevada, their non-representational approach allows for endless interpretations. Undeniably, the juxtaposition of positive and negative space that introduce ever-changing suggestions of depth, space and movement, unite to become a topographic map-like landscape viewed from an imagined bird’s eye.

[Image: Michael Heizer "Untitled (black and gold)" (1979) oil, aluminum powder on canvas 111 x 71.75 in.]