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Monuments in the landscape
(e.g. Heizer; Smithson; De Maria)

What has become known in the literature as 'land art' or 'earthwork art' developed in the USA during the 1960s. The sites are generally remote and inacessible and the scale enormous. In effect the earth substitutes for paper or canvas, the bulldozer and dumper truck for paint or pen. Heizer's Double Negative (1969) involved the movement of 240,000 tons of eath which were carved out of two facing cliffs on the edge of a flat plateau top. His Complex One/City (1972-6) placed on a remote Nevada plateau creates the illusion of a massive architectural structure but cannot be entered. Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970) is a 1500 ft long spiral of rock and earth built out into the Great Salt Lake, Utah (now submerged). De Maria's Lightning Field (1977) is a one mile square grid containing 640 18 foot steel poles on which lightning seasonally and dramatically strikes. The sheer scale of many of these works can only be appreciated from the air. Lavish photo documentation displayed in galleries and books is the usual way in which the public sees these works.

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