Photo above: Michael Heizer's "City" took 50 years to complete (Credit: Michael Heizer / Courtesy of the Triple Aught Foundation / Photo by Joe Rome)

"City" has been described as quite possibly the largest contemporary artwork on the planet, stretching more than a mile and a half long and half a mile wide, evoking the scale of ancient sites like Native American mounds, Mesoamerican metropolises and Egyptian devotional complexes. It is situated in the remote Basin and Range National Monument in central eastern Nevada, within the ancestral lands of the ​​Nuwu (Southern Paiute) and Newe (Western Shoshoni), around 160 miles north of Las Vegas.

"For the first year of public accessibility, only a limited number of visitors will be admitted, with mandatory advanced registration.

"Initially funded by Heizer himself, construction of "City" eventually received the support of many influential collectors, institutions and dealers via the formation in 1998 of the Triple Aught Foundation, which will manage and preserve the site for years to come," the CNN Style reports.

Photo above: "Complex One" was inspired by a trip to the pyramid of Zoser in Luxor, Egypt (Credit: Michael Heizer / Courtesy of the Triple Aught Foundation / Photo by Joe Rome)

"Michael Heizer’s City , a vast land art sculpture in the desert of central Nevada, will be open to the public, on a limited reservation basis. City, which has been in development for more than 50 years (1972–2022), is as uncompromising as the Basin and Range National Monument in Nevada’s high desert," the Travel Nevada reports.

"More than a mile and a half long and a half mile wide and nearly the same exact size as the National Mall, City and it is composed of mounds and depressions made of compacted dirt, rock, and concrete, and built in five phases, each containing its own substructures within."

"Over nearly 50 years City has cost nearly 25 million dollars to build, funded mainly through the Dia Art Foundation and Lannan Foundation. Though City is surrounded by state and federally-owned land, the chunk of land City is situated on is privately owned by Heizer."

Photo above: Michael Heizer, Horseshoe (West) and Horseshoe (East), City, 1970–2022, Garden Valley, Nevada © Michael Heizer. Photo: Ben Blackwell, courtesy Triple Aught Foundation

"City is a monumental sculpture by Michael Heizer located in Central Eastern Nevada. A mile and a half long and a half mile wide, it is a vast complex of shaped mounds and depressions made of compacted dirt, rock, and concrete. The City is intentionally reminiscent of many ancient ceremonial constructions through its complexity and size, but its form is suggestive of the central hub or nucleus of a modern city," the official website says.

"The City has been developed and built by the artist since 1970 until today. The project is located in an isolated valley within the high desert of the Great Basin that has been the grazing land for cattle and sheep for at least a century. Surrounded by primitive wilderness, it is near the bases of several mountain ranges of nearly 12,000 feet in elevation and near the White River narrows, which was active during the post-Pleistocene era. The Heizer family has inhabited Nevada since the 1800s, and the City location was partly chosen by the artist because of its remoteness. Almost all elements within the City are made from basic materials—clay, sand, and rock—collected with minimally invasive means, so that the native plants and wildlife may remain undisturbed. In June of 2015, the City and the area surrounding it, 704,000 acres in total, were proclaimed the Basin and Range National Monument to safeguard the area’s unique environment for the enjoyment of future generations.

"City is owned and operated by the Triple Aught Foundation, a nonprofit institution based in Nevada. Work on the City has been aided over the last fifty years by organizational and financial support from institutions around the country, including the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland; Lannan Foundation, New Mexico; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Many private individuals have also contributed their money and time.

Photo above: An aerial view of City. / Triple Aught Foundation

"Submissions for the 2023 visitation season have officially closed. The Triple Aught Foundation will open requests for the 2024 season via an online form, available January 2, 2024 at 12:01pm ET. Visitors will be accommodated on a first come, first serve basis and reservation requests will close January 31st, 2024. Only short day-trips will be possible for a maximum of six visitors ages 16 and over, with prior reservations only, and only in favorable weather.



" City is on private property in rural terrain, and it has no habitable structures. Visiting without a pre-arranged visit is thus potentially dangerous, and it is strictly prohibited and is trespassing. The price of a visit is $150/adult, $100/student, and is free (but with reservations still required) for residents of Lincoln, Nye, and White Pine, Nevada, counties."

"City is a land art sculpture by Michael Heizer. Located in Garden Valley, a desert valley in rural Lincoln County in the U.S. state of Nevada. Spanning more than a mile in length, it is the largest contemporary artwork ever built. The work was begun in 1972, taking 50 years to complete, and cost an estimated total of $40 million. City is maintained by the Triple Aught Foundation and opened on September 2, 2022, to limited, reservation-only viewing by a maximum of six visitors per day.

"Like Heizer's previous Double Negative (1969), City is designed and executed on a massive scale. Covering a space approximately one and a quarter miles long and more than a quarter of a mile wide (2 km by 0.4 km, roughly the scale of the National Mall), City is one of the largest sculptures ever created. Using local dirt, rock, sand, and concrete as building materials, and assembled with heavy machinery, the work is composed of five phases, each consisting of a number of structures referred to as complexes, with some of the structures reaching a height of 80 feet (24 m).

"City attempts to synthesize ancient monuments, Minimalism and industrial technology. Heizer's inspiration for the work came while he was visiting Yucatan and studying Chichen Itza.



"The cost of City has been financed by several patrons, including the Dia Art Foundation and Lannan Foundation, with an estimated cost of well over $40 million. Heizer completed the work in 2022 with a team of roughly a dozen and had previously anticipated completion before 2010.

"City is owned and administered by the nonprofit Triple Aught Foundation with a board including Heizer and leaders from arts organizations. City is open to the public as part of the terms of their conservation agreement.[9] It is open to viewing by online reservation only on a limited number days of the year, with visitors transported to and from the site. Admission is free to residents of Lincoln, Nye, and White Pine Counties in Nevada and $150 to all others." (Wikipedia)

World’s Largest Art Competition: world record in Grand Rapids, Michigan

World's Largest Architectural Model: world record in New York City, New York