After 52 years in the making, Michael Heizer's 'City' opens this Friday

The Triple Aught Foundation—the nonprofit that manages Michal Heizer’s colossal land art sculpture City—announced that the piece, located in central Nevada’s Basin and Range Monument, will open to visitors this week this Friday, Sept. 2. But don’t charter a party bus to Lincoln County just yet. Tickets are booked through the end of the year, and access will be strictly limited for the foreseeable future.

Complex One, City. © Michael Heizer. Courtesy Triple Aught Foundation. Photo: Mary Converse

The New York Times’ Micheal Kimmelman explained in detail:

“…visitors can soon apply for tickets on the Triple Aught website. Free to residents of Lincoln, Nye and White Pine Counties, admission for others will cost up to $150, money that will go toward an estimated annual operating budget of some $1.3 million. Because Heizer fears crowds diluting the experience, the current plan is only six tickets a day—about the number of seats on a SpaceX flight—and only on some days during certain times of year, suggesting long wait times.

Visitors will also need to get themselves to Alamo, Nev., a nearish town. They’ll then be picked up, allowed to roam “City” for a few hours and, because there are no lights on the road and no cellphone service, they will be driven back before dark, meaning they won’t get to see the sun rise and set, prime hours. Never mind no gift shop. There aren’t even benches.”

City, which is more than a half mile long and a half mile wide, consists of shaped mounds and depressions made of compacted dirt, rock, and concrete. Heizer has been working on the piece since 1970.

Double Scoop has requested access to City—which is about eight hours from Reno by car and four hours form Las Vegas—in the hope of reporting on the project further. We’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, you can learn more about Michael Heizer in Josie Glassberg’s 2018 Q+A with Bill Fox, and the New York Times has some excellent photos and drone footage .

If anyone from our audience is able to visit the project and would like to report first-hand, we’d love to hear from you. (Email kris@doublescoop.art.)

Go to top