Resolutions
Michael Heizer’s City Threatened by Rail Line
Adopted by the CAA Board of Directors in February 2005 and in May 2005.
After almost thirty-five years, the artist Michael Heizer is nearing the completion of City, a collection of monumental sculptural constructions located in a remote section of Nevada desert that fuse ancient structures and Minimal sculpture. The site now faces an imminent threat: the constuction of a nearby railroad line. CAA’s Board of Directors voted to endorse the American Association of Museum Directors’ resolution on Heizer’s City at the board’s February meeting. At its spring meeting, the board passed its own resolution.
AAMD Resolution
An artwork of national and international significance, Michael Heizer’s monumental earthwork, City, is under threat from a proposed US Department of Energy (DOE), rail line intended to transport nuclear waste directly through Nevada’s Garden Valley, where City is located. Rail construction and operation will permanently destroy a visitor’s experience of Heizer’s isolated sculpture by causing irrevocable harm to the Valley’s undisturbed emptiness and the silence of its delicate desert environment.
Construction of the rail line also raises significant environmental concerns for the primitive wilderness areas along Quinn Canyon and Grant Ranges that border Garden Valley and for the nearby Worthington Mountains. The Dia Art Foundation, as the organizational conduit for the major funding for City, is fighting to protect the artwork from the damage that would be inevitable should DOE follow through with its plan to build the Caliente Corridor rail line.
Alternative rail routes have already been identified that would enable DOE to avoid Garden Valley. Such alternatives would have significantly less environmental impact on Garden Valley, and would protect Heizer’s artwork as part of our national cultural heritage.
The Association of Art Museum Directors, representing 168 art museums in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, strongly urges the US Department of Energy, Congress, the President, and other government officials to reconsider current plans for the Caliente Corridor rail line and to take whatever steps necessary to preserve the artistic integrity of Michael Heizer’s City.
CAA Resolution
At its spring meeting, the CAA Board of Directors passed the following resolution concerning efforts to save Heizer’s City from a proposed railroad line to be built nearby:
WHEREAS, The College Art Association’s Advocacy Policy identifies “conservation of the artistic integrity of public spaces” as one of the issues on which the Association may conduct Advocacy;
WHEREAS, Michael Heizer’s City project in Garden Valley, Nevada—an artwork of national and international significance—is under threat from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) proposed nuclear waste railroad and from commercial water interests, and;
WHEREAS, Dia Art Foundation has identified alternative routes for the rail that would avoid the sculpture.
RESOLVED, the College Art Association will publicly support Dia Art Foundation’s efforts to preserve City by writing letters to key decision makers and by encouraging CAA’s members to do the same.
Further Information
Heizer’s struggle was profiled in the New York Times Magazine’s cover story, “Art’s Last, Lonely Cowboy,” on February 6, 2005. Dia has spearheaded the effort to protect this as yet unfinished monumental artwork and continues to solicit additional support from members of the art community. Dia can provide further information for those interested.
