Michael Heizer’s 1970 motorcycle lines on Jean Dry Lake, Circular Surface Planar Displacement Drawing. Photograph by Gianfranco Gorgoni.
Sideburn reader Bill Neiser clued us up to these huge scale 1971 modern artworks created by William Heizer. and his motorcycle in 1971 We did some research and fansite, Double Negative told us this...
Heizer is interested in the transformation of the earth’s surface through human action. This work relates to Circular Surface Planar Displacement Drawing (1970), an artwork in which the artist drove a motorcycle in circles in Jean Dry Lake, Nevada, creating a pattern of lines. The photographs document the process; the photographer and camera were strapped to a twenty-four-foot scaffold that was moved sixteen feet for each for each new shot. Heizer was a key member of the Land art movement, whose adherents made monumental land-based sculptures.
Michael Heizer (American, born 1944).
Circular Surface Planar Displacement Drawing/90˚ Vertical Planar Rotary. 1970
Fifty black-and-white photographs, dimensions variable. Private collection. © 2010 Michael Heizer