Is This Art? - Visiting Double Negative in the Nevada Desert
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- Опубліковано 8 лип 2024
- Outside of Moapa Valley, Nevada, about an hour and a half from Las Vegas, is a piece of land art known as Double Negative. This strange art piece sits atop Mormon Mesa and was created in 1969 by the artist Michael Heizer.
Art is subjective, and Double Negative probably tests the limit of what is art. It consists of a trench dug into the earth, that is 30 feet wide, 50 feet deep, and 1500 feet long. The trench is on both sides of a natural canyon.
The art is said to take advantage of "negative space" and is currently owned by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
While crossing the Nevada desert to get to Double Negative, we also encounter several other instances of desert art, and some amazing views from the top of Mormon Mesa, which are worth the drive alone.
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"Unfortunately I don't have a Facebook account." --- Good man.
I think in math a double negative is a positive
Yeah.....Facebook sucks.
@@johnhoffman5431you are CORRECT!
I had one, it got hacked. Haven't missed it much.
@@johnhoffman5431 Hm, interesting.
Mother Nature is my favorite artist.
Just some 'help' from a dude with a dozer!
I was told when We moved to the mountains’”It was fine, what we do usually messes it up!”
I try not to.
@@roberthevern6169 No! No! Once Steve went inside this utopian fantasy, I immediately sensed how the dozer gently sculpted the walls and floor for an intense expression of angular beauty.
@@sbgroen Easy there fella ;-)
@@ScubaSteveCanada Well, hey. I always enjoy Steve's videos, even this one, but let's just say the subject matter of this one--some dude vainly destroying the environment--has little value to me. Might as well be graffiti.
"The looks on my family's faces" was funny. Your kids will remember these adventures for the rest of their lives. And that's what it's all about!
A ditch isn't art but your vids are.
Thanks for taking us places to we don't have to go there but still making them interesting.
Well, I guess it is something. They say all art is in the eye of the beholder. Even old lawn mowers can become art to someone. Steve, I don't know how you do it, but please keep finding these out of the way places, and keep up the great humor that you bring along with you! Always worth watching!
I'm sorry to contradict most of the comments on here but I really like it. I'm an artist in the UK, I primarily paint landscapes in oil on canvas, but I'm open to other ways people interact with their surroundings. When I paint I try to be aware of the negative space as well as the positive space - the object - and see the subject as a whole. I think maybe this is what the artist is trying to express. I like too that's he's stipulated that its fate should be left to the elements, however long that may be. Nothing lasts forever.
Love your videos, they're so so different to my surroundings.
Good to hear an opposing viewpoint on this.
@kathymytton: Hello to you in the UK from the US. My preference would be that the "artist" would have followed his own stipulation ahead of time and simply left the land untouched and unmarred by his artistic statement and leave it to the elements. I love and understand many forms of art but in this case I am completely unmoved by this work. The sculpting that nature did here over the eons is far more moving.
I think I get the art in Double Negative.
A trench mid-air!
So the concept of a space construct free of ground (the trench), therefore filled with air, going through free air, hence kinda empty twice.
The cuts on either side are just there as markers.
If the artist had expressed this as a concept to me, I’d have said, “yep, I get your idea, your concept, but… nah.” There is much interesting art based on negative space… including the images that you can see either of two ways - your eyes and brain determine for you what is foreground and what is empty, or background. This was a big swing and miss for me, marring such a lovely landscape similarly to how a mining operation might.
I like your style of presentation. I feel like I’m discovering it with you. Also, you have saved me from wasting my time going a couple places, like this one, but I still get to see them. Thanks!
Double negative reaction from you're family. !!! 😂 that was funny.
I'm not sure they thought so! I tried to explain in advance but I think something more was expected.
@@SidetrackAdventures On future adventures, downplay the destination by at least 1,000,000% and they will always be impressed. After all, they will be seeing something that is at least one in a million.
"Your" English is difficult.
@@SidetrackAdventures Well, the landscape and river were quite beautiful. I’d love to go exploring out in the desert like this.
I actually live with an art critic, worked at that profession for 5 years before he moved on! So I'll send this on to him and get a professional opinion, I'll get back to you later today and finish this. I still love every trip that you take! I hope you keep on producing these videos!!
Ahhh, finally got it from the overhead shot, two minus signs, double negative is a positive! 👍
Good call. I had to watch the video a second time to get that.
People say I have no imagination, well this place proves them correct. Beautiful views and desert. 2 dug holes in a desert don't make art. All it makes is, 2 holes in the ground.
the art is in the fact he conned someone into paying $25,000 for 2 useless trenches .
@@sickofthestupid1067 100%
The views up their are great. I've never seen any nature that is enhanced by digging trenches in it.
"2 dug holes in a desert don't make art."
Sure it does, but only because they are aligned north and south. Now had they been aligned east and west, you would be correct, it isn't art.
@@SidetrackAdventures "I've never seen any nature that is enhanced by digging trenches in it."
It allows you to see and appreciate the strata. This is interesting to geologists that do this sort of thing but not usually on this scale. Highway cuts are a good place to see rock strata.
I’m SO glad you post these videos. I’m sure you’ve saved many people from wasting the gas needed to make this trip. 🤦♂️
In my case, coming from Oregon would be a LOT of wasted gas.
Well, i know not to stop there. Thanks.
The obscure places you're finding are fascinating. I'd never have seen them if it weren't for your channel. Thanks for the hours and hours you must have spent on the road to film this adventure.
You’re correct..this is a double fail.
Art is how well you pull someone’s leg.
Thanks for a laugh out loud moment when you said Double Negative was the look on your family's face! Fascinating video, as usual, and fantastic views!
One of the coolest pieces of land art in the country. No worse than all the holes in the ground leftover from mines across Nevada. At least there are no cyanide pools.
Good point
That's one hell of a back handed compliment. ☺
If that's art, then anything can be called art ! 😮
Why I said it struck me as a joke in my comment.
That's true. I remember seeing a pile of scrap sponge rubber on the floor of a museum. It was titled "Heap #1." I don't know if it was intended to be serious or not, but I suppose it's best to take it as a joke.
"then anything can be called art !"
But only art can define art (paraphrasing Matt Walsh).
@@thomasmaughan4798 then what is Art ?🙄
@@steveyoung9951 "then what is Art ?"
I can define "woman" but not "art". Art is whatever anyone claims is art. I wonder sometimes if Picasso considered his later work "art" but obviously other people do.
It is a bit like the "Emperors New Clothes" where I dare not reveal how uncultured I am because I do not appreciate Picasso. On the other hand, Rembrandt paintings are indisputably art, and so is Michelangelo's sculpture.
So to paraphrase a famous supreme court justice, "I cannot define art but I know it when I see it."
I suppose something is art if the artist intends it to be art and infuses it with emotion even if the artist is the only person on earth that feels it. Or at least claims to infuse it with something.
It's not art unless you'd want it in your house or the grounds of your house. The people who left those other displays were saying that if "Double Negative" is art, then my electric lawn mower is art, etc. My wife's stance is "If anyone can do it it's not art by an artist." And anyone could do it with a bulldozer and a truck, so it's not art.
Art is whatever anyone says is art. It need not be the first and only instance of a thing on the whole planet over all its history, although that helps if you are trying to copyright it. Most things labeled "art" do not impress me and I would have no idea anyone considered it art if they don't label it as such, but I am not the global authority on the definition of "art" (and neither are you).
As it happens, I have a strong sense of geometry and so there is something curiously interesting about these big stone notches facing each other as if a giant circular saw blade cut into the edge of the mesa.
I would be more impressed if the alignment was perfectly north and south. It is 1/4 mile end-to-end and so that's nice. It also makes a way to get down from the rim.
They could, but they didn´t,´maybe because they lacked the imagination or dedication to do it. Or werent silly enough to pull this off. Or didn´t master the art of talking someone into paying for this. The funny thing with art is that it escapes a clear definition, it´s highly subjective and inter-subjective at best.
I think I can wrap my head around the idea that this is art. To each his own, I appreciate it. Furthermore, you had a nice road trip out to the desert with great views, space all to yourself, and the juxtaposition of that trench against the expanse of the desert. Well done, Steve!
Born and lived in NH my whole life. Your videos make me want to wander the west....
I’m an artist & created outdoor art displays as well as wood carving, sculpture, painting, writing music & poetry…Art is in the eye of the beholder…if the “artwork” stimulates the mind…it’s art…thanks again Professor Steve for another exciting adventure…
Maybe a tie fighter flew down chasing someone and got too close to the ground, survived by pulling up in an arc, hitting both sides of the mesa walls as it flew back up towards the sky and what remains is what happened. lol
;)
I have to agree with your statement if it stimulates the mind. To me this looks like what miners have been creating since they invented mining.
Maybe some people need to be told the truth!
And then sometimes pure bollocks is still just bollocks. No matter how it’s dressed.
@@everettcross7210 Exactly! I’ve said the same thing in another post. Perhaps mining companies should hire “artists” now so that what they do to the landscape can gain credibility. They create “art” on a HUGE scale. 🤣
I love that youre out there traveling, exploring and making good use of your car/tires. That and making simply good videos frequently along! Stay well
I live in South Africa. Amazing to peek into your channel and view far off places! Place reminds me of Valley of Desolation in the Eastern Cape province. Strange and silent.
Steve -- Another great video!! Long time subscribrer here. Absolutely loved the comment regarding the family's reaction. Very funny the way you articulate their reactions with a sort of deadpan delivery; I could almost envision the looks on their faces as you described it. Anyway, really enjoy your channel. You've been to many strange and odd locations I'm sure I'll never get to see with my own eyes, let alone be aware that such places exist. Keep up these awesome adventures Steve. I'm definitively hooked!
This was a surprise to me that you went. Not many make the journey. It is art. I would go back without question. Most of the comments are to be expected. That is for everyone to make their own impression of it. It is slowly fading and someday it will just be a bump in the cliff’s edge. But when it was new it was sliced so clean and smooth. As far as the destruction to the environment I don’t think it did much realistically. The well graded road does just as much. Plenty of mines nearby that are way worse. Thank you for going and sharing. Maybe someone in the comments that says no will look into it and Heizer more and be open to thinking outside of their preconceived notions.
Good for you for not having a Facebook account! Neither do I and I'm not missing a thing!
I think your interpretation is spot on.
What I appreciate is that you took the time to take a look at this site. I would never have given this a chance or put time into editing a video about this. Thanks for the Drone view
Our pleasure!
According to a former art instructor at my university, art can be anything man made. If someone designed it, then produced it, then it is art.
If everything is art is anything really art? 🤔
Bad art teachers say such crap. They have no clue.
@@ThaProphet Oh, you're getting to the fine print!
There are two artists in Europe who make art - I guess - out of poop.
I absolute love your channel. I literally watch 2-3 videos every night before bed. I enjoy learning about California and all the southwestern states and these videos help me unwind and relax after a long work day. Keep it up!
Thank you for bringing us along.
Love the double negative idea. That’s a lot of work for a concept. That the idea.
To me it's beautifully symbolic of how humans try to change nature, but nature always reclaims. It's Brilliant!
I think I'll pass on visiting here! I loved your presentation though and your comments along the way make it such fun. Your dear family's expressions? I totally agree. Keep these videos coming, I look forward to them every week.
In shots like 11:35 you're starting to get at it. It's something that gains power to me the further I step back.
It reminds me of the installation works by Andy Goldsworthy.
And robert smithson as well :) breathtaking works recontextualize the world for us.
I had a positive experience watching the video. Thank you
Sorry you had to drive so far for such an underwhelming experience. But thank you for taking the hit for the rest of us so we didn't have to go ourselves!! I can appreciate your family's response! Hilarious!!
That was interesting to say the least. Like some other comments, art is in the eyes of the beholder. 25 grand to make that?! Someone laughed all the way to the bank. Your family will definitely remember the trips you take them on. They're seeing things in America that most wouldn't even know about. Love your commentary in your video's Steve. I will say it time and again, you would make a great tour guide. You find some wonderful out of the way places and your commentary gets us, your followers smiling. IF ever we go to America, you would definitely be our first thought for taking us around.
i wonder if LSD was involved in the making that trench …i liked the Polish Negative better
Love the desert around Vegas, so that´s one point. The trench looking like a minus sign, that´s a negative, two of them makes double negative, which is positive, But also reading this as a minus sign plus earth being removed is kind of a double negative. Then there is a famous optical illusion, an interrupted circle which makes our brains see a triangle - similar to how two trenches create a line that isn´t drawn. Maybe the true art is making you think about things. Normally I´m suspicious of art that doesn´t speak for itself - this one does (to me). That said, the true art is making someone finance the whole endeavour :D. This year´s Vegas trip, I´ll go there. But I´m prepared for a single negative - the face of my significant other. One more top notch video, thank you Steve!
I think in the late 60's and early 70's, this level of earthwork was still somewhat of an impressive feat within living memory. It was only a couple decades prior where making trenches this size would have been a major project involving hundreds of workers for like half a year.
If this is art, the cable situation under my desk could be considered a masterpiece
My desk would be in a modern art museum. I don't even know what cable goes where anymore.
Thanks, Steve! You always come up with unique trips for your videos!
Absolutely stunning. Brilliant..bold..severe..elegant in silent simplicity...
Steve, thank you for taking us to this site as it clears up a mystery for me. I had seen this place on another channel over a year ago but the person was very perplexed about what it was at the time. Thanks again for solving this question of the Trench! Enjoying your videos very much from Texas!!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Another fun explore Steve....THANK YOU!
Never heard of it, Interesting. Thanks...
As a Mormon "LDS" I approve of this video. Great music soundtrack and narration.
But really this was very enjoyable.
Thank you for showing us this place and for providing context and history. In decades of camping and fussing around the Mojave and nearby mountains I was continually delighted at how indifferent it was to folks scratching around.
Love that you go to these out of the way places! I'm afraid of the wildlife. So I enjoy seeing these places through your videos.
Imagine your arm and hand digging a trench, in the sand on the beach....
We're artists at age 3 !
Thanks for taking us along. 🇺🇲
Thanks Steve I always enjoy your videos . I have created a lot of double negitives in my time we always called them holes in the ground.
Same here. We dug a lot of trenches when I was in the Army. I never knew someone should be paying me $25k for it.
You really outdo yourself finding these crazy out of way places. I visited the Inaja Memorial last week . A heart breaking story. I wouldn't have known about it , if you hadn't posted about it.
Love your channel. You take such fascinating excursions.
art is definitely in the eye of the beholder when it comes to double negative 😃.. thanks for the road trip Steve!
Love your commentary on this. 100% agree
Beautiful skies and good company !
first i thought it is just a trench and didnt think too much of it. but when i saw the second trench across the ravine i loved it immediately
A beautiful vista, and then somebody with an excavator came in and dug it up. Thanks Steve.
Thanks for getting to places I won't get to in my time left. You are wonderfully unpretentious, fitting with the places you visit. Keep at it.
If double negative is art then my town is a friggin art gallery
Great job, Steve. It seems as if no part of the earth is so far out-of-the-way that man can't find a way to deface it.
Love your videos so much! Thank you for all you do! 👍🏻😀
This reminds me of some of my family vacations as a child. We would stop at some of the most obscure roadside attractions. Good times. 😂
Being a young boy in 1969, I can tell you it was a silly time (hippie counterculture) so this doesn't surprise me at all! Thank you for taking us on these trips and making them more enjoyable than if we went to see them on my own!
Steve, I think you can best see the artistic value in your drone shots. Seeing both trenches fron the air, the space in between and the river and valley in the distance from the perspective of the drone aerial view was very artistic. Thanks for findind another treasure for us to enjoy
Good find Steve and I laughed most of the way through it. Thanks
The entire structure is the negative space of a bridge. It’s like an unbridge. It invites you to contemplate with your imagination what the essence of a bridge is to you. It is very definitely art, with a perceivable meaning. As abstract art, its first purpose is to provoke a response. Whether your response is positive or negative doesn’t matter - in the sense that the negative response is also invited. It’s the response emotionally that is the goal of abstract art, then hopefully symbolic interaction and a sense of meaning.
This may be among the silliest things I've ever heard of. I can't see how a trench, let alone two, are art.
As always thanks!!!
NOTHING BUT DESERT 🏜...THANKS 🏜 STEVE
You're welcome.
@@SidetrackAdventures I love the desert. Not super really hard dry desert, not Sahara-ish desert. It is still awesome but I wouldn't be caught dead there. Well, actually, that's how you would find me if I was there.
The scariest desert place I've been is the Racetrack Playa at Death Valley. It has a vast, cracked mud perfectly flat dry lakebed that absorbs all sound. There's a big rock in the middle and as you walk toward it, you don't even hear your footsteps on the soft dry mud. It does not get closer. It is very weird. You start to imagine sounds that are not there.
Definitely is art. Massively making you see the imaginary negative space via the removed portions is a simple idea, but perfect for what it is.
Hm, Ok, point well taken. So, what about the dirt which was removed? Does a pile of dirt become art?
In the early 1970s my Air Force Radar unit deployed from Luke AFB near Phoenix AZ to Mormon Mesa near Overton for two-weeks. The road to the top was in terrible shape so it took multiple vehicles to tow some of the radar vans in the soft sand. Once there we lived in canvas 10-man tents and slept on cots and air mattresses. There were no women in the unit. The unit arranged for port-a-potties for the men but many of them would walk to the edge of the mesa and pee over the side. One day one of the officers went into Overton to make a purchase and some of the local people asked if we had any bathrooms up there. The officer replied that there were port-a-potties up there to use and asked why the question. The local said they had a telescope and had been watching the men peeing off the side of the mesa. That ended that.
Love your videos bro. Keep them up my friend
Great views! There's the art!
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Yeah! Not what would call art.......but, I'm no art expert either. I can visualize the look on your families face. I would never live it down. Having said all that, I do appreciate you taking us with you. I think my name for it would be Half a Ditch. The middle is missing. That would only be one negative, though. Thank you again for taking us with you. I love your videos. Can't wait 'till the next one gets posted!
I give you points for finding these obscure locations and taking us all there. Thanks again, as it's a double negative that I will be visiting this location any time soon.
The views at night from the mesa must be pretty awesome! Thanks for sharing..........
Nice video as usual, Steve. And, well, the views were nice. 🙂
Another nice video Amigo and family!!
Pretty skies!
“And the first rude sketch that the world has seen
was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it art?”
- Rudyard Kipling
I live in South Australia and the landscape looks very similar
Loved the views.
The Heart of Mormon Mesa was the most interesting thing to me.
Steve, When you are on top of Mormon Mesa looking down at the towns, you are looking at Overton and Logandale Nevada which are in the Moapa valley. The town of Moapa is up near I-15.
I live about 35 mile north of the area and have heard about the Double Negative for years and finaIy visited Double Negative yesterday, May 26, 2024. I agree it's really pushing the definition of art.
I did negative space art for years apparently, of course, we backfilled my work with bedding cables and pipeworks.
I love these videos, there’s so many things out there we don’t know about
I went to see it 2019. As I did other Earth Art in the Southwest. This is Art. And Michael Heizer is known for his art of negative space and; in turn, entropy.
I was thinking that the "Double Negative" was a reference to looking like 2 huge "minus" symbols from above.
Thank You for this Video and it really shows what this generation is interested in ...I grew up taking family vacation each year and it was a big deal...we rented a RV and travel to New Mexico and Colorado and Texas just looking at Natural wonder's....The Redwood Trees of Northern California was my favorite and even Carlsbad Caverns was my favorite
Awesome views in this one Steve. They make me wish I'd stayed in California back in the 70's while in the Air Force.
Love your videos
It is beautiful!!!
Not art.
I come from a long line of explorers. The running joke in my family was my dad's "short cuts." When we take our grandsons on a trip, I always recount travels with my family.
Just being there and appreciating the beauty God left for us and spending time with your family is what counts.
Thanks for sharing. Love your dry humor ❤😂
Most of the places you go there make me want to go see them in person. On this one I’m good.
Anything done in a creative way must be considered art.
Okay, I have to give you some good natured ribbing.....
Oh No, Steve is now an Art Conesessur! And dragging your family along.....the travesty and anguish! Lololol 😆
I admit I like Environmental/Earth Art... Here the $25 grand was probably for the rental of the D-9 Cat Dozer and the operator, but it's interesting 🤔.
This is one of those pieces of outdoor art that must be seen, so you have inspired me to drive to Nevada and look at this. I mean, with ALL those other spectacular views from the Mesa, it would be an excellent idea. The drone gave me this impression of "The water chutes to the Virgin River"
Thank you for making the drive...
The lawn mower Yard Art reminded me of having to cut my grass.... that Art was definitely inspirational!!😁😁😁😆😆!
Thanks again and you all be safe out there!
My knowledge or art is limited to 3 of the 4 members of the Ninja Turtles.