Ugo Rondinone, Seven Magic Mountains, 2013 - Sloan, Nevada (May, 2024)
Background
Featuring seven, 30 to 35-feet high dayglow totems comprised of painted, locally-sourced boulders, Seven Magic Mountains sits just outside of Las Vegas, bright and colorful, visible from I-15 (the main highway connecting Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
The piece is located just on the edge of Jean Dry Lake. Where to Michael Heizer did Rift 1 (a zig-zag trench in 1968, the first of Nine Nevada Depression works) and where Jean Tinguely did a performance installtion called Study for an End of the World No. 2 (a kinetic sculpture of items from a nearby landfill that self-destructed).
Inspired by the hoodoos (think Bryce Canyon) and cairns, Ugo Rondinone spent five years to complete the project. It cost $3.5 million to complete, organized by the Nevada Museum of Art (the state’s only art museum, in Reno) and the Art Production Fund. They needed to get special permits of course and improve the roads. There is also a structural pole inside each one holding them together, they aren’t just placed on top of one another.
I highly recommend watching this video, as it is the best background on it.
Travel
One of the rarer land art pieces with a plaque, parking lot, and easy to access. It’s about a 25 minute drive south from the Vegas’ airport or strip. There is no offroading, just an easy parking lot to pull into off of an exit from a major highway. There’s space for 50 cars, though I doubt there would ever be that many cars here at once. It’s visible from the I-15. There are no fees to visit either.
It’s flat, but the parking lot and the path / area around the art piece are not paved, although pretty flat. It’s about a 100 yard walk from the lot to the cairn like structures. My only advice, if you care, is to consider what time of day you’re visiting, just from a perspective of where you want the sun to be when you’re taking pictures. You can spend as little as a few minutes there, so while there are no facilities at all, it shouldn’t be too hard to get back in your vehicle and leave to find civilization again.
As per usual, there are no trash cans, and the rule is obviously to leave no trace. However, there was an unfortunate amount of litter in the area. Please be better than those people. The paint on the lower rocks was certainly chipping and fading in areas due to interaction with people.
There’s not too much else I would recommend art-wise in the area. There’s a Meow Wolf in Las Vegas which fits the land art vibe to an extent, and the Sphere is comically expensive and ridiculous, but probably worth seeing a show at (when we were there it was the Grateful Dead and we weren’t particularly interested in seeing them). Perhaps the best thing to do is just relax at a pool and treat this city as the desert oasis that it is.
Experience
We visited on a Saturday in May, before our morning flight to return to New York. There was one vehicle of people there wrapping up, one that showed up for about a minute to see it (just from the car, they didn’t even get out), and another that arrived while we were leaving. I have read via other reviews that it does get pretty crowded. We were there around 7 am, so that is quite early.
I had difficulty getting a good picture of them. They are sorta haphazardly placed, though I’m sure it was purposeful. It was nearly impossible to get all 7 in a good single panoramic shot from within, and I tried many times. The weather was perfect, with blue skies and some clouds to provide contrast and texture. It’s worth going right up to them and weaving through. They are quite large. With more sunlight, the paints are supposed to get more intense and wildly bright.
Summary
It’s worth a quick drive if you’re in Las Vegas and have a car. I’m not sure I would suggest paying for a cab to and from, but it’s a beautiful piece of art and a great way to spend some time not in the air conditioned post capitalist nightmare that those casinos are.
Sources
Seven Magic Mountains. "About." Accessed September 16, 2024. https://sevenmagicmountains.com/about/.
Seven Magic Mountains. "Timeline." Accessed September 16, 2024. https://sevenmagicmountains.com/timeline/.
Center for Land Use Interpretation. "RIFT #1, Jean Dry Lake." Accessed September 16, 2024. https://clui.org/ludb/site/rift-1-jean-dry-lake.
Criticismism. "Jean Tinguely: Study for an End of the World No. 2 (1962)." Accessed September 16, 2024. https://criticismism.com/jean-tinguely-study-for-an-end-of-the-world-no-2-1962/.
Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Jean Tinguely." Accessed September 16, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Tinguely#ref290923.
Artnews. "This Magic Moment: Ugo Rondinone Places ‘Seven Mountains’ in the Desert Outside Las Vegas." Accessed September 16, 2024. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/this-magic-moment-ugo-rondinone-places-seven-mountains-in-the-desert-outside-las-vegas-6438/.
YouTube. "Ugo Rondinone: Seven Magic Mountains." Accessed September 16, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDqbobusO80.