From the most highly developed urban street in the East, at Rockefeller Center, to the wide-open desert landscape of Jean Dry Lake, Nevada, sculptor Ugo Rondinone has intervened on public spaces at a massive scale. His Seven Magic Mountains, a row of neon-bright 30-foot-high hoodoo-like rock forms give a new slant to the practice of land art, which took root in that part of the world nearly 60 years ago.

With this installation, which officially opens today, Rondinone offers a blinding glimpse of the obvious—in the best possible way. Rather than etching an intellectual concept into the land, which is often a traceable aspect of this art form, the Swiss-born artist has taken his concept from what already exists.This work is inspired by naturally occurring hoodoo formations of the Southwest. Painted in colors that suggest the neon glow of nearby Las Vegas, the stacked stones of Seven Magic Mountains create a new Stonehenge effect on visitors, who are inexorably drawn off the I-15 by their impressive forms and colors. 

It's about “thresholds and crossings, of balanced marvels and excessive colors, of casting and gathering and the contrary air between the desert and the city lights,” according to the artist, who has lived in New York for nearly 20 years. Info His use of hyper-color was first seen in the city with Hell, Yes!, a 2001 neon installation that was subsequently installed on the façade of the New Museum from 2007 to 2010. Info

Seven Magic Mountains is a joint project of the Nevada Museum of Art’s Center for Environment and Art and the New York-based Art Production Fund. David Walker, executive director of the museum, said in the media preview for the opening, that there is likely a future for more public art projects on Nevada’s federal public lands since this project has “cracked the code” of how artists and federal agencies can work together. "This is the birthplace of land art, but it’s also a place that has great mystique and allure for artists that want to play in the vast western landscape and the Great Basin," Walker said of Nevada. "We expect that this will open the door." Photos © Gianfranco Gorgoni, courtesy the Nevada Museum of Art Info Info 

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