In May 2016, a peculiarly colorful stone formation interrupted the stillness of the Nevada’s desert. Created by the artist Ugo Rondinone, ‘Seven Magic Mountains‘ is one of the largest land-based art installations in the US completed in over 40 years.
The installation consists of locally-sourced limestone boulders stacked in the groups and painted in fluorescent colors. Having been in the making for five years, the project continues Rondinone’s interest in natural phenomena and their relation to the human condition. Located ten miles south of the the city lights of Las Vegas, nearby legendary Jean Dry Lake, a place integral to the history of Land Art in the American West, it questions the borders between the organic and the artificial, reality and simulacra. It’s not the first time Rondinone has worked with stone as a prime material – the artist describes ‘Seven Magic Mountains’ as a direct reaction to his previous work, a series of colossal rock figures for the Rockefeller Centre in New York.“Seven Magic Mountains elicits continuities and solidarities between the artificial and the natural, between human and nature.”
All images © Gianfranco Gorgoni / Courtesy of Art Production Fund and Nevada Museum of Art
