As you may already be aware, US Vogue’s December 2025 cover featured Timothée Chalamet, photographed by Annie Leibovitz. But what may have evaded you is that, while Chalamet’s cover appeared to have been captured in the swirl of outer space, the real location of the image was Michael Heizer’s City, an appropriately out-of-this-world artwork hidden deep within the Nevada desert. Within the extraordinary images, Chalamet is shadowed by geometric forms, moving through a landscape seemingly suspended between ancient civilization and science fiction.
The irony at the heart of the shoot lies not just in the parallels between Dune and the design of Heizer’s work, but that, for most visitors, photography at City is prohibited. Leibovitz asked Heizer directly, and it was a mark of their friendship, I was told, that he agreed to allow the shoot to occur. Close relationships with the artist notwithstanding, one of the most talked-about artworks of our time (City took more than 50 years to complete and is breathtakingly vast) is also one of the most difficult to document. In an age when cultural experiences are measured by shareability, Heizer’s magnum opus insists on something unfashionably old-fashioned: seeing it for yourself.
The American Southwest has a way of making scale feel slippery. The landscape seems to stretch indefinitely, the horizon appearing like a cartoon mirage at all times. It’s no surprise that the Land Art movement emerged here. Beginning in the late 1960s, artists abandoned galleries in favour of deserts, salt flats, mesas, and remote terrain, using these surroundings as both setting and material. Rather than making artworks to place in nature, artists such as Heizer, Robert Smithson, and his wife Nancy Holt made nature into the artwork itself.
To me, a road trip is still one of the most appealing ways of exploring the USA. Ever since Britney Spears’ acting debut in Crossroads captured my imagination as a pre-teen, taking in America by road—specifically as a passenger princess—has always been alluring. And, I would argue, the most satisfying way to understand American Land Art is not chronologically but geographically, on a route best accessed by car.
Though we landed in LA, our journey following the movement began in earnest in Las Vegas. Driving from California, we pulled over for such landmarks as The World’s Largest Thermometer, a souvenir store called Alien Fresh Jerky (incredible novelty UFO swag to be scored), and Ugo Rondinone’s primary colored 2016 artwork, Seven Magic Mountains. The latter is definitely not aligned with traditional understandings of the Land Art movement (works made from or complementing the earth around them); instead, it punctuates the landscape with a decidedly human presence, a playful intrusion in dayglo.
