Michael Kimmelmman on Michael Heizer and Michael Heizer on Michael Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

Simon Norfolk/NB Pictures, for The New York Times

"45º, 90º, 180º/City," 1980-1999. The pieces of Michael Heizer's sculpture could be combined to make a wedge.

"At the root of Michael Heizer's art are archeology, geology and anthropology. About the idea behind the steles on Complex 2, he says, 'One source is a verbal description in a book by my dad about La Venta in Yucatán'. La Venta was an Olmec ceremonial complex. Heizer shows me the book. It has drawings of excavated stones shaped like Heizer's sculptures, with complexes of structures like City. He swears tat the forms are not directly lifted from the book, but were on his mind as abstract shapes."

The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa, Michael Kimmelman

[Michael Heizer's favorite children's book: Michael Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton]