Seven Magic Mountains

Photo by Elizabeth Villalta on Unsplash; Image Size Adjusted

Vibrant public art installation of seven towering stacks of brightly painted boulders set against the Mojave Desert landscape.

General Information

Hours:
Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Fees:
Free admission and parking
Pet Policy:
Pets are welcome; must be leashed and cleaned up after
Seasons:
Best visited in spring (March–May) and fall (October–November); avoid midday summer heat
Location:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/8Zzqzqzqzqzqz9qA2
Website:
sevenmagicmountains.com

From Las Vegas (22 mi): Take I-15 S to Sloan Rd (Exit 25), turn left onto Las Vegas Blvd, and drive 7 miles south to the installation on the left.

Seven Magic Mountains, commissioned, produced and financed by the Art Production Fund (APF) and the Nevada Museum of Art, followed Rondinone's work Human Nature, a Public Art Fund project of monumental, stone stick-figures arranged in the highly man-made environment of Rockefeller Center in Manhattan—and depicts the opposite: highly artificial neon totems set in the natural environment.

The piece consists of 33 limestone boulders, each weighing 10 to 25 tons, arranged in seven towers 30 to 35 feet tall—secured by a solid backbone, with each stone painted a bright, fluorescent color. Approximately five years in the making, the work is located on the far southern end of Las Vegas Boulevard, 10 miles south of the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and St. Rose Parkway in Henderson, Nevada, near Dry Jean Lake, with a backdrop of the McCullough Mountains.

Photo by Anna Sullivan on Unsplash; Image Size Adjusted

The sculpture was organized by the Nevada Museum of Art and runs from May 11, 2016 to December 31, 2018—having originally been scheduled for two years and extended through the end of 2018. Near the end of 2018, the sculpture was again rescheduled to extend three more years. The original installation opened following a two-day inaugural event.

The work is situated on three acres (1.2 ha) of federally owned land under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management.

Photo by Elizabeth Villalta on Unsplash; Image Size Adjusted

The Reno Gazette-Journal estimated that more than two million people have taken photographs at the sculpture for Instagram. It is one of the largest land-based art installations in the United States since the early 1990s.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ugo Rondinone", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0

Photo by Ivan Rouskov on Unsplash; Image Size Adjusted
Photo by Lyle Hastie on Unsplash; Image Size Adjusted
Tim Trad timtrad, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons; Image Size Adjusted