In the 1980 BBC series The Shock of the New, art critic Robert Hughes described land art as “one of the last acts of modernism.” Instead of masses swarming a museum, land art prefers a smaller audience and their undivided attention. If landscape painting is flat and picturesque, land art is spatial and theatrical. At its best, viewing a work of land art is an awe-inspiring spiritual experience that recalls the mystique of ancient monuments. Michael Heizer, a pioneer of land art, said in a 1970 interview with Avalanche magazine that the genre represents a departure from art as commodity and a return to art as religion.