Biface Perforator #3 is one of a group of colossal replicas of an assortment of Paleolithic and Neolithic tools made by Michael Heizer in 1988–1989. Heizer’s fascination with these ancient objects began at a young age when he accompanied his father, an anthropologist, on excavations in the field. His earthworks are often likened to ancient monuments, and the “tools” proffer another means of excavating a past evolutionary phase.

Heizer described the motivation behind the series on the occasion of their first exhibition in 1990:

“The sculptures that I’m making are titled after prehistoric functional devices, normally tools. The majority of them are early prehistoric tool forms. They’re simply, in many ways, replicas of these things. There is obviously a lot of interpretation of my hand when I build them, but what I’m looking for is an object. Well, these objects have existed; they’re extremely interesting in their original form, and they seem to reoccur in the modern world. I see a lot of aerodynamic shapes in the primitive tool forms, these types of shapes that were internationally used by all people in the early beginnings of mankind. For maybe thousands of years these things were used; so, I’m representing the form, but I’m looking at it again in a new way. And I find it a worthwhile activity to reintroduce these forms that in many ways are lost, to reintroduce aesthetically which is all I can do anyhow, and I hope that there is a transcendental modern quality to them that ultimately makes these things more than applications but makes them contribute as a form. The fact that they existed thousands of years ago does not mean that people have them indexed in their minds as sculptural form. They have them indexed in their mind, if at all, as probably some obscure artifacts put away on a shelf that you walk by every fast in a museum and probably wouldn’t look closely at.”

Works from this Series in Public Collections
The Centre Pompidou, Paris
Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska
The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas
Collection of The Glass House, New Canaan, Connecticut
Hall Art Foundation Collection, Reading, Vermont
Bruce Thompson Federal Building, Reno, Nevada [Commissioned by General Services Administration of United States Government]