NOT MOVING MOUNTAINS: Popular Desert Art Installation No Longer Leaving Las Vegas

Seven Magic Mountains — those Day-Glo painted boulders popping out of the desert 20 miles south of the Strip on Interstate 15 — is not leaving Las Vegas after all.

The popular art installation, managed by the Nevada Museum of Art, was scheduled to be relocated 450 miles northwest to Washoe County, which allocated $500,000 for the task, by next year.

But a memo to that county indicates that Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone — who created the sculpture by painting 30 to 35-foot tall boulders in Day-Glo colors in 2016 — no longer wishes to proceed with the relocation.

Washoe County says that none of the allocated money was spent, and will now be redirected to fund renovations of a new behavioral facility.

Originally, Seven Magic Mountains was scheduled to be on view only through 2018. That run was extended because of how popular it became as a driving landmark.

It attracts around 325K visitors per year, according to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), largely because it encourages them to interact and pose with the sculptures for social media photos.

Rondinone’s sculpture will need to relocate sometime before 2037, when the Nevada Supplemental Airport is scheduled to open on the same land.

But it may need to find a new home sooner than that, since the Nevada Museum of Art’s lease with the BLM, which owns the land, is up at the end of 2026.