The drive from Palm Springs to Rancho Mirage isn’t what you’d describe as scenic: The landscape shifts from explosively verdant flora and palm tree colonnades to tan stucco boxes, asphalt, and scrub. But Neville Wakefield, the artistic director of the Desert X biennial, opening this month and on view through April, wasn’t necessarily looking for pretty. On a hot day last fall, he and the biennial’s executive director, Elizabeta Betinski, pulled up to a hard, flat square of earth the size of a football field, bordered by concrete dividers. “This looks promising!” exclaimed Wakefield cheerfully, stepping into the sun. The land, part of the Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa, which is owned by the local Cahuilla Indian tribe, was a potential site for a piece by the Bahamian artist Tavares Strachan, whose concept involved fragmented text, rendered in neon and positioned inside the excavated desert floor. The piece would be best seen from above, and the casino’s 16-story hotel tower seemed to offer an ideal vantage point.