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Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Dudes / Visual Art So What's It About? Well, It's Big! No, It's HUGE! It will KNOCK YOUR POWER OUT!

Posted by Jen Graves on Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 11:46 AM

Patte Loper made this painting, called Film Still Circa 1977. An exhibition of her new works is happening Thursday during Pioneer Square Art Walk, at Platform Gallery. None of her works will weigh 30, 50, or 340 tons.

Courtesy the artist
Patte Loper made this painting, called Film Still Circa 1977. An exhibition of her new works is happening Thursday during Pioneer Square Art Walk, at Platform Gallery. None of her works will weigh 30, 50, or 340 tons.

It's happening now—maybe you'll see the juggernaut out there on the road this week, snaking from Riverside, California, to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

A custom vehicle three freeway lanes wide has been commissioned by LACMA in conjunction with a company that normally transports nuclear generators and missiles ("extreme objects"). But this extreme object is a 340-ton boulder that's part of a new sculpture by Michael Heizer, the cowboy/land artist whose earliest urban installation was here in Seattle.

That piece, made in 1976, also included big rocks: three granite slabs 30 to 50 tons each (give or take 20 tons, you know), carted by train and barge from the Cascades to Myrtle Edwards Park, where they sit to this day.

But that piece didn't seem to have quite so much to, ah, prove. LACMA director Michael Govan is calling this new Heizer one of the heaviest objects ever moved, raising the spectre of ancient monoliths.

Utility lines, street lights, and stop lights are being dismantled—then remounted immediately—to make room. Permits have been required from every municipality and county along the way, as well as the state of California.

It just goes to show: Museums and wealthy donors don't love challenges, unless those challenges are logistical.

And then they love them so much it's pornographic.

Almost like they're, you know, compensating for something?

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After gouging out a nice piece of planet earth, and; building the world's largest internal combustion machine to move it, burning 20+ gallons per hour for a week to ten days; causing backups of idling cars along an 85-mile freeway; accompanied by 30-some other trucks and support vehicles....

I'm sure that these art (a'hem) patrons will offer us their political treatise on the excesses of capitalist man, and global warming.

Where are allegedly progressive media on revealing the excesses of this organization:
http://art-for-a-change.com/blog/categor…

If the military was moving the rock you'd be calling for an "Occupy the Quarry" hipster jamboree.

How is it that these arts organizations get a hall pass from the lefty arts community, when their actions towards the environment are inarguably parallel to even their worst fantasies of about "republicans" (quotes added for emphasis.)?

Posted by Zok on October 4, 2011 at 2:02 PM

Sounds like a giant waste of money, resources, and other people's time.

Posted by JenV on October 4, 2011 at 4:28 PM

Hi,
This is an awesome and historical project and even if one can understand that the amount is crazy for a rock, it is actually not because it isn't a rock but an art piece, and a major one! (a gift from the landartist by bringing us an artform to be experienced like Double Negative, but in the heart of the city). And these 10 millions are just a drop in the bucket because this master piece of Heizer, like all others ones, is built for a very long-term period.
Feel free to read the press release about our "transatlantic action" between M. Heizer and R. Perray http://www.marbachdesign.com/340t340gpre…
Best
OBSART | Observatoire du Land Art

Posted by OBSART