Levitated Mass
Michael Heizer's Levitated Mass opens today at LACMA.
Way back in the twentieth century—1969, to be precise—Michael Heizer had the idea for an artwork he’d call Levitated Mass. It would be a massive rock perched atop a long slot in the earth. He even got so far as to start creating the artwork in the Nevada desert: he had a 120-ton rock and he dug out the slot. Unfortunately, one of two cranes he was using to mount the rock buckled under the weight, and the project was not completed.
Here we are more than four decades later, and Levitated Mass is complete. The rock is a little heavier (340 tons), the slot is a little longer (456 feet), and the site is a little more accessible (right in the middle of Los Angeles). Also, a few more people know all about it: back in March you couldn’t change the channel or open your local paper without hitting upon the story of the transport of the boulder from Jurupa Valley to LACMA. Thousands of people came out every single day and night to see this boulder move across Southern California to its destination at the museum. And now we’re inviting all of those people—and everyone else, too!—to come see Levitated Mass as it officially opens to the public this Sunday.
http://www.lacma.org/
7 comments:
wow that is one massive rock.
lacma is offering free admission from june 24th to july 1st to residents of selected zipcodes.all the residents of the cities along the route used to transport the enormous rock get free admission to lacma. take advantage of it and get your term projects done
I recently went to visit LACMA on Saturday, the day before the opening. However, I'm planning on visiting LACMA again on Saturday. It seems a bit intimidating to actually walk underneath it. "Levitated Mass" reminds me of a form of "post-and-lintel". One horizontal element placed over two vertical elements. But its receiving some help from shelves or wedges.
Levitated Mass, I feel this is a positive display of nature, and people using people using their creative mind in order to understand or see the beauty in that. It crazy how something as simple as a rock, could show sides and increase thoughts on a different level. This huge rock is art and shows the many avenues artist take.
Naijahlece Calhoun
Art3
This piece was interesting to me as it was what allowed me and my family to get into the museum for free. Not to mention the fun activities LACMA had to gain people's perspective on it. They had a booth open for kids to draw and color what they felt about the exhibit.
I had no idea what to think about this. I couldn't understand what the artist was getting at. "As with other works by the artist, such as Double Negative (1969), the monumental negative form is key to the experience of the artwork" is what the lacma.org site said, and there were some links to classroom activities which said that the point of the Levitated Mass was to view relational measurements not to include standard measures. For example, the size of the rock compared with a small child, a school bus or even how many oranges one could fit inside the rock itself.
It wasn't until I saw the videos on youtube that I realized the point which speaks to me personally. In many cultures over time, the people of that age utilizing the technology they had available, would take on public projects of emense proportions in order to perhaps display their technological prowess or use of man power, such as the Egyptian oblisk. You can't really appreciate an ancient Egyptian oblisk until you know what went into its production. The Statue of Liberty is another more recent example of collaboration. Levitated Mass uses the complicated machinery and combined man-power available to us in our era and those at LACMA are proud to have such a statement of our culture on their grounds.
That is amazing! Unfortunately I did not see this when I went to LACMA. I'll make sure to go again and see this. Seems interesting!
While driving along the freeway, I spotted this 340 ton massive rock a couple of times during its transportation process from Riverside to LA and then later viewed it after it was installed at LACMA. I wasn't aware that its concept and plan dates back to four decades! That's crazy! It was also interesting to learn that the artist had unsuccessfully attempted to create this artwork before in Nevada, with a rock half the weight of this one.
Selda Kapci
Art 5
I witnessed this rock at LACMA at my last visit. However I was not aware of how much it did weigh! I should not have been suprised though based off of how huge it is. I also was unaware of all the background information on it and how it got here! Amazing how much work into it, I'm glad it was finished.
Samantha Contreras
Art 3
5/13/07
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