When you think of a gigantic rock, you don’t necessarily think Los Angels County Museum of Art (LACMA). Nor would you think of transporting a 340-tonne boulder, measuring 139 meters long and almost 5 meters wide. Well, artist, Michael Heiser did just that and shared the journey with all and immortalized the phrase that comes to my mind ‘moving mountains’.
The sculpture comprising of diorite granite and concrete took an 11-night voyage travelling from Pyrite-Hubbs Quarry in Riverside U.S County to LACMA. A 169-kilometre journey across 22 cities through the Los Angeles landscape.
His innate attraction to creating large scale pieces was not too dissimilar and inspired by the works of Jackson Pollock; “The history of American art in a way begins with Jackson Pollock and his big paintings,” he said. Heiser also says “this theme of bigness — all painters and sculptors have dealt with it ever since.”
“My paintings are big too. I’m not very good at making small stuff,”
Heiser’s creative mind manifested this idea back in 1969 and I guess it’s safe to say his intrigue with large-scale works is what drew him to such a challenge. Delayed by almost 40 years with transportation technology not being quite up to scratch back in that early 70s, the shipment was half the art of this piece and was as much entertaining (to the public and observers tracking its movements) as it was challenging. Positioning, well that took a 700-tonne crane to swivel and station this monolithic sculpture into perfect place and “it landed perfectly… exactly as it was intended” [Heizer] setting the piece high above a deep trench designed to encourage art aficionados to walk directly under the boulder to feel is true mass suspended.
With no change from $10 million dollars donated from museum benefactors, creating and designing a space for its surroundings would result in reflecting a close resemblance of the boulders origins from the Riverside Quarry. Although this may not be oil on canvas in ‘typical art’ form, the sheer nature in visualizing, manufacturing the process and mounting a piece of nature of this scale deserves much merit. ”What I liked about this rock was 98% size, 2% looks.”
“The size thing is not some gimmick or attention-getting trick but a genuine undercurrent of the work,” Heizer said. “Frank Gehry, for instance, likes to imagine his buildings as sculptures. I like to imagine my sculptures as architectural” [Heizer].
Till next time.
Robbie – Dapper Lounge
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