Page 115 - Hrobat Virloget, Katja, et al., eds. (2015). Stone narratives: heritage, mobility, performance. University of Primorska Press, Koper.
P. 115
»Wanna walk under the Rock?«:
Land art, time, and tourist passages
Irena Weber
‘tis a rock, ‘s not art, it came from nature! If he carved it and made something then we could see the sculpture then’s different
can’t say »I’m an artist, this is my rock«, na-ah, you ain’t create that bro’!
A spectator’s statement in the documentary Levitated Mass
The rock is a constituent component of a sculpture that has essentially three components: the rock, which is the object, the
articulation of the object is the slot in the ground, that material is air, negative space we moved from the ground, which is as unique
as the object, so you have a lot of object and you also have a lot of absence of the most obvious object of all, the earth, it’s air and rock,
and it’s defined by the concrete, which also functions, it holds it up, so components: slot, negative object, positive, the articulate,
that is what defines it as a sculpture.
Michael Heizer’s, statement in the documentary Levitated Mass
A lot of conceptual art, I think, is very difficult for people to relate to and to understand what’s going on. The beautiful thing about
this work, regardless whether we know anything about Heizer’s work - it’s a beautiful rock, the way it’s sided along the concrete
rails and the effect of watching people walk toward the rock, and they disappear under it and then come out the other side,
I don’t think you have to understand anything about the concept at all to appreciate it. It makes me smile.
An art collector’s statement in the documentary Levitated Mass
Introduction
This is an American story. A particular biography of a certain rock, its existence as an idea
and material, its road trip and its place ma(r)king. Staged and performed in California.
Stemming in part from the mythopoetic places of American Southwest, its iconic deserts,
roads and trails woven into the frontier literature and movies. Framed within the Ame-
rican land art of the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is, as it were, a site-specific story. Yet the
spur to write this story did not arise from my being in South California1 at the time, but
from a tiny detail that stuck with me like one of Benjamin’s fragments in the One Way Stre-
et. Namely the original drawings of the main protagonist of this story, a (conceptual) rock
turned sculpture, entitled Levitated Mass by Michael Heizer, are part of the Egidio Mar-
zona collection, donated to the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Before the sabbatical, I knew
nothing of Levitated Mass, and was not familiar with Heizer’s work. The first mention of
the rock I came across was on the LACMA’s2 website when planning a trip to Los Ange-
les. Having had a rare opportunity to choose any form, shape or size of rocks, boulders, sto-
nes, pebbles to produce a story for the edited volume, I was initially drawn to the intrigu-
ing »sailing stones« of Death Valley, as well as everyday uses of stones I’ve encountered
walking the neighbourhoods in San Diego, the rock gardens and stone designs in the cany-
on which was a delightful shortcut to the SDSU campus. Nearly every week there would
be some new or at least amended stone arrangement in the canyon, at the side of the path
or on the slopes. It seemed like a handy opportunity to make sense of stone designs by tal-
1 I am very grateful to San Diego State University, Department of Geography and Stuart Aitken in particular for
hosting my research sabbatical in spring semester of 2015.
2 LACMA - Los Angeles County Museum of Art
113
Land art, time, and tourist passages
Irena Weber
‘tis a rock, ‘s not art, it came from nature! If he carved it and made something then we could see the sculpture then’s different
can’t say »I’m an artist, this is my rock«, na-ah, you ain’t create that bro’!
A spectator’s statement in the documentary Levitated Mass
The rock is a constituent component of a sculpture that has essentially three components: the rock, which is the object, the
articulation of the object is the slot in the ground, that material is air, negative space we moved from the ground, which is as unique
as the object, so you have a lot of object and you also have a lot of absence of the most obvious object of all, the earth, it’s air and rock,
and it’s defined by the concrete, which also functions, it holds it up, so components: slot, negative object, positive, the articulate,
that is what defines it as a sculpture.
Michael Heizer’s, statement in the documentary Levitated Mass
A lot of conceptual art, I think, is very difficult for people to relate to and to understand what’s going on. The beautiful thing about
this work, regardless whether we know anything about Heizer’s work - it’s a beautiful rock, the way it’s sided along the concrete
rails and the effect of watching people walk toward the rock, and they disappear under it and then come out the other side,
I don’t think you have to understand anything about the concept at all to appreciate it. It makes me smile.
An art collector’s statement in the documentary Levitated Mass
Introduction
This is an American story. A particular biography of a certain rock, its existence as an idea
and material, its road trip and its place ma(r)king. Staged and performed in California.
Stemming in part from the mythopoetic places of American Southwest, its iconic deserts,
roads and trails woven into the frontier literature and movies. Framed within the Ame-
rican land art of the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is, as it were, a site-specific story. Yet the
spur to write this story did not arise from my being in South California1 at the time, but
from a tiny detail that stuck with me like one of Benjamin’s fragments in the One Way Stre-
et. Namely the original drawings of the main protagonist of this story, a (conceptual) rock
turned sculpture, entitled Levitated Mass by Michael Heizer, are part of the Egidio Mar-
zona collection, donated to the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Before the sabbatical, I knew
nothing of Levitated Mass, and was not familiar with Heizer’s work. The first mention of
the rock I came across was on the LACMA’s2 website when planning a trip to Los Ange-
les. Having had a rare opportunity to choose any form, shape or size of rocks, boulders, sto-
nes, pebbles to produce a story for the edited volume, I was initially drawn to the intrigu-
ing »sailing stones« of Death Valley, as well as everyday uses of stones I’ve encountered
walking the neighbourhoods in San Diego, the rock gardens and stone designs in the cany-
on which was a delightful shortcut to the SDSU campus. Nearly every week there would
be some new or at least amended stone arrangement in the canyon, at the side of the path
or on the slopes. It seemed like a handy opportunity to make sense of stone designs by tal-
1 I am very grateful to San Diego State University, Department of Geography and Stuart Aitken in particular for
hosting my research sabbatical in spring semester of 2015.
2 LACMA - Los Angeles County Museum of Art
113
