Just got back from stalking the biggest rock star in town. It is the centerpiece (wrapped in white material for the trip to reduce damage) of what will be the Levitated Mass piece by Michael Heizer, at LACMA, and it has been trundled over the last ten days or so from Riverside to Los Angeles in little late night journey, and as I speak is heading to its resting place at LACMA down Wilshire Boulevard. The picture is it when it was passing USC (my place of work) at about 10:45pm Friday night, trundling down Figueroa. This $10 million operation (involving a huge entourage of vehicles equipped to temporarily dismantle utilities and other things that get in the way as it moves along the route) in the name of art has been quite a sensation the last few days in Southern California, and I imagine it will get a lot of visitors to LACMA as well, just as a result of all the publicity surrounding the 340 ton piece of granite. You can learn much more about this all at numerous sites, such as here.
The vehicle itself is impressive in size, as you can perhaps see from this sequence of photos (that I should have glued together):
The transportation late at night reminds me of similar transportation that goes on when large components of scientific equipment need to be transported (parts of particle accelerators, rockets and satellites, secret military devices, and so on and so forth), sometimes trundling very slowly through your area while you sleep. Exciting!
-cvj
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Great title post! Thought something else – brilliant night time spectacle! cmj+
It felt like a parade to me, with everyone lined up along the street with their kids, waiting for the float to pass by! Which turned out to be a 340 ton rock that was, indeed, floating. And everyone waved at the rock people in their costumes, who waved back. I loved it!