When artists turn to stone
I love L.A.! Only in Los Angeles would the slow motion of a moving rock make news [“Westward, Ho! for LACMA’S Art Rock,” by Deborah Vankin and Phil Willon, March 1]. I’m really glad that it has.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has had so many wonderful and groundbreaking (no pun intended) exhibitions in its day, but it has never received the “hoopla” that this giant rock has gotten.
I guess art is really in the eye of the beholder. Whatever it takes to make people aware of what is happening around them is great. Now LACMA will be recognized for the museum that it is, even if it took a “rock star” to put it on the radar.
Sherry Davis
Playa Vista
Having spent most of my 64-year life as a filmmaker and exhibiting painter, with the open mind one associates with such pursuits, I was nonetheless shocked to see the energy and monies dedicated to the movement of a 340-ton boulder from one county to another — all in the name of “art.”
If only LACMA and artist Michael Heizer had considered a work entitled “Potholes” instead....
Patric Mcmenamin
Woodland Hills
I’ll admit I was a bit skeptical about this project when I first heard about it. It’s just a big rock, right? And the costs ... yikes!
But after attending a talk about “Levitated Mass” by [LACMA Director] Michael Govan, whose enthusiasm was addictive, I became a believer. I now love the rock! And I can see the brilliance (intended or not) of having this behemoth move slowly around the greater L.A. basin as it inches its way to the museum. It will be seen by untold thousands of residents, most with little or no previous connection to the mysterious and elitist world of contemporary art. It will be photographed, it will be talked about, it will become “our” rock, something to be remembered.
I suspect it will draw many of these same roadside viewers to visit the museum, perhaps for the first time, to engage with its permanent placement.
Mark Johnson
Marina Del Rey
Another story about LACMA’S big rock, another reminder of why I joined the Norton Simon.
Gregory Farmer
Brea
Here is a perfect example of a lot of hype for the “emperor’s new clothes.” Just because Mr. Govan said it is a work of art does not make it so.
Adam Mekler
Pasadena