![\"[The](\"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/vallen_levitated_mass.jpg\" "\\"[The")
Instead of paying $10 million for Michael Heizer’s 340-ton granite boulder, LACMA can purchase my 100-ton, 10-foot high boulder, titled “Alleviated Masses<\/em>“, for the amazing low price of only $1 million – that is an incredible savings of $9 million dollars! With such a sweeping reduction in expenditure LACMA can take the amount left over to help create a critically needed first-rate arts curriculum for Los Angeles school children, put into action an expanded artist residency program, and have enough left over for the purchase of artworks from contemporary artists having a hard time due to the economic downturn.<\/p>\n Mr. Heizer’s rock sits in a Riverside, California quarry, swathed in protective plastic and mounted atop a specially constructed 196-wheel transport vehicle. It has waited for bureaucrats and lawyers from several municipalities to give permission for the rock to be moved; a tremendously expensive and hazardous project, for you see, the 340-ton behemoth will tie up traffic and close streets in 22 cities. It will traverse a 105-mile route at eight miles an hour before it reaches its trench at LACMA. By comparison transporting my mere 100-ton rock will be a fantastically simple matter: street closures and traffic jams will be avoided; money and resources will be saved by doing away with bureaucratic red tape; and with the price of gasoline nearing $5 per gallon the savings in fuel expenses alone will be substantial.<\/p>\n LACMA’s director, Michael Govan, told the L.A. Times that the rock in Mr. Heizer’s installation is “ultramodern because it’s self-referential and it’s about the viewer’s experience – it doesn’t represent some god, yet it has the timeless, ancient overtones of cultures that moved monoliths, like the Egyptians, Syrians and Olmecs.”<\/p>\n My boulder may very well be smaller than the $10 million dollar rock used by Mr. Heizer, but I am sure everyone will agree it is no less profound. It is undoubtedly one of the most ultramodern boulders to be discovered anywhere in the world today. With a price tag of only $1 million, my rock does not come complete with overtones of the ancient Egyptians and Syrians, but for the price its near perfect spherical form is nevertheless highly evocative of ancient Olmec monoliths.<\/p>\n Mr. Govan obviously likes to think big, which is clearly the reason he receives annual compensation of $915,000 – more than twice the salary of a sitting U.S. president<\/a> ($400,000). Heizer’s Levitated Mass<\/em> is not the only evidence of Mr. Govan’s grandiose way of thinking. Since 2007 he has worked with the King of Kitsch, Jeff Koons, to hang an actual locomotive from a 161-foot-tall crane<\/a> to be installed on the LACMA campus. Titled Train<\/em>, the project will ultimately cost $25 million, but it is currently on hold due to the worldwide crash of the capitalist system.<\/p>\n No doubt the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression has prevented Michael Govan from going forward with his Train<\/em> project, so in the face of widespread unemployment and economic collapse Govan has wisely chosen to persevere with the less costly $10 million boulder.<\/p>\n All the same, perhaps the gargantuan un-carved rock is still a bit steeply-priced given the shaky economic situation; I humbly suggest that LACMA and Mr. Govan seriously consider purchasing my slightly scaled-down, easy on the pocket, land art installation – Alleviated Masses<\/em>.<\/p>\n I enthusiastically await Mr. Govan’s inquiries, and sincerely hope my 100-ton boulder will soon have a new home at LACMA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Not long ago, while taking one of my periodic trips to the high desert country of California, I happened upon a colossal boulder straddling a stony crevasse. Walking through the gravel-strewn gulch directly beneath the huge rounded mass of rock, I recognized the great boulder as the answer to all my dreams of becoming a postmodern “land artist”. As it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lacma"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"](\"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/vallen_big_rock_concept.jpg\" "\\"")