Levitated Mass: The Story of Michael Heizer’s Monolithic Sculpture (2013) dir. Doug Pray. 7.2/10
My sculpture TA recommended this documentary to me and I’m not a fan of documentaries but decided to give this one a shot. I ended up liking it a lot. Levitated Mass is a sculpture that I have seen at LACMA a numerous amount of times and I have never appreciated it as much as I have after watching this documentary. I was able to see the journey that this huge mass of rock made through the various Los Angeles cities. I even saw it go down the streets of my hometown and I truly felt like family with this piece of rock. I only wish I was able to see its movement live in 2012. That would have been awesome but knowing that I can see this any day makes me feel as if I’m witnessing history being made.
One of my art professors told me that process is unimportant. The product is what matters. But, when it comes to this sculpture, I beg to differ. The process helped me think more about this piece and appreciate it much more. This rock creates controversy. It provokes thought. Some people do not understand it. Some people look at it in awe. A lot of people are skeptical. Why are we spending $10 million on a rock when so many people are unemployed? How is this art? Anyone can move a rock. Most people argue at how stupid contemporary art is. Some people say that you can distinguish contemporary art from other art by saying that it is something that anyone can do but they just choose not to. I disagree with this also. This documentary shows you how arduous this process is. All this planning and all these deadlines and all these guidelines that have to be followed to please a bunch of different cities and a bunch of different people. This is a public display and it has to please the public. No one without a strong conviction and without a strong message would go through this troublesome procedure.
What I mostly like about this piece is that it is a strange twist on land art. Michael Heizer has many sculptures that are located in nature and away from the museum, but with this piece, he brings nature back into a museum. It makes me see it in a new perspective. Nature vs. human. Today, I was walking on campus and thinking how crazy it is that the school always has construction on campus and how we destroy nature from time to time to create a nicer place. They do these renovations so easily, but now we see this rock that is so complicated to move. Like, we can do so much with our current technology but moving one, big rock was such a huge hassle. Art is not what it seems and I’m glad that Heizer kept pushing through with this project. What a man.
