I have always been obsessed with all things outside of the present; anything old, prehistoric, ancient, or even remotely vintage fascinates me. Only recently have I become interested in the modern world, and even more so a future within and outside of earth. Perhaps this is why I was so curious about Heizer’s own fascination with morphing the technological with the primordial. Sometimes it feels as though we have lost the art of things. Modernization has become synonymous with easy, efficient, cheap. Don’t get me wrong; there is definitely an art to creating technology, to creating (or manufacturing) goods for consumption, but it feels as though the motivation behind the creation of these things has changed. It’s all about money. And maybe it always has been and I’m just idealizing a time in order to convince myself that a shift back to purer artistic intentions is possible. I think I’m thinking on a more institutional level here, as people like Heizer (though I have some issues with him) and other artists are motivated purely by passion for their work.
I got off track for a moment; back to the technological and the primordial. Art I have created in the past has been done in the traditional sense; mundane subject matter, paint and canvas, and while I have always put my own dreamy twist on my art, I didn’t really consider technology as having a place in my work. Now a lot of my work is focused on using technology to create pieces, and I have been enjoying the learning process immensely. I think moving forward, though, I would like to focus on blending the two together. Not exactly in the way and the spectacle that Heizer did it (...it really is just a rock), but I admire him for his ideas. Another thing that stuck out to me is the idea of “using earth as medium”, as someone in the documentary said. I think Heizer did this really well with City more so that with Levitated Mass. With City, he created a mythological and monumental structure that looks like it was simply raised up from within the ground. In my own work, I would absolutely love to experiment with something so monumental, so futuristically unreal, yet so real because of its physical roots within the earth.
Lastly, I have to comment on the spectacle of it all, and the sense of community generated by the transportation of the rock. I really do think the excitement and joy created by this event was a beautiful thing, and I wish I could remember what it was like when it went through my part of town. This was art in and of itself. At the same time, though, it really is ridiculous. And by taking this rock through marginalized communities, was it making art more accessible, or accentuating the exclusivity of it all? Highlighting how people with money care more about funding a rock then they do about helping others.
Going beyond the idea of ancient structures and replicating the creation of them, what does it mean to build something that will outlast humanity simply because “it takes more energy to wreck than its worth”? Is the art then worthless in the first place? Is any art worthless if it has meaning to the artist? I wonder if this is why Heizer experimented a lot with negative space; you can’t destroy something that doesn’t exist in the first place. Doesn’t physically exist, at least. But then can that even be considered art, if the negative space is what the artist views as the art, but it doesn’t exist? Many convoluted questions, so little answers. How does this relate to my work, I ask? I love the idea of destruction as art, and of things that don’t exist as art (not necessarily negative space, though). There is beauty in the ruins of great cities, just as much or maybe even more than when they were fully intact.
I also found it so unbearably human how Heizer rejected entropy in his work purely out of spite for another artist. Absolute control and precision took over his work. If this worked for him, that’s great), but at least in my own work I’d like to start experimenting with and embracing entropy. Not entirely sure how exactly I want to go about this...i’ll muse on this a bit more.