Levitated Mass

In1968, land artist Michael Heizer drew a sketch of a rock balanced above a trench and named it Levitated Mass. Then he waited. As the decades passed friends, and sometimes strangers, would alert the reclusive artist to rocks that resembled the one in his sketch. None quite fit the bill. Then, in 2005, a quarry owner in Southern California called him with some news, “I’ve found your rock.” The 340-ton piece of granite in question, hewn from a quarry in Riverside, was the perfect manifestation of the one in the sketch Heizer drew in 1968. The artist paid $70,000 and the deal was done.  The boulder is one of the largest megaliths moved since ancient times. Taken whole, Levitated Mass speaks to the expanse of art history, from ancient traditions of creating artworks from megalithic stone, to modern forms of abstract geometries and cutting-edge feats of engineering.  After traveling for 11 days through four counties and twenty-two cities, the rock arrived at LACMA this weekend, greeted by revelers honoring its final destination.  

The rock will be placed in the center of a 456-foot-long concrete-lined slot constructed on LACMA’s campus.  As visitors walk along the slot, it will gradually descend to fifteen feet deep, and the rock will appear to be levitating above.