Heizer interviewed

The LAtimes scored a rare interview with the reclusive artist of Levitated Mass (opening June 24 at LACMA).

Photo: Mark Boster, Los Angeles Times / May 24, 2012)

“I think there is a draw from the rock itself, a magnetism we will see when the sculpture is completed,” he said. “But will the artwork have the same interest value as moving the rock around did?” … “I make static art, not dynamic art. That’s what I do.”

Static art” is Heizer’s shorthand for the longevity or durability of projects like the boulder installation, designed “to last 3,500 years,”

…”What I liked about this rock was 98% size, 2% looks.”

“The size thing is not some gimmick or attention-getting trick but a genuine undercurrent of the work,” Heizer said. “Frank Gehry for instance likes to imagine his buildings as sculptures. I like to imagine my sculptures as architectural.”

“The history of American art in a way begins with Jackson Pollock and his big paintings,” he said. “This theme of bigness — all painters and sculptors have dealt with it ever since.”

“My paintings are big too. I’m not very good at making small stuff,”

Aqueduct Futures – Fall 2012 Studios

This post is a place holder for the detailed description of LA301L and LA401L at Cal Poly Pomona for Fall 2012. These studios are focusing on the Los Angeles Aqueduct as we approach the centennial to it’s opening on November 5, 1913, where William Mulholland famously said: ‘There it is. Take it.’

301L Aqueduct Futures

This studio will map and analyze the Los Angeles Aqueduct and its associated landscape, identifying sites to design interpretive landscapes that celebrates the Aqueduct’s legacy in developing Southern California, while also addresses the social and environmental impacts caused by transferring water from Owens Valley to Los Angeles.

401L – Lehrman: Aqueduct Futures

Will explore the future of the Los Angeles Aqueduct and how it shaped the development of California.  Projects will develop speculative forms of water conveyance, water purification, water harvesting, watershed/habitat restoration, and energy production along the 230-mile long Los Angeles Aqueduct right of way that also provide for habitat and cultural uses.

Bibliographics references here.

 

Water World

A new visualization of all the water in the world from Howard Perlmann of the USGS balls up all the water on earth.

Spheres representing all of Earth’s water, Earth’s liquid fresh water, and water in lakes and rivers

The largest sphere represents all of Earth’s water, and its diameter is about 860 miles (the distance from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Topeka, Kansas). It would have a volume of about 332,500,000 cubic miles (mi³) (1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers (km³)). The sphere includes all the water in the oceans, ice caps, lakes, and rivers, as well as groundwater, atmospheric water, and even the water in you, your dog, and your tomato plant.

Liquid fresh water

The blue sphere over Kentucky represents the world’s liquid fresh water (groundwater, lakes, swamp water, and rivers). The volume comes to about 2,551,100 mi³ (10,633,450 km³), of which 99 percent is groundwater, much of which is not accessible to humans. The diameter of this sphere is about 169.5 miles (272.8 kilometers).

Water in lakes and rivers

Do you notice that “tiny” bubble over Atlanta, Georgia? That one represents fresh water in all the lakes and rivers on the planet, and most of the water people and life of earth need every day comes from these surface-water sources. The volume of this sphere is about 22,339 mi³ (93,113 km³). The diameter of this sphere is about 34.9 miles (56.2 kilometers). Yes, Lake Michigan looks way bigger than this sphere, but you have to try to imagine a bubble almost 35 miles high—whereas the average depth of Lake Michigan is less than 300 feet (91 meters).

Gigapan Earth

An educator named James Drake obtained over 350 full-resolution photos from the NTs OMZ (Russian Research Center for Earth Operative Monitoring), and used them to make several videos showcasing a day in the life of Earth. The satellite takes a full image of Earth from its stationary point over 35,000 kilometers above the Indian Ocean every 30 minutes, providing the material for the video below. The images have a resolution of one kilometer per pixel, and the one you see above was taken on May 14, 2011

gigapan.com  via SFGate

Los Angeles Urbanisms

At the Carlson-Reges House, Moulton Ave, Los Angeles, Wednesday, May 30th 9-6pm

Wilderman/Pullman Studio @9am

Ayyuce/Becera Studio @12pm

The Wilcox/Lehrman Studio @ 3pm

UD Studio review notice [pdf]

LA Aqueduct Bibliography 2012

I revisited the LA Aqueduct for a grant proposal related to the upcoming centennial of it’s opening (stay tuned), and started updating my earlier bibliography. My methodology was searching via google scholar, amazon.com and cal poly’s library. Items in bold are seminal books and essential reading about the LA Aqueduct. The links take you to the most recent edition of the book.

(all images by HAER/Library of Congress.)

OWENS RIVER DIVERSION GATES

2012

• Troy, Austin. 2012. ‘Thirsty City’ in The Very Hungry City.Yale University Press Excerpt published 1/23/2012 at Design Observer: Places. places.designobserver.com/feature/the-very-hungry-city/32058/

2011

• Barraclough, Laura R. 2011. Making the San Fernando Valley: Rural Landscapes, Urban Development, and White Privilege. University of Georgia Press.
• deBuys, William. 2011. A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest. Oxford University Press.
• Piper, Karen. 01.24.2011. ‘Dreams, Dust and Birds: The Trashing of Owens Lake’ in Places: Design Observer.
• Prud’homme, Alex. 2011. The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the Twenty-First Century. Scribner.
• Solomon, Steven. 2011. Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization. Harper Perennial.
• Wanamaker, Marc. 2011. San Fernando Valley (Images of America). Arcadia Publishing.

2010

• Creason, Glen. 2010. Los Angeles in Maps. Rizzoli.
• Cunningham, Laura. 2010. State of Change, A: Forgotten Landscapes of California. Heyday.
• Ostrom, Vincent. 2010. Water & Politics A Study of Water Policies and Administration in the Development of Los Angeles. Martino Press.

2009

• Black, Maggie and Jannet King. 2009. The Atlas of Water: Mapping the World’s Most Critical Resource. University of California Press.
• Karelius, Brad. 2009. The Spirit in the Desert: Pilgrimages to Sacred Sites in the Owens Valley. Book Surge Publishing.
• Varner, Gary R. 2009. The Owens Valley Paiute – A Cultural History. lulu.com.

2008

• Lehrman, Barry. 2008. “Reconstructing the Void: Owens Lake.” In: The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles, ed. Kazys Varnelis. Barcelona: Los Angeles Forum for Architecture/Columbia Networked Urbanism Lab/ACTAR Press.

Alabama Gates

Untitled Infrastructures by Andy Wilcox

There are many cool things about co-teaching with Andy Wilcox this quarter at Cal Poly, a highlights has been our discussions about wildness and infrastructure. Even if he wasn’t a valued colleague, his paintings falls into the genre of infrastructural art that is frequently explored here (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7). So I’m very happy to help publicize his current show at Curbside Gallery in Santa Ana.

Untitled Infrastructures

Andy Wilcox

In the adaptation to and of the nascent and seemingly unorganized wild of the in-between lays a fertile future. There is a hidden layer of the city that crouches between roadways and bridges, factories and rails, curbs and gutters—a collateral infrastructure of mythic potential.  Accepting this condition as the foundational structure for a higher functioning future, Untitled Infrastructures envisions a future of feral values and a wilder future.  Welcome to the wilderness.

Opening reception May 5th, 7pm-11pm
Curbside Gallery
Santa Ana
http://curbsidegallery.com/
https://www.facebook.com/curbsidegallery

Andy applied for the Rome Prize [pdf of his application] this year, but wasn’t selected.