Art Is Laughing at Us, and I Laugh Back

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is getting a new addition: a 340-ton boulder that will be suspended over a 456-foot slot dug into the earth. Today, the LA Times documents the mind-boggling logistics and expense of moving this piece of commonplace granite from a quarry in Riverside to a Wilshire Boulevard trench:

If all this seems excessive, the artist’s assistant, Tim Cunningham, is quick to play devil’s advocate. “I’ve found it amusing from what I’ve read in the press about the expense, the naysayers. It’s as viable as any other public works project,” he insists. “And this is creating jobs above and beyond the aesthetic appeal — for Emmert, the riggers, the truckers, the utility guys working overtime — and the country needs jobs.”

So that’s where we are: art as a jobs program. LACMA itself, of course, takes the usual turgid and pretentious art museum approach toward its new baby: “Taken whole, Levitated Mass speaks to the expanse of art history, from ancient traditions of creating artworks from monolithic stone, to modern forms of abstract geometries and cutting-edge feats of engineering.”

At this point, I think these guys are all just laughing at us. Apparently, we’re now willing to spend $10 million to haul a rock a hundred miles, plop it down in front of a building, and pretend that we’re saying something profound. I guess I’d laugh too if someone were willing to pay me that kind of money to create, say, a room filled with 340 tons of blank books. And why not? It would be every bit as meaningful.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate