science

Levitated Mass

Levitated Mass is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Levitated Mass rather than just read about it. In short: Levitated Mass is a 2012 large-scale public art by Michael Heizer at Resnick North Lawn at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The installation consists of a 340-ton boulder placed above a 456 feet (139 m) viewing pathway to accommodate 360-degree viewing.

Key takeaways

Levitated Mass belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Levitated Mass to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Levitated Mass from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Levitated Mass is a 2012 large-scale public art by Michael Heizer at Resnick North Lawn at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The installation consists of a 340-ton boulder placed above a 456 feet (139 m) viewing pathway to accommodate 360-degree viewing. The nature, expense and scale of the installation attracted discussion within the public art world, and its notable 106 miles (171 km) transit from the Jurupa Valley Quarry in Riverside County was widely covered by the media. The piece is open to the public during museum hours and does not require museum admission.

Concept and construction

The work is composed of a 21.5-foot (6.55 m) tall boulder mounted on the walls of a 456-foot (138.98 m) long concrete trench, surrounded by 2.5 acres (1.0 ha) of compressed decomposed granite. The boulder is bolted to two shelves affixed to the inner walls of the trench, which descends from ground level to 15 feet (4.5 m) below the stone at its center, allowing visitors to stand directly below the megalith. Initial plans for the work described the boulder as being affixed to the trench walls themselves, giving the boulder the appearance of "floating" when viewed from within the trench via optical illusion, hence the work's title. Support shelves were subsequently required, which arguably compromised the floating effect. A 1982 Heizer work in Manhattan, also called Levitated Mass, consists of a much smaller, carved rock set on hidden supports, and does preserve this "floating" effect. Heizer rarely explains or comments on his work and has never offered a public explanation of Levitated Mass's meaning or significance. He has however described the piece as being "static art" and emphasized the importance of the boulder's size and of the work's longevity, saying that the work is meant to last 3,500 years. LACMA has published a preliminary sketch of the work by Heizer that contains a handwritten notation saying that the work "destroys 'gestalt' concepts".

History

Heizer first conceived of the work in 1968, and attempted its construction using a 120-ton boulder in 1969. This attempt was abandoned, however, when the boom of the crane being used to lift the boulder broke. In December 2006, Heizer discovered a new 340-ton rock at Stone Valley Quarry in Jurupa Valley, California, in Riverside County while preparing a different project. With the help of LACMA director Michael Govan, funding was secured for the boulder's removal and transportation and for the construction of the finished work at the museum. The cost of the project has been estimated at $10 million, and was funded entirely via private donations. The boulder was originally scheduled for transport in August 2011. Due to the difficulty in securing permits for the journey, the trip was repeatedly delayed, with the boulder finally leaving the quarry at the end of February 2012. The rock was loaded onto a 295 feet (90 m) long, 196-wheeled transporter custom-built by Emmert International. Because of the transporter's size and needs, the boulder could only be moved at night at a maximum speed of about 7 miles per hour (11 km/h). Though the quarry is located less than 60 miles (97 km) from the LACMA campus, a circuitous 106 miles (171 km) route traversing 22 cities in 4 counties was taken in order to avoid busier roads or overpasses that could not support the combined weight of the boulder and transporter. Numerous trees were cut down, cars towed and traffic lights temporarily removed in order to facilitate the transporter's movement. The rock itself was wrapped in cotton sheets and an outer layer of thick plastic before being loaded onto the transporter. The trip took 11 days, with large crowds gathering to see the boulder both in motion and while parked during the day. Spontaneous block parties and at least one marriage proposal took place at the transporter's various resting places. The transporter finally arrived at LACMA at 4:30 am on March 10, 2012. A crowd estimated at over 1,000 assembled to see the installation's arrival. Completion of the concrete trench and the final securing of the boulder took an additional three months. The installation was opened to the public on June 24, 2012, at a ceremony attended by Govan, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and the famously reclusive Heizer himself.

Reception Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight said that Levitated Mass was "a good sculpture if not a great one", describing the dichotomy of a desert landscape cut into Los Angeles's urban metropolis and of the sculpture's permanence in a comparatively fragile cityscape. Adding "as monoliths go, the stone seems rather modest." During the journey of Levitated Mass's boulder from quarry to museum, French artist Régis Perray moved a toy dump truck carrying 340 grams of dust from the vault of the Chartres Cathedral as a work entitled 340 Grammes Déplacés... during Levitated Mass by Michael Heizer. The work curated by Observatoire du Land Art was a transatlantic action performed as an "echo" of Levitated Mass's simultaneous displacement of 340 tons of rock. Complex magazine listed Levitated Mass as one of its 50 Most Iconic Artworks of the Past Five Years. A parody/tribute work by Mungo Thomson, entitled Levitating Mass, was commissioned by the Aspen Art Museum and appeared at the 2012 Aspen Old-Fashioned Fourth of July Parade, just ten days after the public opening of the original work. It consists of a one-half scale helium balloon replica of Levitated Mass's central boulder. Boulder Mass: The Levitation is a short-subject avant-garde film by director Joseph Quinn. Levitated Mass: The Story of Michael Heizer's Monolithic Sculpture, a documentary by filmmaker Doug Pray, debuted at LACMA's Bing Theater on June 20, 2013, as part of the Los Angeles Film Festival. The film focuses on the transport of the boulder from Riverside to Los Angeles, while also examining Heizer's body of work.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Levitated Mass

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Levitated Mass claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Levitated Mass before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Levitated Mass ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Levitated Mass

In research: Levitated Mass appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Levitated Mass in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Levitated Mass is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2012 sculptures, Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Individual rocks, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Levitated Mass outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Levitated Mass in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Levitated Mass means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Levitated Mass out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Levitated Mass in simple terms?

Why does Levitated Mass matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Levitated Mass?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Levitated Mass.