Art News

Los Angeles’ latest art project is 340 tons, rock solid and costing $5 million to $10 million

LOS ANGELES (AP).- King Sisyphus, it turns out, had little on the folks at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to push a giant rock up a hill for eternity. In modern-day LA, the city’s largest museum has spent months — and $5 million to $10 million — trying to get a 340-ton boulder from a dusty quarry in Riverside onto its campus west of downtown. When the teardrop-shaped chunk of granite finally arrives it will become the focal point of acclaimed earth artist Michael Heizer’s latest creation, “Levitated Mass.” Museum visitors by the thousands are expected to walk under what will be one of the largest environmental art creations ever placed in an urban setting. Heizer “came up in a generation that wasn’t just about what