The Low-Down:

For some, art offers a rare diversion from the realities of everyday life.

For others, it is a hobby that is enjoyed on a regular basis.

Yet, for Michael Heizer, it is a way of life.

Throughout the past 40 years, Heizer, a world-renowned sculptor, has designed some of the largest works of art in the U.S., including Double Negative,a 1,500-foot-long and 50-foot-deep trench, and City, a 1.25-mile-long sculpture.

Heizer’s latest masterpiece? Levitated Mass, an outdoor sculpture located at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which will feature a 21.5-foot-high and 340-ton granite boulder as its centerpiece.

The mass will also include a 456-foot-long slot in the ground directly below the boulder. While walking through the slot, which will be roughly 15 feet deep, museum guests will have a unique viewing experience as the boulder will literally appear to levitate above them.

Quite simply, no other work of art will likely match the distinctiveness of Levitated Mass in appearance, creation, or even logistics.

To transport the boulder from Riverside, Calif., to the museum, Emmert International, an organization headquartered near Portland, Ore., which moves exceedingly large objects such as nuclear missiles, has been hired by the museum.

To successfully complete the task, Emmert’s team will need to build a transporter to surround the boulder. The transporter alone will be roughly 200 feet long and as wide as three highway lanes.

Additionally, the organization will have to construct a road out of the quarry in which the boulder is currently located.

Upon doing that, the boulder will then be moved 85 miles at a pace of about 10 miles per hour. Such a journey will take approximately 10 days to complete.

“I don’t see dangers, just logistical challenges,” says John Bowsher, Emmert International project manager, during an interview with the LA Times.

“Turning is an enormous effort. To turn something 200 feet long—you don’t take those turns at 30 miles an hour like we do.”

Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan believes the boulder may be one of the largest—and heaviest—objects that has been moved in modern times, bar none.

“It’s much contested, the movement of monoliths in ancient times,” Govan tells the LA Times.“But it is pretty clear that this is one of the largest monoliths that’s ever been moved.”

Furthermore, to fully implement the journey, various stop and street lights, as well as utility lines, will need to be removed momentarily so the boulder can successfully be driven through metropolitan areas.

Levitated Mass, which will cost museum patrons and other donors an estimated $5-10 million, should be completed by the end of November. wt

Check it out:

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/22/entertainment/la-et-heizer-rock-20110922