_______________
Marcelo Moscheta Anti-Gravitational Magnetic Pole, 2009
62 photographs on transparency film, aluminum boxes, LEDs lamps, wires and electrical components, PVC, plexiglass, iron and steel wires

 

______________
u/ibm untitled, 2022
sdxl

 

______________
Lee Ufan Relatum – Silence, 2014
steel, stone

 

______________
Olivia Moore and Richard Yanas Rock Hard / Soft Rock, 2011
‘Yanas’ unaltered and digitally manipulated photographs both inform and confuse, causing the viewer to call into question the authenticity of every image. Like Yanas, Moore plays with fact and fiction through the reproduction of objects, which reference the landscape.’

 

______________
Jim Hodges Untitled, 2011
Hodges sheathed four granite boulders in lacquered stainless steel

 

______________
Olafur Eliasson HALF A ROCK (THE OTHER HALF WAS GIVEN TO THE STONE CUTTER FOR CUTTING THE STONE), 2009
dolerite

 

______________
Abraham Poincheval Pierre, 2017
‘A French artist emerged from a week entombed inside a 12-tonne rock Wednesday and said he was “a little stunned” by the experience. Abraham Poincheval, 44, had difficulty walking as he was helped from the stone onto a chair before being taken away for a medical examination.

‘His extreme performance in a Paris art museum has become something of a sensation in the French capital, with crowds thronging the Palais de Tokyo to watch him inside through an infra-red camera. Hundreds have tried to talk to him through a crack in the rock, with the artist telling AFP that some had read him poetry, played guitar or told him about their dreams and nightmares.

‘Poincheval, who previously spent a fortnight sewn-up inside a stuffed bear, had earlier told AFP through a crack in the limestone boulder that his confinement had been “like tripping”. “I am travelling in this rock without moving, like an astronaut,” he said, buoyed up by the fact that he had “got into people’s heads”.

‘Poincheval carved out a hole inside the rock in his own image, just big enough for him to sit up in, with a niche to hold supplies of water, soup and dried meat. Dubbed France’s most extreme artist, he will attempt to become a human hen later this month and hatch a dozen eggs by sitting on them for weeks on end.’

 

_____________
Anish Kapoor Grave, 2016
Resin and earth

 

______________
Foteini Palpana If you were written on ice you would be equally indecipherable, 2017
‘The network of crevices on the surface of a rock is viewed by the artist as a cryptogram that can be transcribed, but not necessarily interpreted.’

 

______________
Huang Yong Ping A football match of June 14 2002, 2002
Fibre de verre, bois et chauve-souris naturalisées

 

______________
Natalia Turnova The Egg and the Rock, 2021
mixed media

 

______________
Rebecca Horn Magic Rock, 2005
Special stone from the sea of the Aeolian Islands near Napoli, Mountain rock crystal from Nepal steel, motor, wood platform

 

______________
Eduardo Basualdo Teori, 2014
mixed media

 

____________
Luis Camnitzer Somebody’s Fragment, 1969
rock made with papier-mâché on a metallic structure, chord and written document with the caption “Somebody’s fragment”

 

_____________
Anna Borgman and Candy Lenk Wurf, 2022
paper maché and wood

 

_____________
Chris Burden Extreme Measures, 2013
boulder, rope

 

_____________
Amy Stephens Something Anything Everything, 2018
‘a feather rock is transported from its natural state relanding in the space’

 

____________
Ken Kelleher Union, 2020
stainless steel

 

_____________
Romain Langlois Untitled, 2021
‘Langlois uses bronze to pull boulders apart.’

 

_____________
Michael Heizer Levitated Mass, 2012
‘A giant boulder moved from a quarry in Riverside to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art over the period of ten nights in 2012.’

 

_____________
Matthijs Kok Stone Foam Stool, 2015
‘A stool with a hard look, which is unexpectedly soft.’

 

____________
Urs Fischer Untitled, 1993
‘One can always rely on Urs Fischer for a mound.’

 

____________
Katharina Grosse Rock, 2005
Rock, acrylic

 

____________
The Chapuisat Brothers No Place Like Home, 2007
‘Our constructions transform space, turning interior and exterior boundaries inside out and toying with the perception of a subjective reality. They demand visitors’ active participation, putting them into the position of being an explorer.’

 

____________
David Benjamin Sherry How Could I Have Ever Lost You, 2010
‘I turned a five foot tall boulder into a sculpture that I’d half dreamed about toward the end of a relationship.’

 

_____________
Fernanda de la Huerta Black Rock, 2020
leather, black dye

 

_____________
Zhan Wang Artificial Rock, 2016
stainless steel

 

_____________
Dove Bradshaw Radio Rock, 1998 – 2007
Sculpture, Pyrite embedded igneous rock, gold-tipped cat whisker, radio parts, speakers

 

____________
Alicja Kwade Silent Matter, 2022
‘Kwade places desk lamps up against the polished volcanic rock to create a luminous depiction of celestial bodies surrounded by the dark vacuum of space.’

 

____________
Tacita Dean Riesenbett II (floating), 2009
blackboard paint, fibre-based print mounted on paper

 

_____________
Melissa Deerskin Rock’s Eye View, 2013
Fake rock, television

 

____________
Brad Evan Taylor Growing Rock, 2020
Ceramic

 

___________
Stephane Jaspert Wave, 2007
rock, paint

 

___________
Romain Laurent Untitled, 2017
loop

 

___________
Anya Gallaccio forever changes, 2011
Bronze

 

____________
Giuseppe Penone Pietra di foglie, 2006
stone and laurel leaves

 

____________
William Tucker Persecutor, 1998
Bronze

 

____________
Taesoo Lee Mademoiselle S, 2006
Chair, boulder, platform

 

____________
Rowena Brown SET OF FOUR HOUSES ON ROCKS, 2019
Stoneware, hand-built architectural form, coloured with slips, part-glazed

 

____________
Sun Yuan & Peng Yu Teenager Teenager, 2011
simulation of sculpture, sofa, simulation of stone

 

____________
Victor unrefined work, 2015
gif

 

____________
Matthew Simmonds Byzantium, 2023
‘Stone carver Simmonds uses stone to bring these perfect ruins to life, giving them a detailed, elaborate form, that seems however somehow to be growing naturally out of the raw material.’

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** PL, Indeed, but I should add that all the other bus passengers also acted like it was normal and no big deal, so maybe that happened all the time. I do like Sonic Youth, yes. Enjoy. Oh, I feel really hesitant to judge things when I don’t know all the details/facts, but, if I were to guess, I’d say he was probably guilty of doing something in that realm. What do you think? Oh, no, I assumed you are a real entity. There have been a few times in the past when fake people commented on this blog, and I had no clue until it was revealed. I guess I’d rather start off trusting people and end up being fooled rather than starting out suspicious. Your thrill for pop culture is plenty interesting, so carry on if you like. Great talking with you too, iow. ** ellie, Hi, ellie! The film is almost finished, and the book is finished and will come out later this year. How are you? Yes, you can send me that writing. I’m slow, so it will likely take me a bit to read it, but I would definitely like to. Do you have my email? It’s [email protected]. Thanks for wanting to share it with me. ** _Black_Acrylic, In many cases, I think you’re right. It’s sad that the shows live forever, but the locations don’t. Okay, you’re in the pro-‘Ripley’ camp. Good to know. Enjoy it fully. ** Charalampos, Hi. Like I said, basically none of the movie backlots exist anymore, except for Universal’s, and it’s more for tourists to look at than for shooting things these days. I think the photos were all there, or they looked to be from my end. Are those albums you mentioned Charli albums? I only know the singles and certain tracks. Love from here (and there). ** Tosh Berman, Another thumbs up on ‘Ripley’. Gosh, will I actually have to watch it and see for myself? Seems to be getting to that point. Maybe I’ll dip. ** Dominik, Hi!!! ‘The Clown’, prosaic. I’m sure someone has titled their novel ‘The Novel’. Yes, very curious. There must be books or at least essays written about why the Japanese are into faux-submissiveness, if they are. ‘Godzilla x Kong’ has a fun opening action set piece and a fun closing action set piece, and everything else is pretty crap. But fun crap ultimately, I suppose. We saw it in this special presentation where they showed it in some extremely wide format and projected the side areas of the film on the walls of theater, so it was all around you. That was fun. But should you see it? Mm, probably not. Weird, I’m currently going through a kind of embarrassing addiction to abandoned pet rescue videos. Love making popsicles evaporate rather than melt and drip all over your hand, G. ** Matt N., Ah, good old passion, yes. ‘Hollywood Babylon’ is a lot of fun, but caution re: believing most of what it reports. Which is fun too, I guess. Worth a read, yes. You’re going to have so much fun at Madonna’s concert then, great! Report back. Zac and I are talking about the new film now, and we know generally what we want to do, but it’s still too vague to describe, I think. In a few weeks once we starting working on the script, I think we’ll have a clearer idea. Have the best day! ** Bill, 40 Acres is just a bunch of boring warehouses and apartment complexes now, sadly. I will re: ‘First Omen’. I’m not expecting a ton, by any means. But yes. ** Steve, Glad you’re at least a bit better, and hopefully another bit today. The quitting cigarettes thing is definitely a real, physical thing rather than a mental only thing. At least for me, I completely lose my concentration and focus for a long time. Like I couldn’t do the blog if I quit cigarettes. There must be something in nicotine that sharpens the mind or something. I really don’t know, but it’s a real problem, for sure. I’ll hit ‘Von dutch’ first. Too mainstream is obviously not much of a lure for me. But I’ll try. ** Harper, Hi. Stress, yeah, well, I guess that’s … better than it being something requiring a medical repair job? Or, hm, maybe not. Painkillers, gotcha. You didn’t smoke for a month? I’m awful: I’ve had bronchitis twice, and I still didn’t quit even during that. But I got better anyway, and that’s all that matters. I took one hit off a friend’s vape, and I decided, Nope. What are your other fave Pynchons? I remember really liking ‘Against the Day’. ** Corey Heiferman, Ah, yes, I think I went on a jag searching for examples of what you’re talking about, and there are a whole bunch of examples out there gathered by helpful ultra-nerds. I guess I’m taking about people who are widely thought very attractive, and who, when you’re with them, you see and feel the effect of their attractiveness on people in the vicinity. Yeah, if you want to milk the creative juice that unrequited longing creates, you have to strike the keys while the ‘iron’ is hot. Which doesn’t always last that long. ** Okay. How about if you guys give your undivided attention to the lowly rock for the next 24 hours? What do you say? See you tomorrow.

* (restored/expanded)

__________

Linkage

 

 

 

’40 Acres is the misnomer that was given to what was actually about 29 acres of land in Culver City, California, first used as a movie studio backlot in 1926 by Cecil DeMille, after he leased the property from Italian immigrate Achille Casserini (on March 22, 1926). DeMille’s production company utilized the backlot for numerous silent films, including The King of Kings (1927), for which a large Jerusalem temple and town were constructed, The Fighting Eagle (1927), The Forbidden Woman (1927) and The Godless Girl (1929), DeMille’s last silent, and for which a large reform school set was built on the lot.

‘In 1928, DeMille’s Culver City studio and backlot were acquired by RKO Pictures, whose films which employed the backlot included Bird of Paradise (1932) and the 1933 classic, King Kong. In 1937, David Selznick acquired the property in a long-term lease, and used the backlot to re-create a Civil War-era Atlanta for his 1939 epic Gone With The Wind (after filming the burning of numerous leftover sets on the lot, including the “King Kong” gate, to depict the burning of Atlanta in the film).

‘Under a variety of owners over the next two decades, the backlot appeared in dozens of films, and by the early 1950’s, the lot began to appear in television productions, including The Adventures of Superman. Pictured above in an aerial view from 1963, the backlot had recently changed ownership to Desilu Studios. For the next ten years, the backlot would provide outdoor locales for Desilu’s own television productions, as well as for series produced by others.

‘Some of the notable series filmed on 40 Acres included Hogan’s Heroes, Batman, Mission: Impossible, The Untouchables, Star Trek, Gomer Pyle, and The Andy Griffith Show for which the streets of Atlanta constructed for Gone With The Wind served as the town of “Mayberry.” Paramount Pictures eventually bought out Desilu, and in 1968, sold off the Culver City studio facilities. As the studio continued to change hands, the “40 Acres” backlot fell out of use and into disrepair in the early 1970’s, and in 1976 it was bulldozed and the land was sold to industry.’ — Retroweb.com

1972

 

____________
Then and Now:

40 ACRES BACKLOT FLY OVER (1957)

40 Acre Backlot Today

 

 

Bonanza

 

Land of the Giants

 

Gone with the Wind

 

Forbidden Woman

 

Leave It to Beaver

 

Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS

 

The Three Musketeers

 

Switchblade Sisters

Vigilante Force

 

Miracle of the Bells

 

Attack!

 

The Wild Wild West

 

Fighting Eagle

 

The Godless Girl

 

Gomer Pyle

 

King Kong

 

The King of Kings

My Three Sons

 

All Quiet on the Western Front

 

Around the World in 80 Days

 

The Set Up

 

The Real McCoys

 

Tarzan

 

Verboten

 

Mayberry RFD

 

The Untouchables

The Story of GI Joe

 

The Monkees

 

The Vampire Bat

 

Mission: Impossible

 

The Andy Griffith Show

 

The Black Room

 

Hogan’s Heroes

 

The Adventures of Superman

 

Star Trek

 

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca

 

Batman

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Happy to nudge. The clown ride … I think I missed that one. I’ll google. Thanks, yeah, I’m happy to find a publisher who’ll put it out so quickly. I don’t know exactly when yet, but I will soon. Having dipped into Japanese porn for for a long time, I’ve always been interested in why, at least in the ‘gay’ ones, the bottoms almost always act and make sounds like they’re terrified and think they’re being killed when the tops even just masturbate them much less fuck them, while always being hard as rocks the whole time. There does seem to be some kind of general fetish for faux-unwillingness in sexual fantasy there, or it’s awfully common. So, yeah, the Yaoi thing would seem to be part of that? Love given the seemingly simple task of making ‘Godzilla x Kong’, which I’m seeing at 4 pm today, fun, G. ** PL, Yeah, right in my lap and face too. Just to finish the story, the bus driver picked up the corpse, continued on to the front of the bus, opened the door, threw the corpse out onto the side of the road and then closed the door and drove on like nothing unusual had happened. Right, Kylie’s cool, I forgot her. I’m sure the Madonna show will be fun. I feel like I’ve seen almost the whole thng via all the video clips people continually share. I’m interested in hip-hop and do listen to some, but it’s a not genre I’m immediately drawn to, mostly because I’m largely into experimental music. I like Playboy Carti quite a lot. Ha ha, Xavier Dolan, yeah, that makes sense. I think the movie that made me most want to throw hand grenades at the movie screen while I was watching it is Lars von Trier’s ‘Dancer in the Dark’. His haircut, ha ha, nice. See you too! ** Matt N., Hi. Yeah, I sometimes forget to refresh the comments page before I launch the p.s./post and miss things. Ha ha, interesting about your dislike of the self-consciously weak. Kind of a nice potential character building detail maybe. I do procrastinate, but not about creative stuff, just dreaded life stuff. I always really like when I get to be friends with very attractive people. In some ways, I think I’m always studying everything for my work, or it feels like I am. I’m very interested by how attractive people’s identity and how they deal with people and the world is heavily shaped by the fact that people are almost always partly or even fully interested in them because of their looks, and how they can’t really take credit for that aspect of them other than from their abilities to groom and maintain that attractiveness. Many of the attractive people with whom I’ve been friends  have been the most deeply insecure people I’ve known, I think in some significant part due to how that interest in them is not something they’ve actively achieved. I find that fascinating. And also I think longing is a super interesting state to work with creatively, so I’m fine with exploring that state rather than physically exploring the people who inspired it, if that makes any sense. I’ll get the Kim album, cool, thanks. No, I never talked with Madonna. I did see her around a little in East Village clubs and things, but she had a posse around even back then. Enjoy her show, which I think has to be super interesting no matter what. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. That ‘Ripley’ show sure is divisive. All I read is either people raving about it or saying it’s complete crap. Let me know what you and mom think once you’re fully into it. ** Misanthrope, The closest thing I can relate to is my two stints of quitting cigarettes. My brain was toast and useless re: writing for more than six months each time. Never again, I hope. Dude, you have to get obsessive and prioritising about your writing if you really want to finish them. Well, you don’t ‘have to’, but it sure helps. ** Harper, Hi, Harper. Oh, shit, I hope you feel much better ASAP. But very happy birthday belatedly! Yeah, see the doc. I hate seeing docs, and I always wait until I’m worried Im dying before I stop thinking my body will take care of the problem itself. What did the doc say? Getting through ‘Mason and Dixon’ is an achievement. I should say I love that novel. Man, yeah, I hope you feel better today or pronto. ** Steve, No, I haven’t tried out the new Charli album yet. Is it up to speed? You’re sick too. Man, do what it takes to upright yourself, which, of course, you will. ** Uday, Even not being a Star Wars guy, I can very clearly see the big drop off starting with ‘Phantom Menace’. I only really like the early Patti Smith, the first single and ‘Horses’. After that, I kind of lose interest. I did meet her very early. I tried to set up a gig for her to play at my college in the early-mid 70s. She said yes for way little money, but my college wouldn’t go for it. I made her a Rimbaud t-shirt and sent it to her for being so willing. Then I met her the first time she played in LA at the Whisky A-Go-Go. She was really nice. ** Bill, Hi. Well, pray tell about ‘Ripley’. Honestly, it’s been a while since I’ve seen such extremely polarised opinions on something. And being an essentially no TV guy, I’m sure I’ll never watch it. I’ve been curious about ‘Late Night with the Devil’. On a more mainstream level, I think I’m going to go see ‘The First Omen’ this week. Too many people have said it’s surprisingly fun. ** Okay. I love movie backlots almost as much as I love amusement parks, or I did, since they’re all almost completely destroyed and gone now. In the early 80s I lived a few blocks from where ’40 Acres’ had been, and it always intrigued/ haunted me partly for that reason. Anyway, so I decided to restore this old post about it for you (and me). Of interest? See you tomorrow.