Article about my graffiti on Michael Heizer’s sculpture, “Levitating Mass”. Most media refused to cover it for fear of encouraging more copy-cat contemporary art vandals by giving us attention. Heizer and LACMA didn’t press charges because “there is some question about the vandal’s mental health” LOL.
I typed up the text beneath if you can’t read the print in the Jpeg.
Artist Vandalizes “Levitating Mass”!
Unknown artist vandalizes famous sculpture and insists he “added value” in an act of unsolicited collaboration.
Los Angeles. Vandalizing of contemporary art is on the rise. This time the culprit is an artist of sorts, and he insists that he didn’t harm the piece, but transformed it by giving the rock a voice, and thus added value to it as a commodity. Large letters, sloppily spray-painted intone, “Help I’m a rock”.
Museum officials at the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art didn’t see it that way when they arrived on site Monday morning. One representative called it, “a sophomoric attempt at humor” and, “the latest in a string of attacks on contemporary art by yet another misguided, uncomprehending, and deluded personality”.
The real artist behind the 340 ton sculpture, Michael Heizer, spent roughly ten million dollars transporting and setting up the boulder. When contacted about the alleged contribution to his art, he refused to comment, other than to say, “I rarely explain or comment on my work”. Asked if he wished to have the graffiti washed off, he simply nodded, and cleared his throat.
INSET
“At first when I saw the boulder – I mean the sculpture – I didn’t feel anything. I was trying to understand the artist’s intentions in terms of conceptual art. But then I looked up at it, and it reminded me of when King Kong was captured and brought to the city for everyone to ogle. It seemed dripping with sadness. Suddenly I heard a voice call out: “Help. I’m a rock”. It was the boulder. I knew predestination and divine intelligence had arranged this, and it was my duty to make the boulder’s suffering known.” ~ artist, Eric Wayne
The vandal was easy to apprehend for the simple reason that he signed his graffiti, or, as he calls it, “text-based conceptual art”. The “EW” beneath his message are his initials. He’d taken the trouble to dress as a museum security guard, wore a moustache-and-beard disguise, and through some fluke of luck managed to execute his graffiti and escape without being caught or identified. Equally unlikely, considering the artist is virtually unknown, was that a museumgoer happened to recognize his signature from one of his online digital paintings of a robot and monster locked in deadly battle [see below}.
According to Mr. Wayne, he felt that the rock was impressive, but seemed isolated and to be suffering. He likened it to King Kong after being captured and displayed in chains before a rapt audience. He thought he could do a new piece by “setting the boulder free in the wild,” but “didn’t have the ten million necessary to do so.”
If he couldn’t release the boulder from captivity, Mr. Wayne thought the least he could do was “let the boulder unburden itself of its pent up sorrow”. As he was looking up at the boulder, Mr. Wayne claims to have heard a voice say, “Help! I’m a rock!”. He became convinced that “predestination and divine intelligence” selected him to help the rock express itself.
The original artist and the museum are not pressing charges, as there is some question about the vandal’s mental health. ~ Lance Chamberlaine
~ Ends
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Art & Crit by Eric Wayne 
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