Mystery Art – 4-Corners

Indiana Jones got it :-)

It all started when young Indy stole Coranados’ crucifix from a cave in Utah  remember that one The Last Crusade?

Coronado? Didn’t know he made it to Utah but sounds like a good story. I’ll google that one for fun.

David Roberts the climber and author; who might as well make this thread considering all the books and stories he’s published about this area, has a recent book called Escalante’s Dream about the Escalante exploration which grazed this area but that was a long time after Coronado. BTW he also has a new book out about the Bears Ears which is close by this area as well.

I wonder how this would’ve gone over if it were a cross. Or a signed piece by Banksy. Or a grinning cartoon sculpture by Takashi Murakami. The anonymity and minimalism certainly seem to make it more palatable to people. Why is that?

Acceptability vs. outrage is in the eye of the beholder, that’s for certain. This will be an interesting topic for my art students next week.

From what I gather John McCracken was not exactly unknown. Of course he probably wasn’t the actual creator of ‘the piece’

I like how someone removed it on their own initiative.

If no one had ever found it would its presence have mattered?

Or if only a handful of people because somebody miraculously wandered by and then told a few friends on the ‘down-low’

The chances of anyone walking up on that thing are/were just about zero. It’s in the middle of nowhere between no places anyone would travel, around the bend of an obvious dead end leading obviously (long before you round that bend) to nowhere in a jumbled almost impassable terrain with hundreds of other dead end little canyonettes just like it.

And then some guys looking hard at all that rocky terrain happened to fly over at the correct bearing with the right light in a freaking helicopter.

It could possibly have made it a generation or more. Maybe that was what McCracken did. Ran a little experiment to see how long it would be before it was ‘discovered’

Not unknown, but certainly unknown to the vast majority of people initially viewing the piece. Would it have changed the way people felt about the work if it bared the signature of its creator? Genuinely interested in how this affects opinions; I dealt with it firsthand when doing outdoor installations during my MFA. On the one hand people prize the signature, the personality, the collectability/commodification. On the other, anonymity is often regarded as a form of “purity”. I think the latter was happening here to an extent. Just guessing, but I suspect a signature would have immediately ruined a piece like this for many people, possibly even turning the the reaction from curiosity into outrage. Artists that work like this walk a fine line.

This one remains for the next Indiana Jones:

I added to my earlier comment while you were replying. to repeat this part

The chances of anyone walking up on that thing are/were just about zero. It’s in the middle of nowhere between no places anyone would travel, around the bend of an obvious dead end leading obviously (long before you round that bend) to nowhere in a jumbled almost impassable terrain with hundreds of other dead end little canyonettes just like it.

And then some guys looking hard at all that rocky terrain happened to fly over at the correct bearing with the right light in a freaking helicopter.

It could possibly have made it a generation or more. Maybe that was what McCracken did. Ran a little experiment to see how long it would be before it was ‘discovered’

It’s curious for sure. And it was a great example of putting something where it wouldn’t be found. Not from inaccessibility but because no one would go there. Like the 8 thousandth little side canyon in some way out of the way corner of the badlands NE of Death Valley or something.

Plus it was a nice framing for the piece.

Dan not goat      goad ……..   that’s it goad.

Let it rest in peace!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_V%C3%A1zquez_de_Coronado

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade references the “Cross of Coronado”. According to the film, this gold cross, discovered in a Utah cave system, was given to Vázquez de Coronado by Hernán Cortés in 1521. Such an event never happened because Vázquez de Coronado would have been 11 or 12 years old in 1521 and still living in Spain. In addition, when Indy captures the cross from robbers aboard a ship off the coast of Portugal, the ship can be seen to be named The Coronado.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_V%C3%A1zquez_de_Coronado

The media can not get enough of this story

https://slate.com/technology/2020/11/monolith-utah-disappear-visit.html

“I Went to the Monolith in the Utah Desert
And when it disappeared, I went back.”

a lot of details

And then there’s this….

I wonder if it was just really cold….

“The media can not get enough of this story”

And neither can Jerry, it seems… :-)

Whomever is having this fun should place these things in the city. That would be a real challenge, to bypass all the security cameras and people looking out windows, and place it in the middle of a town square. Leave the wild country alone!

In the middle of the city …
This I want to see ! ! !

Cheers

“In the middle of the city …
This I want to see ! ! !”

While the cameras would capture it, if you just dressed like a homeless person no one would pay you any mind. People prefer not to see the homeless.

or their tents on the sidewalk or along the freeway

since bringing up homeless people, it seems to be getting much worse.  There must be something we can do to help them.  Difficult problem.

although in another way it’s easy, build them homes

Since Jerry led me astray here, yes, there are many more poverty stricken Americans than there were a year ago. We in the comfort zone have been pretending that poverty was all about addiction, rather than inequity in our broken system. The pandemic has laid bare that silly notion and highlighted that many are on the edge of homelessness. Quote from article on paying rent: “If the choice is debt or homelessness,” she says, “I’m going to go in as much debt as I can.” That says it all.

https://www.npr.org/2020/11/30/938867270/more-americans-pay-rent-on-credit-cards-as-lawmakers-fail-to-pass-relief-bill

Okay back to the monolith or whatever we’re calling the object. At least this alien hoax is a distraction from the epidemic “hoax.”

Have y’all seen that another one has appeared in Romania?

I hear Twilight Zone music (doo doo DOO doo, doo doo DOO doo…)

Or is that Also Sprach Zarathustra?

I think the anonymity was key to the work’s success. Can we say it was a success?

I’m not an art critic, but a fairly simple metal sculpture now has a social and narrative component, made in collaboration with the Internet. A deliberate unsolved mystery. The object was placed there with the intent to someday be found, and for the story and image to be shared worldwide. It was installed in the golden age of viral content! If the object bore a signature, the mystery would dissolve.

The one in Romania also disappeared. Maybe it was a copycat, or maybe this is a more intricate work playing out.

^^  Good points!

Speaking of Art   

And another

Was it ‘art’, or was it someone deliberately poking fun at the so-called art community?

I cannot see it as ‘art’. I see a metal column which I or any other person with slight mechanical abilities could make out of sheet metal. About the only ‘creativity’ I can see is the poking fun bit. A bit like Borat.

Cheers

Earthlings, not aliens took it. From the land of the Moabites.