Monday, June 8, 2009

IT came from the Distillery...


If you’re heading to the Distillery soon, be advised you might run into what seems to be an apparently fierce alien guarding the entrance of Fresh & Wild.

At first glance, this three-legged piece of public art seems to simultaneously rip both Louise Bourgeois’s massive high-art metal Maman sculptures and Peter Jackson’s blazing eye of Sauron from pop-cult smash The Lord of the Rings.

The name of this monster? “IT.” And its source? California artist Michael Christian, delivered via the Distillery’s Meta Gallery.

According to the Distillery’s 2009 guide, IT “rises 40 feet tall and is constructed of 12,000 pounds of steel. Inspired by George Orwell’s [sic] War of the Worlds, IT was commissioned by Black Rock City Nevada’s 2006 Burning Man Festival and over 50,000 visitors viewed it when it was first unveiled.”

Sooo.... maybe you oughta mix a little mescaline into your next Fresh & Wild mesclun salad? God, I hate to sound so cranky about it all, but there you go.

2 comments:

SuzieCee said...

Orwell wrote "War of the Worlds"???

Leah Sandals said...

Whoa, good catch Suzie! I was overwhelmed in dealing with the sculpture itself. I'll post an [sic] after it.