The Rock cometh—no, really

After months of postponements, the 340-ton boulder that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has been awaiting since August has cleared what museum officials hope will be its final road blocks and is now scheduled to roll shortly after the first of the year.

The route hasn’t changed, nor has the means of transit. But officials in the many municipalities through which the shrink-wrapped colossus will travel have at last all signed off on its passage, according to LACMA.

“Yes, it’s true,” laughs museum spokeswoman Miranda Carroll. “The permits are all secured now and all the cities have said okay. Everything is set.”

The boulder, destined to be the centerpiece in Michael Heizer’s massive new LACMA installation, has been waiting patiently at a Riverside quarry while officials in four counties tried to coordinate the bureaucratic details of its 100-mile move. The biggest snag involved the complexities of parking the rock on city streets during the daytime, when it will not be on the move.   

Also complicating matters was that the transportation logistics turned out to be more complicated and time consuming than expected, forcing a process that normally takes more than a year into a span of six months. But with help from an assortment of players, including members of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky’s and Supervisor Don Knabe’s offices, LACMA officials have set a date.  Just forgive them if they aren’t ready yet to go public with it.

“We’ll be getting the message out before the holidays, so people know what’s happening, but we just want to be absolutely certain,” says Carroll.

Stay tuned.

Posted 12/8/11