Alien Sculpture
Down a rutted dirt road in the backcountry of Utah, up a pocket canyon where no one goes, stands a twelve foot stainless steel 3 sided something or other, obelisk or monolith or tri-lith, in desolate isolation, waiting for some lost hiker to stumble upon its presence. Discovered by a helicopter flying overhead, the mysterious object has tickled the curiosity of a public weary of politics and pandemic. Is it art? Is it an alien visitation? Is it both? Well, what it is is something enigmatic, something new, something all of us can find fascinating, whether a Qanon conspiracy theorist or a modern art museum curator, it tickles our curiosity.
There are very few artists down here in the remote outback of the South End who haven’t created work that is never seen by other human eyes. Dig around in their cluttered closets and basements and garages, you’ll find artworks no friends or neighbors have seen, you’ll hear music no ears have heard, you’ll find manuscripts no one has read, you’ll discover the secret works of countless unheralded artists squirreled away from society and civilization. Granted, we would like them to be seen, to be purchased, to be celebrated as great works … but let’s be honest here, we’re not Picassos whose every scribble and scratch goes for thousands of pesos. Even the repetitious and uninspired crap the Master cranked out after the muse had long ago retired from active service.
I don’t have a pocket canyon back in our nettle hollow where I can hide my latest creation and hope that in the year 2525 some poor yahoo stumbles back through the jungle of thorns and thistle to catch a glimpse of iridescent color sparkling through the brambles, whereupon he clears an opening only to marvel at, yes, some half rotted structure and its stained glass window still intact all those years. Was it the remains of an extraterrestrial spaceship, he might wonder, or some centuries past trick by the old glass breaker himself, one last laugh no one will hear, a craftily placed artwork in what appears to be, on closer inspection, the artist’s outhouse.
Critics and the public can debate all they want. Ownership may be in doubt. Intent certainly. Was the artist making a statement about his own work, amused enough to put it in a primitive one seater pit toilet? Was he thumbing his nose at society itself? Was he of this earth or some lost interplanetary sojourner? What was his destination? What was his Plan? Who can say? Who really cares?
The obelisk in the Utah outback disappeared last night. Speculation is that the unknown artists may have retrieved their hidden work once it was discovered. Tomorrow the conspiracy theorists will offer up their own paranoid assessment. I certainly haven’t got anything to add. But I will be checking my outhouse today to see if that glass portal placed there 3 decades ago is still intact. Either way, I know this: the truth is out there. The damn artists just keep hiding it.
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Tags: Alien Art in Utah, Hidden Alien Art Treasure, Mysterious Sculpture in Utah Desert, Obelisk in the Desert