California monolith appears after finds in Utah, Romania



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LOS ANGELES (AP) – Days after the discovery and rapid disappearance of two shiny metal monoliths separated by a half-world, another imposing structure has appeared, this time atop a trail in Southern California.

Its straight sides and height are similar to those found in the Utah desert and those found in Romania. Like these structures, the origin of the Californian edifice is also mysterious.

It’s on top of a hill in Atascadero, halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, KEYT-TV reported on Wednesday. The tall silver structure has drawn hikers to the area after photos were posted on social media.

Another monolith spotted two weeks ago in the otherworldly red-rock country of Utah has become a beacon of fascination around the world as it conjures up the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” and attracts hundreds. of people in this remote place.

Two extreme sports athletes said they were part of a group that demolished the hollow metal structure because they were concerned about the damage crowds of visitors were causing to the relatively untouched place. Officials said visitors had razed factories with their cars and left human waste behind.

A structure that appeared last week in Romania has also disappeared.

Utah’s creation evoked famous pieces of land-art that dot the West. Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty is an earthwork along the Great Salt Lake and Nancy Holt’s solar tunnels are huge pieces of concrete in the desert.

Like these pieces, the monolith was fascinating in part because of its context in the landscape, said Whitney Tassie, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Utah Museum of Fine Art.

“It’s a big, big part of land art in general, it’s the idea of ​​an experience, of a journey,” she says.

The intense social media reaction to the monolith amid the punitive pandemic, along with the coin’s rapid demise, has become part of its story, she said. Police said the dismantling may not have been illegal since no one has claimed the structure as their property.

The still anonymous creator of the Utah monument did not follow the steps taken by terrestrial artists of the 1970s to obtain permission to make their works. The visit to these remote sites is now managed and monitored to avoid too much stress on the environment. Utah federal and state authorities had also expressed concern about the overflow of the area around the monolith.

“It’s good to think about our relationship with the land, which is ultimately what these types of projects do,” Tassie said. “The impact of man on the environment in the foreground.”

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Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.

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