The Utah Monolith, What It Means, Why It Matters, and Whether It's Aliens

In which John discusses a metal obelisk that stood for years unnoticed in the Utah desert before being discovered by some wildlife biologists, whereupon the monolith quickly disappeared. Also discussed: contemporary art in deserts, Gertrude Stein's essay What Are Masterpieces and Why Are There So Few of Them, and John's ongoing obsession with that one line from The Great Gatsby. SOURCES AND CREDITS:

The footage of Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels (completed in 1976) and Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970) are from The Art Assignment's Spiral Jetty, Sun Tunnels, and Salt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZLi-yPzNIA

Unless otherwise noted, footage of the obelisk is from the Bureau of Land Management or the Utah Department of Natural Resources.

The photograph of Elmgreen and Dragset's Prada Marfa (2005) is by Nan Palmero. The photograph of the obelisk at 2:45 of this video is by Patrick A. Mackey.

The New York Times story about John McCracken's work and the monolith: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/arts/design/john-mccracken-utah-monolith.html

And the Salt Lake Tribune's article: https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/11/27/utahs-mystery-desert/

You can also see some phenomenal photographs of the obelisk here: https://durangoherald.com/articles/355535

----
Subscribe to our newsletter! https://nerdfighteria.com/nerdfighteria-newsletter
And join the community at http://nerdfighteria.com
Help transcribe videos - http://nerdfighteria.info
Learn more about our project to help Partners in Health radically reduce maternal mortality in Sierra Leone: https://www.pih.org/hankandjohn
If you're able to donate $2,000 or more to this effort, please join our matching fund: https://pih.org/hankandjohnmatch
John's twitter - http://twitter.com/johngreen
Hank's twitter - http://twitter.com/hankgreen
Hank's tumblr - http://edwardspoonhands.tumblr.com
Listen to The Anthropocene Reviewed at http://www.theanthropocenereviewed.org
Listen to Dear Hank and John at http://www.dearhankandjohn.org
Book club: http://www.lifeslibrarybookclub.com/

Видео The Utah Monolith, What It Means, Why It Matters, and Whether It's Aliens канала vlogbrothers