Press Play Replay: Graffiti in National Parks, and the Path of Levitated Mass

Press Play is off for the Fourth of July, so we are hosting a replay today: four independent thinkers from our archives. First, the late artist Noah Purifoy spent the last 15 years of his life in the Mojave desert creating huge sculptures made of junk. Now, the L.A. County Museum of Art has brought Purifoy’s more recent large-scale works out of the desert sun and inside for Angelenos to see. Then, the 340-ton boulder that is now an art object at LACMA called “Levitated Mass” had to travel 106 miles, very slowly, to get to its final destination. That journey is chronicled in a documentary we revisit. Next, hikers and nature lovers have started reporting graffiti in parks, and the Modern Hiker community has been acting as an unofficial police investigation force when it comes to tracking down taggers. Finally, Alexandra Fuller had an extremely unconventional childhood in southern Africa, which she describes vividly in her first bestselling memoir, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight.