Absolutely No Need to Be Reverent

 This is Robolights (click the link and watch the little video). It's on a very tony Palm Springs street in the so-called Movie Colony neighborhood. And it is HUGE--multiple lots on a property that stretches around two corners.

 I'm sure the neighbors are thrilled! (In fact, I believe they have filed numerous lawsuits and the owner is seeking to move it all out to a more remote spot in the desert.) At Christmas, it is open to the public, lit up and with music playing. Wow. There is a very odd sensibility here, I must say, with some of these things being quite creepy. 

"Be Reverent"

 

This is Desert Christ Park, in Yucca Valley. As the sign indicates, all of the sculptures were made by one man, Antone Martin, beginning in the 1950s. The park is now maintained by volunteers. A single-mindedness of purpose, for sure...

(The title of this post comes from a sign admonishing visitors to "Be reverent" at another Southern California desert religious sculpture garden, Bible Land, which is now gone. There, one man sculpted various religious scenes...out of sand. Somewhere in my "archives," there are analog photos of our trip to see that. I will have to dig them out and scan them one of these days!)

You Decide

 

So this GINORMOUS "statue" of Marilyn Monroe in the underwear-baring pose from The Seven-Year Itch is essentially mooning the Palm Springs Art Museum. This is definitely kitsch...I leave up to you to decide if it is good kitsch or bad kitsch. Others have weighed in...

Moon and Friend

 That's Venus sharing some space with the crescent moon...

Art in the Desert

 

This is art by Noah Purifoy, who was a co-founder of the Watts Tower Art Center in L.A. and who lived in Joshua Tree from the late 1980s until his death in 2004. His artwork can be seen in this free outdoor museum near Joshua Tree run by the Noah Purifoy Foundation. The location and the type of artwork--assemblage of found objects--bears some resemblance to East Jesus, also in the desert near the Salton Sea. However, Purifoy's work, sometimes referred to as "junk dada," is darker in tone...