{"id":4794,"date":"2026-08-14T16:46:04","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dartmagazine.com\/?p=4794"},"modified":"2026-08-20T13:54:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T13:54:33","slug":"abandoned-on-point-dume-in-malibu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dartmagazine.com\/?p=4794","title":{"rendered":"Abandoned on Point Dume in Malibu"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Steve Rockwell<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleven miles out of Binghamton, New York, the timing belt on our Volkswagen Passat snapped. Occurring as it did going downhill, the moment was strangely peaceful with the car still moving \u2013 engine silent, the clang of the pistons hitting the engine block now subsided. I’m not a car person, so I would have appreciated knowing that the 1990 VW Passat uses an interference engine design. Meaning: a snapped timing belt will cause catastrophic internal engine damage. What were the VW engineers in Emden, Germany thinking!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Rodman
Rodman Edward Serling<\/strong>, born December 25, 1924, in Syracuse, New York, growing up mainly in Binghamton, New York<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Well, the consequence of all this was getting to know the Rod Serling of his hometown a touch deeper. Booking a motel in the Carousel Capital of the World<\/em> turned into a roulette of Name the Appropriate Twilight Zone Episode<\/em>. A Serling biography from a nine-year-ago-reading came to life \u2013 Rod Serling: The Dreams and Nightmares of Life in the Twilight Zone: A Biography<\/em> by Joel Engel, a Contemporary Books publication, Chicago, 1989. The book was a summer read on the Granary Lake shoreline at our family “camp” in Blind River in 1990.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The Spring\/Summer 1999 edition of dArt International magazine, covering the LA International Invitational<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sandy and I had been returning from the release of the Summer 1999 edition of dArt International<\/em> magazine at the Limelight Club in New York City. It had been a party and and a show, LL Gallery being the Limelight show venue. The Making Connections<\/em> exhibition was curated by Leeza Ahmedy and Robert Curcio with works by critics, artists, and galleries featured in dArt<\/em>, as well as regular LL Gallery exhibitors. Present at the event was legendary publisher of Avalanche<\/em> magazine, Willoughby Sharp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Willoughby
Willoughby Sharp, Avalanche #1<\/strong>, Fall 1970, cover photograph of Joseph Beuys by Shunk-Kender and J\u00e1nos Kender<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sharp had championed Earth Art<\/em>. With the release of his 1968 documentary, Earth<\/em>, a fresh perception on art had been put forth: it might be something that couldn’t be bought, sold, and hung on the walls. His meeting Liza B\u00e9ar led to the 1970 publication of Avalanche<\/em> \u2013 not just a magazine about<\/em> conceptual art, but an alternative exhibition space in print. Sharp was now at the center of the “painting is dead” movement. Avalanche #1<\/em> contributors included: Carl Andre, Jan Dibbets, Richard Long, Robert Morris, Joseph Beuys, Michael Heizer, Dennis Oppenheim, and Robert Smithson. The Beuys section was a Portrait<\/em> by Shunk-Kender, while Sharp contributed Body Works<\/em>. To the art world, the critical mass of these new artists’ bodies of work turned into a global tidal wave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Willloughby
Willloughby Sharp & Friend at the 1999 Limelight Club dArt International release and exhibition. Photo by Steve Rockwell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In my 1970 group studio on Queen Street West in Toronto, I felt the acute “chill” of painting in its then state of rigor mortis. My effort, in the studio exhibition that year, was to concentrate and compress all experience, the visible included, into simple elements of dot, dash, and line. Framed as time increments and events, their attendant visual imagery might float freely as association. My present writing about these events merely accomplishes the “unpacking” of compressed material. While I had trashed the work from that year, their retrieval was made relatively easy. Like letters of the alphabet, it was no more difficult than reciting A,B,C. Repainting a dot or line just packages the “word” in a new context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Steve
Steve Rockwell<\/strong>, New York Trash on Point Dume, (Malibu Jetsam), 1995, acrylic on canvas with wood and masonite frame, 52 x 48 inches. The painted work is a double-frame record of the “abandonment,” a work within a work<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1994, I carried out The Abandoned Paintings<\/em> project. Seven 24 x 20 inch canvases were left at considered locations in Los Angeles, New York, and the Algarve, Portugal. The Malibu “abandonment” as written into my account, read, “New York street trash became the basis of my next abandoned painting. After Griffith Observatory, the four of us drove to Point Dume in Malibu. It took us a while to get to the beach because a film crew had taken over the parking lot.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Steve
Steve Rockwell, The Abandoned Paintings<\/strong>, 1995, limited handmade book work. Leaving the painting (left), Malibu Discovery (right)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“I took the painting out of the trunk and we walked to the rocky edge of the point near the water. The wind was strong. I tried wedging it into the rocks. It kept blowing over. Tracy suggested a spot further from the water. I pressed the painting into the side of the point and took pictures. We started down the beach.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A man in his sixties passed us walking to the end of the beach. We followed him with binoculars. He noticed the painting and approached it cautiously. Then he grabbed the top of it and began to read the note on the back. We saw him pack it up and walk toward us. Bob asked him if he found the painting at the end of the beach. He said, yes. ‘What are you going to do with it?’ Bob asked. ‘I’m going to keep it. The artist said I could have it.'” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The Statue of Liberty reveal in the original Planet of the Apes<\/em> (1968)<\/strong> was filmed at Point Dume\/Westward Beach in Malibu, California<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Point Dume, Malibu location has been a choice spot for filmmakers over the years. The Statue of Liberty<\/em> reveal in the original Planet of the Apes<\/em> (1968) was filmed there, not in New York. For Planet of the Apes<\/em>, Rod Serling wrote the first three major drafts of the screenplay, working from Pierre Boulle’s novel. The finished movie substantially altered his conception, but retained his central idea of the ruined Earth and the shocking Statue of Liberty<\/em> revelation. The film suddenly becomes a parable about humanity destroying itself. When Taylor, the Charlton Heston character realizes that his space flight had returned him to a future earth, he cries out, “Oh my God, I’m back. I’m home!. I’ve been home all the time. You really did it. You maniacs!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"That
That final frontal image was a matte painting by Emil Kosa Jr.<\/strong>, composited with the real cliffs and beach <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Not unlike the pressing of my New York Trash<\/em> painting into the side of the point, that final frontal image was a matte painting by Emil Kosa Jr., composited with the real cliffs and beach, and super-imposed on the tip of Point Dume. The physical miniature\/partial replica was used for the high-angle shots looking down through the crown. The high-angle shot looks down through the Statue’s crown toward the two characters on the beach, Taylor (Charlton Heston) and Nova. A 70-foot scaffold was erected at the cove, with a scale replica of the upper portion of the statue positioned in front of the camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Planet
Planet of the Apes<\/strong><\/em>, Behind-the-Scenes Stills from the collection of Mark Talbot-Butler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our Malibu tale ends with a white 1993 Ford Bronco XLT owned by Al \u201cA.C.\u201d Cowlings. I had been riveted with the other 95 million viewers who had watched the O.J. Simpson Bronco chase live on television on June 17, 1994. Two and a half months earlier we had left the Point Dume “abandonment” scene, while they were still filming the Frogmen<\/em> TV pilot. To my “Did you see O.J.?” question, Bob had answered, “Oh, yeah, he was there.” The actual chase Bronco is now preserved at the Alcatraz East Crime Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Steve Rockwell Eleven miles out of Binghamton, New York, the timing belt on our Volkswagen Passat snapped. Occurring as it did going downhill, the moment was strangely peaceful with the car still moving \u2013 engine silent, the clang of the pistons hitting the engine block now subsided. I’m not a car person, so I … <\/p>\n

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