Big Rig Jig
1028 Fremont Street,
Las Vegas, Nevada
89101
(Near 1028, between 10th and 11th)
What do you do with two decomissioned trucks? Well, if you're Mike Ross, you turn them into a four story art sculpture called Big Rig Jig. Ross took two 18 wheeler tanker trucks and twisted them, stacking them with curved tubes, so that the truck is literally hanging in the air before you. In order to make the entire sculpture stable, it is anchored to its metal base with custom built screws. The structure was built originally for Burning Man in 2007 and at the desert festival, people were able to climb into the trucks and climb up the tubes all the way to the top!
Big Rig Jig clocks in around fifty feet tall and twenty five tons. It was purchased and put on display in Las Vegas in August 2016 by Tony Hsieh's Downtown Project. The entire sculpture is now located at the Fergusons Motel, a few blocks from the Fremont Street Experience, at Fremont Street and 11th Street. Fergusons Motel was once a rundown motel, but was transformed into sort of a hangout space with restaurants and shops in December 2019 and is now called Fergusons Downtown.
Ross, the artist, while making the sculpture, was inspired by the traffic that rolled through his neighborhood, as well as memories of hitchiking with his girlfriend across the country with several truck drivers. Although his website is now gone, at one point, the artist stated the sculpture "utilized two decommissioned trucks, referencing a global oil industry at the nexus of our world's political, social and environmental systems ... by repurposing these symbolically rich objects, the artist conveys his admiration for and anxiety over humanity's power."
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First Created: 2020-12-21
Last Edited: 2020-12-21
