"NOT A CORNFIELD" BUT IS IT ART ??

The corn is growing. Rows of it are rising from the dirt right on schedule at the "Not a Cornfield" project, a 32-acre, $3 million art installation taking root this summer at Los Angeles State Historic Park. The growing plants--hundreds of thousands of them--are turning what once was an abandoned rail yard in the industrial flatlands near Chinatown into a sea of cornstalks that sway and shift in the breeze. The vast conceptual art piece is meant to serve both as a point of celebration for the multiethnic history of Los Angeles' old core and a beacon for downtown's gradual revitalization. But where corn stops being corn and becomes an important artwork is leaving some visitors a little stumped. One observer asked: "Three million dollars ?? You could've bought a Van Gogh for that." The image above is titled "Cornfield with Cypress," by Vincent Van Gogh.