In early 2011 I was living in Turin and absorbed by the genius loci of the city. Turin – and the entire region in which it is situated – is steeped in folklore, and I’d heard much of the local mythos in the weeks after my arrival. Particularly intriguing were the tales surrounding Monte Musinè, a peak close to Turin that forms part of the Western Alps. For centuries the mountain is reported to have been a location for anomalous aerial phenomena. Prehistoric rocks atop the crag are adorned with mysterious carvings depicting celestial craft. In 1976 a monolith was erected upon the mount, bearing an inscription declaring Musinè a site where “astral entities” operate. My initial glimpse of Musinè came on the 8th of April when I visited John McCracken’s solo exhibition at the Castello di Rivoli, which is housed in a grand, ancient castle in close proximity to the mysterious mountain. It was an impressive location for McCracken’s exhibition, and his first solo show of this scale in Europe. I had already felt myself drawn to McCracken’s penchant for the cosmic, particularly his statement that he wanted his works to resemble something an alien visitor might leave upon the earth. What might ostensibly be viewed as a rather dry formalism thus became imbued with otherworldly potential. McCracken’s references to inter-dimensional portals and UFOs were strategic, and encouraged viewers to question what an art object is, and how it can function or perform. McCracken stated that he wanted his works to be “terrifically physical and absolutely transcendental at the same time”.