The classical marble statues and Maillol's curvy bronzes were in for a surprise when Argentine artist Adrián Villar Rojas's new sculpture, "Poem for Earthlings," was recently installed in Paris's Tuileries Gardens. The giant obelisk lies flat on the ground, like a clay and concrete totem pole teleported by some future civilization.

The structure — about 300 feet long and weighing 17 tons — may surprise those who would prefer Paris to be a museum, its heritage untouched. The immense structure — enigmatic, imposing, perhaps phallic — forces visitors to walk around it, to pass by its pure yet irregular lines and its cracked texture, which seems about to dissolve into dust. An undeniable power is at work — passersby are drawn to this shape that has emerged from nowhere. They approach, examine it with interest or amusement, posing in front of it the way they pose in front of the Louvre pyramid nearby. It's extremely tempting to tap on it to discover its mystery, to scratch its crumbly surface, to take possession of this enigma, which fills the space with its outsized presence. In fact, the day of its unveiling, some overly enthusiastic person chipped the top of the vulnerable bone-white column.

"This project is really linked to the idea of disappearance," artist Adrián Villar Rojas told ARTINFO France. The artist represents Argentina at the Venice Biennale this year, where he showed 11 similarly totem-like pieces, but on a smaller scale. "This piece is the biggest that I've ever done... For this project, I wanted to work with my team as if we were a construction company, as if we were building a bridge, for example. We had to collaborate with engineers and wait for authorizations."

SAM Art Projects, which promotes artistic exchange between Europe and emerging countries, commissioned the work for the Tuileries. The organization was launched in 2009 by Sandra and Amaury Mulliez and boasts a well-heeled selection committee: this year, Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-director of London's Serpentine Gallery, chose Villar Rojas for the residency and commission. The Louvre and the French Institute also supported the project. According to Sandra Mulliez, "Paris is more and more open" to new and energetic art. "This work was made for this juxtaposition — it is the same color as the older works that surround it. The older works come from a well-known civilization and find themselves confronted with a totally different language."

After five months of design and two months of production, the sculpture will be displayed for less than two months and destroyed on October 24 — something that Villar Rojas, whose work has dealt with the notion of decline and ending for some time now, says doesn't bother him at all. "I like to think of art as suicidal," the artist said. "I like the idea that it's impossible to keep this space, this time, this dimension." For Villar Rojas, "it's not a nice, sweet work — it's almost punk."

He also described interesting encounters he's had with the public about his piece. "It was interesting to see many people come ask me... 'When are you going to stand it up?' It's important that it doesn't stand up — it's as if it was blown over by a terrific force... This monument could be the last work left by a human."