The rain has subsided for the past two days—was threatened for today, but hasn’t happened so far—and now we have mosquitoes the size of helicopters. Last night, taking out the pea vines and replacing them with zucchini plants, an entire fleet landed on my ear. Even though I’ve sprayed it with so much Benadryl the afflicted organ is now stuck to my head, the need to scratch it takes up almost all my attention. With what little brain space I have left over, I will attempt to write a little about L.A., where the sun was out all the time and there were NO MOSQUITOES.
I didn’t want to go see art (“I’m here to see you”) but son Matt insisted and anyone who knows Matt knows that when he insists, it’s futile to protest. Besides he was right, as he usually is.
Our first stop was Ace Gallery, which in L.A. is as vast as its last incarnation in New York, to see Matt’s friend, Melanie Pullen’s glamorized portraits of soldiers in uniform, which you can get a glimpse of here. Then there was a chain of three rooms lit by Robert Irwin in different colors, the after-image of each affecting how you perceived the hue of the next, and a lovely set of graphite squiggle drawings by Australian artist Ana Pollak, which, like the Irwin installation, were totally unphotographable. You can look here, but you won’t have a clue.
http://www.lacma.org/ I admitted I wanted to see the Jorge Pardo reinstallation of pre-Columbian art at LACMA that had generated so much controversy, and as with the Musee Quai du Branly in Paris, I don’t feel the need to evaluate it, but am simply glad that museums are experimenting with creative solutions. I guess my only gripe about the Pardo is that the lighting was so even throughout that the objects on display seemed more incidental than highlighted. Meanwhile the show of young Korean artists, “Your Bright Future” was one of the worst shows of anything I’ve ever seen, another example of how the Academic Faux Avant Garde (hereafter to be known as AFAG) has gone global.
Best of all was Chris Burden’s Urban Light, 2008, a grid of 202 vintage Los Angeles street lamps that’s permanently installed on Wilshire Boulevard at LACMA. Sometimes I think that video (except for Christian Marclay and perhaps Omer Fast) could have begun and ended with Nam June Paik, and conceptual art could have begun and ended with Chris Burden. These are my photos—next time I want to see it at night.
I didn’t want to go see art (“I’m here to see you”) but son Matt insisted and anyone who knows Matt knows that when he insists, it’s futile to protest. Besides he was right, as he usually is.
Our first stop was Ace Gallery, which in L.A. is as vast as its last incarnation in New York, to see Matt’s friend, Melanie Pullen’s glamorized portraits of soldiers in uniform, which you can get a glimpse of here. Then there was a chain of three rooms lit by Robert Irwin in different colors, the after-image of each affecting how you perceived the hue of the next, and a lovely set of graphite squiggle drawings by Australian artist Ana Pollak, which, like the Irwin installation, were totally unphotographable. You can look here, but you won’t have a clue.
http://www.lacma.org/ I admitted I wanted to see the Jorge Pardo reinstallation of pre-Columbian art at LACMA that had generated so much controversy, and as with the Musee Quai du Branly in Paris, I don’t feel the need to evaluate it, but am simply glad that museums are experimenting with creative solutions. I guess my only gripe about the Pardo is that the lighting was so even throughout that the objects on display seemed more incidental than highlighted. Meanwhile the show of young Korean artists, “Your Bright Future” was one of the worst shows of anything I’ve ever seen, another example of how the Academic Faux Avant Garde (hereafter to be known as AFAG) has gone global.
Best of all was Chris Burden’s Urban Light, 2008, a grid of 202 vintage Los Angeles street lamps that’s permanently installed on Wilshire Boulevard at LACMA. Sometimes I think that video (except for Christian Marclay and perhaps Omer Fast) could have begun and ended with Nam June Paik, and conceptual art could have begun and ended with Chris Burden. These are my photos—next time I want to see it at night.
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