Tag Archive for 'LACMA'

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The Digest. 01.31.11.

By c-monster on January 31, 2011 in C-Monster, Painting and The Digest. 3 Comments

Soap Bubbles, after 1739, by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin. (Courtesy of LACMA.)

“How abstract can a landscape become while remaining a landscape?”
Hyperallergic has done an incredible job keeping tabs on damage to the Egyptian National Museum and other Egyptian museums during the demonstrations. More here.
Al Jazeera’s Flickr feed. (Fast Company.)
Portraits of the tortured: This looks like a can’t-miss exhibit in L.A.
And the Super Bowl bets are on: This year it’s the Milwaukee Art Museum versus the Carnegie Museum of Art. Up for grabs: French impressionist paintings.
Best. Artist Profile. Ever.: The Rembrandt of Riyadh.
Ai Weiwei ceramic sunflower seeds to be auctioned at Sotheby’s. (Arts Journal.)
If this isn’t a clusterfuck of art world ridiculosity, I don’t know what is.
Mothers, the harshest art critics. (This story is hilarious.)
Tattooed ladies. (Marshall Astor.)
If you live in NYC: Take the Artist Cost of Living Survey. It’s to help a new foundation determine grant awards. (Art Fag City.)
VHS.
Photographer Phillip Toledano, reimagined as one of many dictators.
The perils of appropriation: Mr. Brainwash getting sued by photographer Glen E. Friedman for copyright violation on a Run DMC image.
Today’s Graff: ESPO (aka Steve Powers) in Syracuse. (Scroll down.) Plus: A photo tour of his studio.
On the financials of the urban art market: A profile of Steve Lazarides. (Ekosystem.)
Nest factories. (BLDGBLOG.)
Some great pix of Pritzker Prize winner Peter Zumthor’s Bruder Klaus Field Chapel in Germany.
One of the most ridonkulous, excessive museum schematics I’ve seen in a loooong time. And it’s in Miami, of course.
An action movie sequence that will make your day. (@mltb.)

Tags: jean baptiste simeon chardin, LACMA, soap bubbles.

And while you’re at LACMA…

By c-monster on June 28, 2010 in C-Monster, Installation, Los Angeles, Museums and Sculpture. Closed

Things that make you go duuuuude: The 2000 Sculpture, by Walter de Maria, at the museum’s new Resnick Pavilion. (Image courtesy of Museum Associates/LACMA.)

Last week, I also got a peek at LACMA’s new Renzo Piano-designed Resnick Pavilion, which will officially open to the public in early October. The building is currently home to a pretty spectacular Walter De Maria piece composed of 2000 individual plaster rods in different polygonal shapes. The piece is totally insane. (I would have loved to have spent the entire day inside the pavilion, with a camping chair and Slurpee.) Better yet, the building is largely empty — there are no display walls to divvy the space up. And it is damn amazing — airy, graceful, totally elevating. And waaaaay better than BCAM, which I still think looks kinda like a 1970s junior high school on steroids.

The Resnick Pavilion is not currently open in a steady way to the public. But the museum is hosting occasional “Flash Visits” to allow folks to visit. There’s Flash Visits going on today and tomorrow. Follow the museum’s blog, Unframed, for future Flash Visit dates. It’ll be worth the trouble.

Tags: LACMA, resnick pavilion, Sculpture, the 2000 sculpture, walter demaria.

Photo Diary: John Baldessari’s ‘Pure Beauty’ at LACMA.

By c-monster on June 28, 2010 in C-Monster, Conceptual, Los Angeles, Museums and Photo Diary. 3 Comments

And whenever possible, add a unicorn. Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell, 1966-68 by John Baldessari. (Photos by C-M.)

While I was in L.A., I managed to pop into LACMA for a brief jaunt through the John Baldessari retrospective that just opened this past Sunday. I have to admit that his work had always struck me as a little clinically conceptual — the ultimate in art-industry inside-baseball. (Full disclosure: Prior to this show, my exposure to him had been limited to group shows.) But this exhibition, which gathers more than 150 objects dating back to the early ’60s, has convinced me that he has a very wry sense of humor, even if it’s an art-nerdy one.

In one video, he says “I am making art” over and over — an absurdist art mantra. In his Ghetto Boundary Project, from 1969, he marked the boundaries of a San Diego, Calif. ghetto (as defined by the local planning commission) with stickers — making him an O.G. street artist. In the seriously stonerrific video, Six Colorful Inside Jobs, from 1977, he has a house painter paint a small cube six different colors. I was hypnotized.

There are unusual photographic collages and arrangements and a giant brain sculpture that incorporates video of the viewer. (Yep, it was a head-trip.) Moreover, the imagery is saturated with Southern California — images of film stills, palm trees, blue skies and wide streets lined with bungalows. I really dug it.

Pure Beauty is up through Sept. 12. If for some reason, you can’t make it. There’s always his digital app, which lets users create their own 17th century Dutch still-life. Plus: read Christopher Knight’s review in the L.A. Times here.

Continue reading ‘Photo Diary: John Baldessari’s ‘Pure Beauty’ at LACMA.’

Tags: john baldessari, LACMA, pure beauty.

Calendar. 10.20.09.

By c-monster on October 20, 2009 in C-Monster, Los Angeles, Museums and Photography. 1 Comment

Hollywood, 1972, by Henry Wessel Jr., at LACMA. (Image courtesy of LACMA.)

In L.A.: New Topographics: Photographs of Man-Altered Landscapes at LACMA, opens Sunday.
In L.A.: The Giant Robot Biennale at the Japanese American National Museum, opens Saturday.
In L.A.: Susan Anderson, High Glitz, at the Kopeikin Gallery, opens Saturday.
In L.A.: Main Street Video, with Miranda July, Spike Jonze and Lance Bangs and many others at Space 15Twenty, opens at 7 p.m.
In NYC: Josh Gosfield: Gigi Gaston – The Black Flower at Steven Kasher, opens Thursday.
In Mexico City: 100 Fotografos Mexicanos at the Cuartel del Arte in downtown, opens Friday. (Thanks for the tip, Big Papi G.)
In Paris: Nicolas Touron at Galerie Alain Le Gaillard, through Nov. 21.

Tags: henry wessel jr, hollywood, LACMA, new topographics.

The Digest. 08.07.09.

By c-monster on August 7, 2009 in C-Monster, Installation, Los Angeles, Museums and The Digest. 2 Comments

If you live in L.A., absolutely, positively go see Do Ho Suh’s pieces in Your Bright Future, the exhibit of contemporary Korean art at LACMA, up through Sept. 20. Above, an installation view of Fallen Star 1/5, and in the rear, Home Within Home. This image doesn’t do justice to the details inside the building. (See the photo large. Image courtesy of LACMA.)

Demolition done wrong.
Help save film at LACMA. Plus: People are, like, totally P.O.’d about the museum’s axed film program.
A MoCA that is doing worse than L.A.’s MoCA.
Pairing wine and art at the Art Institute of Chicago. (@artinstitutechi.)
When nautical art imitates nautical art: Duke Riley’s upcoming naval battle at the Queens Museum sure sounds like an annual event that artist Marie Lorenz has been doing for half a dozen years.
Shark week!!!
Damien Hirst has a doppelganger in Slovenia.
Bruce Nauman to get all Patrick Mimran over Pasadena.
With the European Union banning the sale of incandescant light bulbs, what will happen to light art? Second item. (16 Miles.)
From Cory Arcangel: Cats playing Schoenberg.
Lonely nights.
Street Rothkos.
Today’s Graff: Brad Downey’s mosaic graffiti in Sweden. Whoa!
The Obama/Joker poster: The LAT arts blog explains what it all means (or doesn’t). More here.
Edward Lifson on NPR on the Guggenheim Museum’s 50th birthday. Love the vintage audio describing the building as “an inverted oatmeal dish.”
Chicagoans weigh in on La Zaha’s larval pod.
An insightful critique on the lack of public in public spaces at Thom Mayne’s S.F. Federal Building.
Feral houses.
The Habitat Machines of David Trautimas.
Your moment of Sweet Home Alabama, mariachi style. (Coudal.)

Tags: do ho suh, LACMA, your bright future.

Happy Happy.

By c-monster on August 1, 2009 in Art for stoners, C-Monster, Installation, Los Angeles, Museums and Sculpture. Closed

By Jeon Wa Choi, at LACMA, part of the group exhibit Your Bright Future. Gnarly. (Photo by C-M.)

Tags: jeon wa choi, LACMA, your bright future.

Do not miss: Art of Two Germanys/Cold War Cultures at LACMA.

By c-monster on March 23, 2009 in Art, C-Monster, Los Angeles, Mixed Media, Museums and Painting. Closed

Detail of Nibelungen (Nibelung), a triptych by Lutz Dammbeck. (Image courtesy of LACMA.)

Take a culture. Fill it with the desire to build empire. Then put it through a vicious trench war. Follow this with a period of cultural openness and decadence. Afterwards, hand control over to a bunch of genocidal maniacs. Bomb it to a rubble. Divide it between East and West. Then put it back together. That, in an oversimplified nutshell, is the history of Germany in the 20th century. We are all familiar with the political implications of this back-and-forth. But what kind of art is produced by a nation that is built and destroyed and built again, each time in a somewhat different guise? The answer to that question lies in the jaw-dropping exhibit, The Art of Two Germanys/Cold War Cultures, at LACMA, in Los Angeles.

This sprawling show, curated by Stephanie Barron, covers 44 years of 20th century German history, from 1945-1989. It begins in the immediate aftermath of World War II, taking viewers through the eras of the Nuremberg trials, its Solomonic split, as well as the subsequent periods of tumult and soul-searching. There are artists famous (George Baselitz, Gerhard Richter, Martin Kippenberger, et al.) and unknown (Hermann Glockner) — many of them struggling to come to terms with who and what they represent. It is heart-breaking, appalling and totally edifying all at the same time.

This will be the exhibit’s only U.S. showing (it travels to Germany afterwards), so if you are anywhere near the L.A. area, it would be a crying shame to miss it. You’ve got ’til April 19.

As always, a few extras:

A historic timeline related to the exhibit.
An interview with Stephanie Barron.
Christopher Knight’s review in the L.A. Times. (He thinks the giant chocolate sculpture was nauseating. I think it smelled kinda good…)
And because I will never lose an opportunity to link to a video that shows Teutons prancing around in lederhosen.

Tags: art of two germanys, cold war cultures, LACMA, lutz dammbeck, nibelungen, stephanie barron.

The crunch of gravel: Sadegh Tirafkan at LACMA.

By c-monster on January 23, 2009 in Assemblage, C-Monster, Ivory Tower, Mixed Media and Vidalia. 7 Comments

Persepolis Part II by Sadegh Tirafkan at LACMA. (Photo by C-M.)

There is something about the crunch of boots on gravel that I find indescribably appealing. It’s something I associate with being a kid, when, every evening, I’d hear the sound of my dad’s pick-up pulling up outside our house, followed by the percussion of his boots all the way up our gravel driveway — and I knew that it was time to eat. (I was born hungry.) Which is why I was so excited to run into Sadegh Tirafkan‘s video piece, Persepolis Part II in the Ancient Iran galleries at the L.A. County Museum of Art.

The piece consists of two monitors, each with video of Tirafkan walking silently through the ruins of Persepolis, the ancient Persian capital. The video is rather dreamlike: the two images of the artist continually walk deliberately towards each other, but never meet. And all that is audible is the scraping sound of his feet on dry rock. It transforms the gallery, which is filled with lifeless shards of ancient pottery, into something more dynamic (if nostalgic).

If you happen to be popping into the museum to check out Art of Two Germanys, a detour to the Ahmanson building to check this out is totally worthwhile. The installation will be up through March.

In other news: I’ve got a lot going on workwise, so I’m cutting The Digest back to four days a week, Monday through Thursday. Thanks for reading, xox, C.

Tags: LACMA, persepolis part ii, sadegh tirafkan.

Calendar. 01.20.09.

By c-monster on January 20, 2009 in C-Monster, Calendar, Museums and Painting. Closed

Totentanz (Dance of the Death), 1946, by Karl Hofer, in Art of Two Germanies, at LACMA. (Image courtesy of LACMA and the Berlinische Galerie.)

In L.A.: Art of Two Germanies/Cold War Cultures at LACMA, opens Sunday.
In S.F.: Binh Danh, In the Eclipse of Angkor: Tuol Sleng Choeung Ek and Khmer Temples: Daguerreotypes, at Haines Gallery, through Feb. 28.
In Denver: Nathan Abels at Rule Gallery, through Jan. 31.
In Houston: The Puppet Show at the Contemporary Arts Museum, through April 20th.
In NYC: Edward Steichen, In High Fashion: The Condé Nast Years, at ICP, through May 3. (NotCot.)
In NYC: Vik Muniz, Rebus, at MoMA, through Feb. 23.

Tags: art of two germanies, karl hofer, LACMA, Totentanz.

The Digest. 12.05.08.

By c-monster on December 5, 2008 in C-Monster, Los Angeles and Sublime ridiculosity. Closed

The Fun Finder: Spotted in front of LACMA, Nov. 19, 2008. (Photo by C-M.)

Art industry condolence cards.
From the Basel Frazzle: The economic downturn is forcing some dealers to actually use their manners: “We can’t be as rude [to clients] as we’ve been for the past three years.” Plus: AFC has photos from the 30 Americans show at the Rubell Collection. (Review here.) And the Herald has a cheat sheet on the best booths.
The best Basel-related photo I’ve seen so far: Marilyn Manson and his paintings. Plus: Paper pieces at Design Miami.
The NYT weighs in on the L.A. MOCA mess. Says former trustee Susan Nimoy: “My main complaint to the board was that none of you would run your household budget the way this institution is run. I think every one of those trustees should resign and [director] Jeremy [Strick] should resign.” Related: NPR reports on Eli Broad’s rescue effort. (Interesting fact: Koons’ balloon bunny makes him “smile.”)
Art museum toilets.
Following third quarter losses, Sotheby’s has laid people off.
Roger Ebert Rants! The Associated Press sucks.
Lots of Bush.
Drink like Lebowski. Don’t miss the video. (Thanks, Erik!)
Tyler Green at the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, talking about all the stuff he hates. Interesting fact: he doesn’t like Jackson Pollock—or Brooklyn (the nerve). And he admits to being a “museum slut.” Juicy!
Knitted art draws the attention of Stephen Colbert … and the Border Patrol.
Art titles.
The God of Spring, a new novel based on the painting of Gericault’s The Raft of the Medusa. (holartbooks’ Twitter.)
The Day in Art Merch: A shower curtain by Sam Flores. The staff here at C-Monster is waiting for an artist to make a fluffy toilet lid cover. Our pooper is cold. (Juxtapoz.)
Today’s Graff: Graphic Surgery in Amsterdam. More here.
A picture preview of a Faile show in London.
Andrés Duany, designer of Seaside, Fla. (one of the creepiest places I’ve ever been to), spanks British architecture for being ego-driven and “heedless of technical and social dysfunction.”
Why architects wear black.
How to build an igloo. (ackackack.)
Your moment of aerobic poodles.

Tags: LACMA, Los Angeles, the fun finder.