The collection is spotty in its quality, but it shows beautifully. The architecture is a great pleasure, yet not revolutionary or breathtaking. Ah, but the gardens are an absolute, unqualified delight, all thanks to Robert Irwin and the uncredited gardeners who work their wizardry on the grounds of the Getty Museum.
Lots more garden images (including real flowers!) will follow over the next week or so.
Category: Culture
I’m a tree hugger
untitled (palms in the blue)
These wonderful creatures could easily turn me into an animist. These palms were waving above the high terrace of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art this afternoon.
But, at least on the surface, the current featured exhibition, “Beyond Geometry: Experiments in Form 1940s−70s,” could hardly be more removed from these beautiful sentinals outside. It’s a stunning show, even if I somehow missed the argument of its curatorial premise.
off with the trucker hats
The poster was spotted on West Third Street in Hollywood this evening.
Thanks, guys.
flowers for Charles and Ray Eames
In a combination which this northerner found unlikely (and accordingly so very spectacular), these bougainvillea and morning glories were entwined on the side of the drive to the Charles Eames house in Pacific Palisades this afternoon.
[thanks to Mary Baine for the tip which made the trip possible]
the old Chung King Road
untitled (Chung King Road) 2004
The very pedestrian Chung King Road is the site of six or eight of the most exciting galleries in Los Angeles, but it’s also still part of Chinatown.
Portland’s Sauvie Island
We drove around Sauvie Island this afternoon, just outside the city of Portland. These two photographs are of landscapes approximately two miles from the city limits, and only twelve miles fom the very center of town. They are totally representative of an island which has no gas stations and no visible commercial life outside of its pick-them-yourself farms.
Dreamy. Even Gerhard Richter would be impressed.
Actually, much of the island looks like the kind of arcadia which could have inspired Capability Brown. See Bloggy for more beautiful images.
the Arcangels’ cool summer art show
I couldn’t imagine it would come together so well. Hearing or reading about it ahead of time, the concept seemed mad. It is (and I mean that in the very best way), but its execution was absolutely brilliant.
Foxy Production announces The Infinite Fill Show, a group exhibition of dazzling black and white patterns, curated by brother and sister team Cory and Jamie Arcangel. The exhibition includes new and historical, readymade and handcrafted works in a range of media. The curators sent out an open call to artists for found or made objects which had to adhere to two basic rules: they must be black and white, and they must contain repeating patterns. The curatorial concept was inspired by MAC Paint, the 1984 software application with varied 16-bit monochrome patterning that could be picked and dropped into areas of the screen to denote color and depth. For Cory and Jamie Arcangel, this rudimentary precursor to Photoshop’s draw and paint functions provides a creative tool to explore multiple perspectives within a unifying aesthetic.
Last night black and white patterns contributed by more than 50 artists danced, inside my head in color and in more than three dimensions, throughout the hot little cool gallery on 27th Street.
Magic.
sculptural fan dance on Wooster St.
I remember now why galleries used to just close altogether in July and August. On Tuesday afternoon I wandered into the Dearraindrop show, “Riddle of the Spinx,” in the large Wooster St. space of Deitch Projects [no website!]. It was very warm out, the garage door was open in welcome, and of course there was no air conditioning. Even before I had passed through the door cut into a paper pyramid to enter the exhibition space I had noticed what appeared to be a complementary installation directly across the street, but I was intent on the purpose of my visit.
The multi-media Dearraindrop installation will definitely reward the time I myself was unable to give it that afternoon; there appear to be scores of drawings and collage works hosting the larger constructions, and they are small only in their scale.
I had forgotten to bring my fan with me however, and so, since I’m famously impatient with heat and humidity, I left sooner than I would otherwise have wanted to.
I noticed that there seemed to be only one person babysitting the gallery, a smiling, very young man behind a table at the entrance. But then there was also the interesting more mature man seated just next to him, who was stretched out in his chair and appeared to be dozing. Only after I took the photograph at the top of this post did I suspect that he was the artist I should have engaged that afternoon. I regret I didn’t have the nerve to interrupt his rest to ask about the great work he had placed on the sidewalk outside, opposite the sassy pyramid in the garage.
And yes, as if in a salute to the broad talents of the collective installed across the street, there was music coming from his work as well.
Dearraindrop, Deitch Projects installation detail
Julia Scher’s security check
detail from Julia Scher’s video, “Guard”
The third of White Box‘s planned nine weekly curated (RNC-oriented) shows opened tonight with a video and window installation by Julia Scher curated by Michael Rush.
Everything is on the outside of the gallery for these summer shows. This week the window reveals a real chain link fence topped with the ubiquitous razor wire, but this time everything is in pink, the whole threaded with a blue text welcoming the Republican National Convention to New York. The video installation next to the window is composed of two looped tapes (43 minutes total) each showing a solitary pink-uniformed security guard stationed, presumably, in front of a bank of monitors showing images of the viewer.
Scher has worked with surveillance issues for years. In 1991 she wrote, “The monitors of surveillance are the eyes of a social body gone berserk.” Today we cannot even imagine an escape from that insanity.
It’s a very good show. It’ll be there for only six more days, but the real surveillance is only getting started.
Pooh’s umbrella
Spotted on the way home from Williamsburg, on the uptown platform of the 14th Street IND station around midnight one rainy evening earlier this week: An attractive and serious young man, comfortably slouched on the bench, reading a copy of Ernst Cassirer’s “The Myth of the State,” small headphones holding his thoughts in place. At his feet rested a beautiful, wet, Winnie-the-Pooh folding umbrella.
Unfortunately I didn’t have the nerve to use my camera; this time I had to just squeeze my eyes and record it without mechanical assistance.
Lovely, New York.
[image from Umbrella-Shoppe.Com]