After several days of poor sleep due to jetlag, I’ve finally
slept through last night. It’s such a
relief…
At the hotel, I’ve discovered the bagel collection available
during breakfast. Best of all, I’ve
found that they have cinnamon and raisin bagels, which are more or less the
same flavour as raisin toast back in Australia, but better! All I need is some vegemite…
Today was Art Gallery day.
We went on a long drive this morning, leaving the hotel at about
9.30AM. I presume that this is the very
tail end of rush hour, and the traffic was so crazy that I can’t imagine how it
would be during the full-on rush hour.
We arrived in Westwood Village (to the west of Beverly Hills) at about
11AM, although it is fair to say our route may not have been optimal. We found the most expensive parking lot in
the area, charged $2.80 every 15 minute block, up to a maximum of $22 per
day. Despite taking umbrage at this, I
couldn’t reverse out because of the cars in the street, so in we went, steam
coming out of my ears. Andrea was quite
to remind me that she didn’t say we should go in.
So, we headed over the road to the Hammer Museum, which is
part of the University of California (UCLA).
It was free entry, which helped with the pain of the parking. After visiting the first display and being
somewhat disappointed at what passed for art, Alma noticed that the building
had parking underneath. I went and
checked with reception and found that they charged $3 for 3 hours. With great delight, I went back to the
original parking lot and took the car out.
Despite having been there for only about 20 minutes, I was in to the
second time period, so it cost $5.60, which is the poorest return on $5.60 that
I’ve ever had. After a few laps of the
block with the museum, and an illegal(?) u-turn, I finally managed to park the
car and join the girls.
I had missed the first gallery they went to, which on the
basis of what we saw in the first gallery, didn’t concern me at all. The second gallery was entitled THE IDEA OF NORTH : The paintings of Lawren
Harris. With low expectations, in we
went. Well, fair to say, the collection
was outstanding. Fabulous paintings of
Canada’s north from around 90 years ago.
Can’t recommend them highly enough.
In an additional chamber in the same building, there was a small
collection of paintings from famous masters like Rembrandt, Rubens, Goya, Cezanne,
Degas, Gauguin, Monet, and Toulouse-Lautrec.
My favourite was the portrait attributed to Gericault (his most famous
work is Raft of the Medusa). Small
collection, but fabulous.
The next exhibition of entitled UH-OH by Frances Stark and unfortunately represents everything I
hate about modern artists and art.
Pretentious claptrap and junk masquerading as art. While the Rembrandt, Rubens, Goya etc will surely
still be considered masterpieces in another 200 years, the other will hopefully
have long been consigned to the rubbish bin.
At the gift shop, I was pleased to find an interesting tea
towel that I thought would be great for Andrea’s workshop. It was a list of reasons why it is great to
be a woman artist. They were all
ironic/sarcastic, but was quite amusing.
Most amusing however was the price.
US$35 for a printed tea towel. I’m
still giggling…
After we left, we continued driving east down Wilshire Drive
and we passed through Beverly Hills.
That was an experience. Lots of shiny
things. Our baby magpie was impressed! I must admit to secretly enjoying the car
shops. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a
McLaren shop before…
Ultimately we arrived at the Los Angeles County Museum of
Art (LACMA). Being about 1.30pm, we took
the advantage to have a quick lunch from one of the many food trucks parked out
the front. I went with the green organic
food truck and a vegan burger which was very delicious. The girls went with some other thing that
came with chips. I think they were only
moderately happy. The chips were twice
cooked, as is the current fad amongst the foodies, however they seemed a bit
overcooked.
By chance, we had arrived at the Museum on free entry
day. The first gallery was a series of
Japanese woodcut prints which were extraordinarily detailed and just
wonderful. They’re not something I
normally think much about, but every time I see a display of them, I love
them. There was another display
elsewhere in the complex but we didn’t get to them, which was a bit
disappointing.
Second gallery was a collection of German left-wing
propaganda from immediately after WW1.
Powerful works. Certainly not to
my taste though.
The next gallery was a collection donated by the Lazarof’s. Interesting collection, including a lot of
German and Eastern European works from post WW1. Grim but nonetheless impressive works.
Following that was a collection of more modern works (largely
1950’s and 1960’s?) by US artists. At
some point, there was a gallery of Picasso’s works. My but he was a strange fish… Some impressive works but others feel like he
was just cashing in on his name.
Some other works, including the famous tomato soup can by
Andy Warhol. There was also one by
another artist featuring a Spam can.
More interesting than it sounds.
My least favourite was a large diamond shape, painted
white. Apparently someone paid good
money to purchase it for the gallery. When
I get home I’m going to do a series based on this work and see how much I can
get. I suspect that it won’t be enough
to retire on…
A quick trip through the South Pacific art collection
completed the Ahmanson Building and we headed to the Broad Contemporary Art Museum
(part of the LACMA complex).
Unfortunately we only had time for the Junk Dada collection by Noah Purifoy. Against expectations, I quite enjoyed it,
with some pretty cool works. Vastly
better than the earlier works of Ms. Stark.
After leaving LACMA, we decided to continue driving east
along Wilshire Drive. There was lots of
traffic but at least it was moving, so we continued on. We saw a staggering number of Starbucks and
every other chain store you can imagine.
El Pollo Loco (the crazy chicken) is my favourite, in terms of its
name. No idea of the food quality.
We eventually arrived at an intersection where we could get
onto a freeway to get back to our hotel, however it was choked with cars so we
continued along Wilshire. Eventually
that got more and more choked, so we tried to get onto a freeway nearby. A kind man at an intersection pointed out the
way to get on the freeway. He may have
been homeless, as after giving us the advice, he waved a plastic cup at
us. We gave him a dollar, which he
seemed happy enough with. Karma renewed,
we got onto the freeway and guess what.
It was pretty much choked with cars.
We continued for the better part of an hour and a half before we got
back to the hotel. It’s hard to
describe. We were on only one of the
many freeways crossing LA. Each and
every one is a good 4-6 lanes wide, each direction, running for many
kilometres, all choked with cars. And
then all the minor streets we had traversed earlier were full of cars. It’s like everyone in LA gets to 4pm and
thinks that it is a great idea to go out onto the freeways and drive around for
a couple of hours. Ugh.
So, another day done and dusted. Off to bed we go.
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