Sunday, December 28, 2014

At The Museums & On The Streets

Already marked out two museums in Los Angeles to stroll through. Went to the Getty Museum and MOCA's two downtown locations. MOCA's 'Andy Warhol: Shadows' was a yawn. I was more keen to hop over to MOCA's second space to see Marjorie Cameron's 20 drawings of mystical visions and dreams as inspired by her husband Jack Parsons' poems- 'Songs for the Witch Woman'. These were drawings mainly done in 1980s. Cameron was a "counter-culture muse" in 1950s Los Angeles. You must have seen her sexually-graphic (as defined by the 50s, not now) sketch 'Peyote Vision'.

I didn't remember anything of Getty Museum when seen through the eyes of an angsty teenager. Now, I can appreciate it much better. Glad it had 'Spectacular Rubens: The Triumph of the Eucharist'. The six Ruben oil sketches are exhibited together with four corresponding tapestries out of the 20 made for Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales (Convent of the Barefoot Royals) in Madrid. Those vivid Baroque colors and lush lines. What a treat to see this exhibition!

Aside from the museums, what I really like, are the random graffiti and wall murals that dot the city. This one is most curious. It was here the last time I was. It's still here now- Anthony Heinsbergen's 1961 'Bell Communications Around the Globe'. It's a 17'h x 36'w three-dimensional wall mural/mosaic made up from old telephone parts. Bells, transistors and switchboards. This wall mural adorns what used to be the Pacific Bell Telephone building. It's now the AT & T building.

"This mosaic," Heinsbergen said, "was not intended to be a map. Our objective was to tell the story of worldwide communication by cable, radio, telephone and satellite and do this in a way that would capture the attention and interest of people. A certain amount of artistic license was taken to achieve this end."
~ from PublicArtinLA.

Yup, I can see that. Japan's totally missing. Anyway. I've almost forgotten how quaint those rotary-dial and press-button telephones look like. Who bothers keeping a land line at home nowadays. Don't we mostly use the cellphones, tablets and laptops instead?

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