Antenna: Happy Birthday, Lucky Lucky LACMA
The museum’s glittering 50th anniversary celebrations, says Meredith Etherington-Smith, are proof that Los Angeles has come of age as a major — and increasingly important — hub in the art world
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) celebrated its 50th birthday last weekend, throwing a fittingly fabulous party that outdid the Oscars and raised $5 million for acquisitions. More importantly, the museum was also given (and promised) some magnificent birthday presents — generously donated by the city’s growing community of world-class collectors and patrons.
These wonderful birthday presents will be shown as part of the aptly titled 50 for 50 (from 26 April), a commemorative exhibition to include works by Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist and George Segal — along with Warhol’s seminal Two Marilyns. Masterpieces from the further reaches of art history include pieces by Ingres, Giambologna, Bernini and Francois Boucher and, as if that weren’t enough, Christ Blessing, the first Hans Memling to enter the collection.
And there are yet more presents to be unwrapped: 19th century works include Monet’s Two Women in a Garden (1872-3), with additional pieces by Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Vuillard. Other highlights include the 18th-century Serpent Headdress from the Baga peoples, Guinea and Vija Celmin’s seminal l964 painting T.V. , not to mention Red Concave Circle (1970) by L.A.’s very own DeWain Valentine, also joining the collection.
The party featured a vast cross-section of Los Angelenos, from LACMA co-chairs Ann Colgin, Jane Nathanson and Lynda Resnick, to trustees Carole Bayer Sager, Ryan Seacrest and Wendy Stark Morrissey. Artists in attendance included Mark Grotjahn, Bill Viola, Barbara Kruger and Ed Ruscha, with entertainers including Barbra Streisand, Dustin Hoffman and Anjelica Huston representing ‘Old L.A’.
All this hoo-ha is significant: LACMA’s 50th anniversary celebrations are proof that Los Angeles has come of age as a major — and increasingly important — hub in the art world. It’s no wonder that more and more young contemporary artists are moving out west, joining more seasoned residents such as Ed Ruscha and Paul McCarthy.
The miners of the 19th century were attracted by L.A.’s gold; the silent film titans of the last century, its endless sunshine. Now, something quite different is attracting contemporary artists — and it isn’t an invitation to the Vanity Fair Oscar Party. Los Angeles offers a certain freedom and difference: looking over its shoulder to Latin America, and out west across the Pacific. It is another America.
This is not the slightly tired, inward-looking land of the East, nor is it the business-focused, fly-over territory that is the Midwest. L.A. is far more than the glitzy Hollywood machine; it is much bigger than that. It is Oceanic and Hispanic America; a 21st century America. This is the land of infinite possibility, with an atmosphere that is entirely its own — and a world-class museum to match.
Happy birthday, LACMA!
L.A.’s urban geodes
These sparkling little geodes in secret corners of L.A. are the work of artist and sculptor Paige Smith, AKA a common name, who uses paper, spray paint and lots of glitter to create the illusion of crystallised rock formations, sprouting forth in odd nooks and crannies all over downtown. A much larger urban geode can be seen crawling along the walls of L.A.’s Maker Gallery — but to my mind, the tiny sneak street examples are awfully effective.
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