James Turrell at LACMA

On Tuesday I went back to LACMA for a visit to the James Turrell retrospective.  He was born in Pasadena in 1943, went to Pomona College and the Claremont Graduate School as well as UC Irvine.  Light has been his focus through out his career such as light streaming through the forest and openings in the sky or walls.  His works create opportunities for visitors to experience light as a primary physical presence...not just a tool to see.  His exhibit invites us to contemplate and meditate on the experience of viewing light in different forms. 

In 1966, he created "Afrum (White)" which is a large room where one sees a luminous cube floating in one corner and with a blink of an eye or shift in position, the cube disappears and the light falls flat on the surface of the wall, calling attention to its delicate and elusive nature.

From 1966 to 1974, Turrell's studio was in the former Mendota Hotel in Santa Monica.  He sealed off two main spaces to all external light and let in outside light through small scratches that allowed small slivers of light to enter thus orchestrating sequences of light projected inside the darkened studio.

Recently he has created Holograms which seem to hold multidimensional fragments of light.  These seem to be three-dimensional projections in various colors and shapes.

Turrell has created Skyspaces all over the world where indepentent stuctures consist of enclosed chambers with benches along the interior walls, programmed lighting, and an opening in the ceiling that lets the viewer see the interplay of sky, light, and atmosphere.  More than 75 have been built on 5 continents. 

Above is the "Raemar Pink White," 1969 and below is "Purusa," 2011
The Raemar Pink White is an early work know as a Shallow Space, in which a space is filled with light.

Purusa  is one of Turrell"s Ganzfelds...meaning complete field and a psychological term for the disorienting effect of being immersed in a homogeneous visual field.  While standing in this large room with only 5 others, I began to see amazing visual perceptions seeming like fog or mist and then various forms of people and things on the blank wall.  They only allowed us in there for 10 minutes which is perhaps a good idea.

The Perceptual Cell is for one viewer at a time to enter a spherical chamber on a sliding bed then surrounded by saturated lights.  They say it offers the potential for transformation and psychological growth through heightened perception...if you are not claustrophobic.

Turrell explored the Western U.S. in his single-engine airplane for seven months in 1974 and discovered Roden Crater in Arizona.  This dormant volcano has been the sight of his momumental artwork for nearly 40 years.  He has created a series of tunnels, rooms, and openings as celestial viewing chambers designed to sample and track light from the sky and mark astronomical events.  Above is a model of his work and below is Turrell standing with the Roden Crater behind.  "As viewers of his work, we are invited to slow down and consider the very ways in which we see." (Elizabeth Gerber. LACMA)

If it's Monday it must be LACMA

I roamed over to the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts to see what's new.  I found Stephen Prina's installation "As He Remembered It."  It is made up of copies of built-ins for houses designed by architect R.M Schindler.  The houses were later demolished but he found the surviving plans and photographs and he had copies made of the unit furniture which Schindler designed to be arranged to follow the lines of the rooms.  These 28 objects that Prina painted pink are staged in a grid pattern.

Then I strolled over to see the plans for the new LACMA East called "Black Flower"...if the $650 million is raised to raze the current 1960's and '90's buildings and build a new "organic shape, like a water lily, floating and open with 360 degrees of glass" designed by Peter Zumthor.  He writes:  "intended to have a unique urbanistic energy..stands apart from other buildings yet is integrated into its environment."  "A huge roof covered in solar tiles litterally soaks up the energy of the California sun....The grand scale of the organic whole is assembled from smaller pieces within, providing a village of experiences."  We'll see.

Then I went into the Hans Richter:  Encounters exhibit.  Hans was born in Germany in 1888 in Berlin and lived with his rich parents.  He traveled around Europe with a home in Switzerland and moved to the U.S. in 1940 after escaping the Nazi's in 1933.  He became a U.S. citizen and died in his Switzerland home in 1976.  This retrospective of his works include paintings, films and writings.  He collaborated with creative folks such as Max Ernst, Marcel Cuchamp, Fernand Leger and Man Ray.  The exhibit presents 150 works and some works of his colleagues.  His styles  ranged from expressionism, cubism, dadism, contructivism, surrealism and New American Cinema movement.  Several films are being shown plus many I Pads display his creative film work.

"Workers," 1911  "As a young artist, Richter was inspired by French Post Impressionist Paul Cezanne to experiment with movement and the fragmentation of forms...he transformed the human body into rhythmic forms, abandening convention spatial laws for a unified surface.  As Richter increasingly focused on such rhytghmic movements, each captured in a specific moment, the paintings' subjects became less and less important."

"Skating," 1915

"Visionary Self-Portrait,"1917

"Visionary Portrait," 1917

"Blue Man," 1917

"Landscape," 1912 by Otto van Ress, Dutch 1884-1957 and Adya von Ress, Dutch, 1876-1959

"Hourglass," 1914 by Adya van Rees, Silk embroadery on linen

"Poster for Dada Movement,"1918 by Marcel Janco, Romanian 1895-1884.  Dadism orginated in Zurich in 1916 among a group of artists who fiercely rejected the political beliefs, cultural conformity, and capitalism values they held responsible for the disaster of World War I.  Dada may just be a nonsense word that captured the movement's spirit of subversive irreverence.  The movement largely dissipated by 1924 but many went on to Surrealism and later Pop art...punk rock and countercultural movements we see today.

Wall of films

"Liberation of Paris," 1945 by Richter

"The Three Cypresses," 1951 by Max Ernst, German 1891-1976

"From Major to Minor," 1960 by Richter

"Neither Hand..." 1955-56

"Pro-Camera Variations," 1970's by Richter  (It is interesting that like Matisse he was making cut-outs and aranging them during the last years of his life.)

Saturday Night at the POPS

Last Saturday night we met cousin Mary Kay and friends at the L.A. County Arboretum in Arcadia for a picnic and a concert by the Pasadena Pops.  The warm evening was filled with music from Broadway shows and the amazing Bernadette Peters slinking across the stage singing out her favorites.  This woman, who is old enough for me to have met in high school, looks fabulous...from a few hundred feet away and on the big screens. 

She sang while laying on the piano and slinking across the stage....what a performer!

This a great setting for a summer concert with the sounds of Peacocks singing along with the music.

Roaming in Vegas...it can stay there.

Colleen and I drove to Las Vegas for three nights of play, and a conference for Colleen.  I am amazed that where ever we went there seem to be tens of thousands of people roaming around finding ways to give their money away....gambling, food, and shopping...many expensive...I didn't see a Ross or Marshall's store, only Chanel, Rolex, Louis Vutton, and Versace.  It was over 110 degrees there so inside roaming was recommended and each of the big casinos had there own "shops."

I did enjoy a few things in Bellagio with the Dale Chihuly blown glass flowers on the ceiling of the main lobby...2000 of them, and also in a vase in a bar with and an excellent piano and bass player.  Their Conservatory was beautifully decorated with flowers and such.  They also had an exhibit of statues by Richard MacDonald presented by Cirque Du Soleil which has a show at the Ballagio and several other places in town.  Colleen and I loved Cirque Du Soleil's "Love" with a Beatles theme at the Mirage...not so hot about the HOT fire and eruptions hourly on the waterfalls and mountains in front of the place.  Here are some of my pics from the trip.

Hail Caesar's Palace

Dale Chihuly was born in Tacoma, Washington in 1941 and went to school there and in Wisconsin and on a Fulbright Fellowship in Venice, Italy.  In 1971 he cofounded the Pilchuck Glass School near Stanwood, Washington  where he creates his works.  In 1976, while in England, he was in a head-on-car accident in which he flew through the windshield, where his face was severely cut by glass and he was blinded in his left eye.  Then in 1979 he dislocated his right shoulder in a bodysurfing accident.  Since he can no longer hold a glass blowing pipe, he hires others to do the work which he designs.  He says "I am more choreographer than dancer."  Chihuly has directed his art into a multimillion dollar enterprise with sculptures all over the world...you can buy some of his work at the Bellagio or see the largest collection at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.  I enjoyed many of his works with my friend Mary Lou when they visited the Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, Az a few years ago.  When I see his works, I utter an audible WOW.

Richard MacDonald was born in 1946 in Pasadena, CA and graduated from the Art Center College of Design.  He has done paintings and illustrations and began sculpting which led him to becomeing one of the most collected present-day figurative sulptors in America.  It has been said that MacDonald's work portrays "the beauty of the human body and the spirit that drives it."  He uses models in specific dance moves and gestures.  His  clay figures are then molded and editions of bronze sculptures are made.  He then creates the patina which is applied and then the figure is mounted on a marble base which he selects. 
MacDonalds works are at corporations such as AT&T, IBM and private collections.  He created "The Flair" for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, as well as at the Peter Hay Golf Course in Pebble Beach, City of Concord, CA, and others. 

A Fun Sunday

Colleen and I pedaled our bicycles down to Wilshire Blvd. and took part in a CycLAvia bicycle, tricycle, unicycle, skateboard, walking, running, roller blading, scootering event that closed down the Blvd from downtown to Fairfax Ave.  Over 100,000 people participated creating a real sense of community in this big city.  Here are a few pics from our experience.

Yes, sections of the Berlin Wall were on display bringing back memories of the 1960's when I walked along the West side of the wall late at night with friends and traveled through Check Point Charlie to visit East Berlin.

Then I went to the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles production of "Not Entirely Wicked" with the music of Stephen Schwartz at the Saban Theatre.  Stephen was there playing the piano and singing some of his music and joined by Liz Callaway who sang with Stephen and on her own. 

The program included a medley from "Pippin, and "Godspell," Schwartz at the Movies, "Prince of Egypt, The Hunchback of Notre Dame," "Pocahontas," "Enchanted," "Wicked," and a song entitle "Testimony" inspired by the "It Gets Better" project.  The afternoon was fun, moving and inspiring with over 100 talented singers and accompaning music.

And the grand finale of the day was a wonderful dinner with Judith and Stanley at their home in La Canada with great food and reminiscing with friends about the "good ole days."

Wow!  What a Day!