MOCA's First Thirty Years: 1980 to NOW

This is a large sketch of auditorium seating without the context of the auditorium or theatre.

It takes up a small amount of space on these 4 wide pieces of paper. Can you imagine what would take up the rest of the space?

A detail...

This piece is called 'Big Wheel' by Chris Burden. To get the sculpture moving, a woman got on the motorcycle and revved the motor to about 50mph which then propelled the movement of the 3,200 lb metal wheel. Click here to see video of this performance.

Jeff Koons' "Three Puppies"... so cute.

Collages by Christian Holstad.

Liz Larner's "2 as 3 and Some, Too"

R&R: Welcome Stranger

This a group of photos of what looks like a zoo in China. It's so bizarre cuz it feel like a modern office campus that someone retrofitted to accomodate a zoo. Notice the "dog house."

This video piece was my favorite. It was projected right over the doorway. The artist asked several conductors to "conduct" a piece of music in their mind. It was awesome to read the music on each conductor's face.

R&R is a gallery/studio started by the cool people at Roger (a design company). This show is open until 2.28.10.

Art LA Contemporary

January must be art fair season. There were 3 in LA last month- one of which is Art LA Contemporary.

There were some nice things here but the nicest find was this artist Matt Lipps. Here are 2 images from his HOME series. He cut out Ansel Adams elements and created these table-top dioramas against images of his childhood home. They feel like little stages for a play.

Click here to see the rest of this series.

Other things I liked....

Beth Campbell

B. Campbell had a show at Country Club which is located in Rudolph Schindler's Buck House. The house is definitely worth checking out the next time they have a show there.

Check out Country Club's site for some better images.

FADA- LA Art Show

A no-photo policy.... : (

The Watts House Project

I took a tour of the Watts Towers, built by Simon Rodia, and the surrounding neighborhood with artist Edgar Arceneaux who is the director of the Watts House Project. This project brings together an artist, an architect and the home owner to beautify the homes around the towers. (They are also working with banks to convert the renters into owners.) Along with the towers, there is the Watts Towers Art Center and the newly built Charles Mingus Youth Art Center nearby.

These photos are from a show at the Watts Towers Art Center. Most of the artists live in Watts.

Jeff Koons: Gagosian Gallery

When you first look at these paintings, you might see large paint strokes layered on top of doodles, layered on top of blown-up photographs. Up close it's hard to tell what these paintings might be. However if you step back (away from the computer), the picture becomes more clear.

Another cool thing about these paintings is the process. Not one bit of paint sits on top of another. Each color is painted as a separate piece- almost like a color-by-numbers painting. Why this painstaking technique? Maybe to torture his more than 120 assistants?

(click to enlarge)

Musee d'Orsay

These are some photos I took last summer at the Musee d'Orsay. I guess these stood out to me because they looked so "contemporary."

Paul Serusier, 1890

Paul Gauguin, 1889

Odilon Redon, 1903

Maurice Denis, 1891

Maurice Denis, 1893