the morning i ran through the broad
the other weekend i was down in LA to celebrate the TEN YEAR anniversary of my dear friend and gallerist Walter Maciel. it was a very fun evening, great art, great food, funny toasts. i was only there for one night and had a few hours to kill before my flight sunday morning. all the paid tickets to The Broad were gone, but i heard you had a good chance to get in if you stood in line. so at 9am i got there. at 10am the opened at 10:15 they let the first 70 of us in. hurrah.
i wasn't able to get into kusama's infinity room - wait time 2 hours - 2 hours i didn't have. but luckily i experienced that in NY at the whitney years ago, so i didn't feel too bad.
it's amazing to think that this is ONE couple's collection. talk about grand. but the museum is FREE. and the inaugural exhibition is quite literally an art's greatest hits. there are no duds. no nobody's on display. and the building itself spectacularly showcases the work.
here were some of my favorites:
chris burden
ed ruscha. [an imagine my happiness to see this NORMS piece in particular]
robert therrien - this is actually a GIANT table. you walk under it. i couldn't help but think about how when i was a kid i graffitti'd under our coffee table [my parents didn't know]. this sculpture could have used some gum or writing under it to give it that final touch.
oh jeff koons - there was a kid that made a beeline for this. totally cracked me up.
the surprise for me was how much i really loved the john baldessari's - somehow i always forget about him.
christopher wool [that drip did it for me. i forget how much he reminds me of lichtenstein. the whole i've done this by hand, but it doesn't look like it, but in case you don't believe me, here's a slip up thing].
glen ligon [these are really moving in person]
keith harring - paired with
basquiat - another obvious, but still good pairing.
kara walker
the big bad boys damien hirst and andreas gursky seemed so very right together too.
i will never tire of julie mehretu - her work is a mass of a million small perfect moments that become a mass of a perfect giant moment.
a panorama of when you enter the top floor. it's so massive.
exiting through the gift shop i couldn't help but wonder what keith would have thought of perfumed candles decorated with his imagery. if they were ironic i think he might have been OK with them? but there was NO IRONY to be found.
and then this moment. caught right before the ensuing tantrum, i was blessed with the sighting of one small princess, gingerly assisted by her father down the stairs.
it feels like both the LA and san francisco art scenes are being infused with new energy. it's exciting. go west coast. [come on people throw up the hand sign with me].
Comments
Rumor has it that the 's' in Lisa was written backwards.....hmmmmmm. Also, that your parents found it pretty funny once they discovered your 'crime.'
Thanks for an intro to some artists whose work i had never seen before. Makes me want to go to the Broad the next time I am in LA.