Ruscha Show Coming to LACMA in 2024
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| Ed Ruscha, Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, 1965–68. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden |
The New York Times has a feature on the installation of the Chocolate Room (1970) at MoMA.
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| Ed Ruscha, Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, 1965–68. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden |
The New York Times has a feature on the installation of the Chocolate Room (1970) at MoMA.
Comments
LOL. Too much of anything, even if originally very good, becomes...too much.
I wonder what Ruscha thinks of what's being done to LACMA? Based on his 1968 painting, which is owned by the Hirschorn (sheesh, should have instead been snapped up by LACMA), he must be relieved, if not gleeful. Hell, maybe he's the anti-Save-LACMA/MAGA-mob guy.
Yesterday I ran across another letter to the NYT under their article about how NYC's performing-arts center is being managed. The letter was from a person with an LA IP, and he grumbled about what Govan is doing to LACMA. The writer's POV was closer to mines awhile ago. Or before I had visited Louvre World in Orlando, France.
However, I still think the Zumthor/Govan building has too many loose strings (particularly budget-, size/technical-wise), but I also have a better sense of why a Ruscha may have devilishly liked portraying the 1965 facility as on fire.
I'm reminded of other museums that actually are surrounded by moats: the Forbidden City, of course. And the Malmö Art Museum in Sweden.
In real life, LACMA has no business featuring a moat, as the locale is a desert bakery.
Agreed: The fact that LACMA didn't take this is a decision that will live in infamy. Hirshhorn bought it from a Los Angeles gallery. SAD.
https://i.redd.it/wgmsjakqq5w41.jpg
https://www.lacma.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/GettyImages-1125983884_0.jpg
Pereira was a compromise choice after LACMA's Board of Trustees couldn't agree on Mies van der Rohe. I wonder what he would have come up with in the early 1960s?
As for the moat, it was plagued from the beginning by leaking underground tar deposits (and methane gas) found throughout mid-Wilshire LA. In 1985, that gas caused an explosion of a retail store a few blocks away. By contrast, most of the Zumthor/Govan blob will be suspended way above ground level on two anchor pods. For some reason, a similar format is embraced by the architect of the Lucas museum.
Govan could have invited Ruscha to light the fire.
... The Pereira buildings were so banal. Only a fire could have given them the affect they lacked.