LACMA Instagram Bait Was Banned in Mexico City
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| Pedro Reyes, Tlali, 2026. LACMA |
In 2021 Reyes was commissioned to create a similar sculpture to replace Mexico City's monument to Christopher Columbus. It was to swap the ur-colonialist with the likeness of an Indigenous woman. After the project was approved, critics accused Reyes of cultural appropriation. It was argued that a Mestizo man was a tonedeaf choice to sculpt an Indigenous woman. The criticism was strong enough that the project was sidelined indefinitely.
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| Rendering of Reyes' Tlalli for Mexico City |
LACMA commissioned Reyes to produce a similar sculpture for the Geffen. There are differences: The Mexico City head was to be the in the round, while the Los Angeles version is a relief, attached to the building with visible pillars. The Mexico City head was titled Tlalli, with an extra L, and that's been shorted to Tlali at LACMA.
Context is everything. In Mexico Reyes is a whitish guy appropriating Olmec culture. In Los Angeles, and especially in the context of Rodin, Calder, and Koons, he's a Mexican artist re-presenting his nation's cultural heritage. The Mexico City head was a conceptualist gesture, as much about what it replaces as what it is. But LACMA's Tlali doesn't replace anything. The operative concept, I suspect, is that it's a ready-made backdrop for social media posts.
Comments
Pity the artist didn't consider some obscuring device to deal with the unsightly extending pillars from the back. Oh, well.
Nice relief.
> smoothies as
> LACMA's latest
> controversy.
Sheesh, I'm still trying to deal with LACMA's long history of being way too rube-ish.
What's really pathetic are C-grade things that people like Richard Brown and William Pereira did in 1965, and now, in 2026, sort of a variation of the same thing with Michael Govan and Peter Zumthor.
> unsightly
> extending pillars
Aesthetics have never been important enough to the museum. They're analogous to a quarterback in the NFL who doesn't care to master the skill of throwing a football.
We need some color and animation down there.
Should have commissioned something from Alex Da Corte.
Da Corte's Big Bird sculpture would have bridged the Calder and the DeBall (Feathered Changes).
But it now belongs to Glenstone.
And, unlike the Koons (Split-Rocker) there is no artist proof for Big Bird.
--- J. Garcin
45 curators working across various areas of study collaborated to fill the space for the first time. Their decision to organize by ocean rather than by country of origin or chronological sequence is an important one.... Oceans are treated as a site of connection rather than borders.
The museum’s Local Access program ... Objects that do not make it into the David Geffen Galleries can be routed to these partners instead of being held in storage... It is designed to eliminate the logistical bottlenecks that have historically kept pieces locked in institutional silos... [End quote]
The Geffen right now indicates the museum has yet to fill in its own walls and floor spaces. So whether their objects are in storage or on loan, they need to first deal with 5905 Wilshire Blvd before spaces in East LA, South LA, Ontario, Las Vegas, etc.
You'd think they wouldn't have to be told that. But their not minding the formal opening of the new building without its exhibits being fully maximized shows they always have to be second guessed. Such as how they'll overlook visible wall mounts for indoor and outdoor sculptures that should be at least painted a color to blend in instead of stand out.
Can you say more? I just Google Imaged the artist. Mind, nothing comprehensive, but maybe a thousand pics worth. Maybe 90% of his searched works are in the round, and not attached to walls.
Is their 1 particular work that you can recommend with a treatment similar to LACMA's?
https://itsnewstoyou.me/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1-15-pedro-reyes-direct-action.jpg
http://www.dreamideamachine.com/?p=59343
Major museums of the nation and world almost require that people take them seriously. In comparison, the warehouse-style look and non-encyclopedic feel (lots and lots of blank walls) of the Geffen don't have a must-see quality. Or where people will say, "let's visit there instead of the Santa Monica Pier or Universal Studios!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfcMvBgSuqw&t=7s&pp=ygUFbGFjbWE%3D
Michael Govan has mentioned LACMA not attracting the number of visitors that each year drop by The Grove. So I hope he's conscious of the problem of 5905 Wilshire Blvd being too much like a "de facto museum of contemporary art, but frankly...not a very good one."
Which will be a big issue if he wants LACMA to take over the generally lightly attended MOCA---much less a Hammer or the Marciano. LACMA already has enough on its plate.
> them to the black
> brackets supporting
> ...Judgment of Jupiter!
It bothers me that basic choices or decisions made by LACMA (going back decades too) have to be second guessed. Then I remember it wasn't too long ago when I myself didn't fully realize just how inadequate the Pereira/Hardy-Holzman-Pfeiffer buildings truly were. That's in spite of being aware of decades of digs or apathy directed at them.
Something about seeing a video tour of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston was one of the wake-up calls of the past year. Along with a previous awareness of places like the public art museum in Minneapolis.
I now wonder if people associated for decades with LACMA, including the Ahmanson Foundation or the museum's current and previous director, have ever had similar wake-up calls.
But his buttressing at LACMA, not so much.
What reminds you of Duchamp? The misogyny?
Speaking of which, this is LACMA's excuse:
“For his new work at LACMA, Reyes specifically reshaped the features of the face, emphasizing the fragmentary qualities, not only of the face but also of the individual blocks of lava stone that comprise the sculpture.”
... As if fragmentation is an antidote for misogyny and colonial appropriation. If that were the case, Picasso's Demoiselles would be a feminist manifesto.
LACMA made a mistake here. This reeks of the meddling of a Board member.
--- J. Garcin
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"Harpanet and Cañonófono", mechanized instruments made from recycled gun and rifle parts...the re-fashion/re-use aspect of this installation is quite inventive. Duchampian.
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Reyes’s "Machine Music" – crank-operated music boxes made of Swiss Carbine rifles, Italian Barettas, and Austrian Glock pistols...I'd like to know more about his focus on militarism: Swords into plowshares?
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Reyes's "Disarm (Mechanized) II," of 2014...there's a Duchampian bottle dryer in there somewhere.
The guy is a serious echo of Duchamp's, and in a good way
> meddling of a
> Board member.
He or she must be a rube.
Sylvain Levy, linkedin .com:
Los Angeles spent $724 million on a project that sought to render hierarchy obsolete... The building itself is the contradiction.
It is not hierarchy that collapses inside. It is judgement. Bacon paintings are unviewable due to the glare. Mesoamerican vitrines require nose-pressed inspection. Light and Space sculptures are stranded in their own gallery.
When a museum refuses to organise its collection by period, place or argument, it does not liberate it. It loses them. Diversity without editing is not pluralism. It is noise. The art pays the price for this approach.
Curatorial judgement is not a hierarchy to be abolished. It is the discipline that gives meaning to a collection. Without it, proximity exists without dialogue, juxtaposition without thesis and scale without argument. Coherence is not authoritarian. It is the editorial labour that makes a museum accessible. [End quote]
I haven't personally visited the Geffen yet, but based on images and videos, and unlike the above review, I'm not underwhelmed by the non-categorized format of the place. I'm not underwhelmed by even the gray concrete or warehouse-look of the galleries----although it's excessive.
No, I'm instead underwhelmed by certain clumsy, non-aesthetic choices (black steel brackets; really, LACMA, that's the best you can do?) and the "we don't have enough in our collection" look of the galleries.
In certain ways, okay, Michael Govan and his staffers are sort of rubes. Or hicks. Or hayseeds. lol. Meaning the ghost of LACMA 1965 is still haunting the museum.
When this area was unveiled several years ago, the only thing that made it less rube-ish was, hey, it was designed by an [quote, unquote] artist!
https://unframed.lacma.org/sites/default/files/styles/article_full/public/field/image/SF2985_4.jpg?itok=iIOFMTWi
Meanwhile, the painting in the center of this image, were it now in the Geffen instead of the demolished Art of Americas building, would be set against gray concrete. Never mind the canvas being of quality that even a Goodwill or discount store might grimace at. lol.
https://unframed.lacma.org/sites/default/files/attachments/SF2840-VW012.jpg
Rube, rubes, everywhere. I see rubes everywhere.
At the conceptual level, the context is not some social/political order (gun violence), but an aesthetic one (the role of art in museums).
In today's art world, associating artists with Duchamp is often a branding exercise. Very few artists deserve the association. With Reyes, the emphasis is still on making things, making things to be seen. With Duchamp, the emphasis had shifted to selecting, selecting things that forced people to think.
--- J. Garcin
Are there now any contemporary artists doing this?
--- J. Garcin
The side view really feels clumsy and thoughtless. The supports are supposed to be hidden but are needlessly exposed. Its an F for me.
There's a thesis/critical framework. The thesis is quite old by now. It dates back to the late 90's. In the field of Comparative Literature where the thesis emerged formally, the framework of the transatlantic shifted the emphasis from national traditions to networks of exchange (across oceans and waterways).
As if so often the case, curatorial practice is late to the game. Not saying here that LACMA does a good job of deploying the thesis. With respect to the objects, how much does LACMA say about trade and maritime connectivity between cultures?
--- J. Garcin
Hmm. Suspiciouser and suspiciouser.