new lacma
Overwhelming!
I liked the section on “Art of the Word, Word as Art” – calligraphy from the islamic world.
Its cool they leave a lot of ceramics out with no glass. Gives them a nice presence.
Is this random layout just an approximation of an insta feed? Or is it “rhizomatic” lol
It is just really random like you walk out of one gallery and something completely out of context is waiting for you?! I just dunno
Sometimes art DOES need a bit more context. This Yto Barrada photo of a palm tree, “Vacant Lot No 2,” what is going on here? We will never know
Whiplash maybe is my overall feeling? Although the building itself i like a lot. That red surface in the back is great.
Is the idea to re-hang this entirely every so often?
I am probably of two minds – I actually like the idea of putting everything on an even playing field and having the building itself not have any central entry point, absolutely no pride of place for any genre or location. By all means! I am thinking through what kind of function the museum is playing then, because the result is that everything is really flattened out into “visual stuff,” comparisons can be drawn entirely on visual resemblance, and context is completely excluded from the experience. I sometimes complain when things go too far in the opposite direction, like in most shows of contemporary art where you are expected to read four to five paragraphs of overwrought prose in order to grasp what is happening, and i always say the work should stand on its own. And we have the most extreme example of that here, all we get is the most basic information, otherwise it is form and form alone. This must be why XXXXXX likes it so much!! Can we learn anything here? Are we supposed to? What is a museum for at the end of the day? Maybe there is something to be said for the (quite radically??) open attitude of the museum on all of these counts. It’s not trying to hit you over the head with any particular image of itself, not trying to make a boast about any particular aspect of its collection, not overly showy in terms of the architectural statement that the building is making. I wrote above that it could be likened to an ijsta algorithm but i think that is actually an unfair criticism, it’s not that facile.
–
Writing later. In conversation, I talked about how the museum does not brand itself in the building, makes no big announcement to you that it has re-opened. But the “Very LACMA” banners are apparently hung all over LA. Big question really has to do with context of course, and the (pedagogical?) function of the museum. To give up on history, on context—in this moment and in this place? What are the dangers of that?
Objects that I responded deeply to that were certainly in the collection before but which I had never seen because i just didn’t go to those rooms.
It asks big questions. A proof of concept of an approach to art. Haunted by the question of its dangers. Everything is left up to the viewer