Extra Credit Event 2: Los Angeles County Museum of Art | LACMA: Ongoing Events and Exhibition

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is the largest art museum in the western United States; it features many artworks from different styles and different continents. There is the Pavilion for Japanese Art where they have fascinating tea ceremony performances, the Art of Americas Building that hosts American Art and Latin American Art. The Hammer Building which has Korean art and ancient Chinese collection such as the amazing antique silk worm book and the children gallery. The Ahmanson Building with modern art, European Art, Islamic, South and Southeast Asian Art, the Picasso exhibition is the first time that I get to see a real Picasso work up close. There is also the Broad Contemporary Art Museum and the Resnick Pavilion that I think is particularly interesting to look at.

Among all the artworks at LACMA, I saw several interesting pieces and surprisingly they are from the same artist Chris Burden, who just passed away last month. Burden’s iconic work is definitely the Urban Light located outside the BP Grand Entrance, the Urban Light is composed of 202 historic streetlamps dating from the 1920s and 1930s originally spread throughout Southern California (LACMA).

https://www.magasin3.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/chris-burden.jpg

Urban Light

Another mesmerizing work by Burden is the Metropolis II; this piece features 1,200 toy cars on their roller-coaster ride through the sculptured city. Burden built this sculpture to present a fast paced, frenetic modern city. The steel beams forms an eclectic grid interwoven with a vast network of 18 tracks. These miniature cars speed through the sculpture city at 240 mph, the equivalent of approximately 100,000 cars circulate through the dense network of buildings (Jobson). This piece reminds me of the robotics lecture, I think that the Metropolis II is a vision of what future cities will look like if we maintain our life style. At the same time, the continuous movement of trains and cars symbolize the stress for human beings living in the modern century.

Another piece by Burden is the Ode to Santos Dumont, a kinetic airship sculpture inspired by Brazilian-born pioneer aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, who is also the father of aviation in France. This balloon looking airship is filled with helium to neutral buoyancy, and the motor is able to push the balloon in a 60-foot circle. The reason I love this piece is because what it signifies in the age of robotics and air travel. This airship examines the balance between weight and power, and this sculpture gives insight to Alberto Santos-Dumont’s innovative ideas that bring human to the sky, and subsequently inspire many other space adventures. The airship signals a progress of human beings and their capability to break through constraints and limitations.

Reference

Jobson, Christopher. "Metropolis II: A Kinetic Sculpture That Circulates 100,000 Miniature Cars Every Hour." Colossal, 3 Mar. 2014. Web. 7 June 2015.

Sykes, Stephanie. "Chris Burden: Ode to Santos Dumont | Unframed." LACMA, 13 May 2015. Web. 7 June 2015.

Theung, Linda. "Chris Burden, 1946–2015 | Unframed." LACMA, 11 May 2015. Web. 7 June 2015.

Extra Credit Event 1 James Turrell: Breathing Light

You have to make a reservation before you can enjoy this amazing light show by James Turrell, we went there at 11 in the morning, it was bright outside, but when we step into the side of the Resnick Pavilion, where this exhibition is located, it is all dark inside without any thing that stand out. Then, the staff asks for our name and said that the exhibition should be ready in 10 minutes. The waiting area was surrounded by black walls, with only a short description of the exhibition that says the below:

Of course we have done some research about this exhibition prior from entering it, 10 minutes has passed and we were ushers into the changing area. First we have to change our shoes into disposable shoe covers, and then we started to go up stairs. The staff reminded us that there are no pictures allowed, and we cannot sit on the floor, touch the walls and try to remain five feet away from the walls. Once we went inside, an amazing journey started.  

The first thing we notice when we enter the room was how the walls were spotless and blank painted white, so that it would take on any color shined upon it. The room was lighted by a single color and slowly changed from one hue to another. Directly in front was an opening that looked foggy and reflected the same color. When walking towards the ledge it felt as though the distance in front of you was endless and the drop in front of you was also endless. The room made the viewer felt like they were in the artwork itself and could place themselves in the ever changing scenes projected by the color.

http://www.lacma.org/sites/default/files/styles/Exhibition_Main/public/image/BreathingLight.jpg?itok=ipM-xqCJ

The color that was being projected saturated the whole room and allowed the viewer to paint their own picture of what the color meant to them. For me the dark blues made the room feel like being lost in the ocean while the bright red evoked feelings of warmth and anger. At times two different colors were projected making it feel as though we were looking at a sun set, a sun rise, or just looking at the endless range of colors spanning from one room to another. The room reminded me of sensory deprivation chambers where people were placed in there to lose sight of reality. The artist utilized this idea to fill and surround the viewer with an idea rather than just viewing a painting straight on. The room itself was an illusion and the viewer's brain would project ideas that were not there. What i found out was that the smallest imperfection in the room would ruin the illusion and the saturation of the artwork because any imperfections would pull the viewer back into reality making them realize the room is not so vast and endless.

This whole experience is linked to the lectures about shifting paradigms and our perspectives; it is also related to how neuroscience that dictates our perception of color can affect how we relate colors to different emotions and induce memories. Here the perception of color can be manipulated so we felt that we are in a different space continuum, we even lost our sense of depth and reality, and all prove that art and science are really an inextricable experience that we will not be able to feel in our normal life. Thank you Professor Vesna for recommending this exhibition, it was truly an eye opening experience for me.  

(Since photos are not allowed inside, and the staff were not willing to take photos with me, I can only take a picture with the sign)

Reference

  

 "FEATURE: Artist James Turrell Creates Intense Sensory Experiences." The Flame, 1 Dec. 2013. Web. 6 June 2015.  

 "James Turrell, Breathing Light." Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Web. 6 June 2015.

 Knight, Christopher. "Art Review: The Light through James Turrell's Eyes." Los Angeles Times, 28 May 2013. Web. 6 June 2015.

 Painter, Alysia Gray. ""Breathing Light" Enjoys Longer LACMA Run." NBC Southern California, 20 Aug. 2014. Web. 6 June 2015.  

Schweitzer, Dahlia. "Inside the Light: James Turrell in LA." Hyperallergic RSS, 1 July 2013. Web. 6 June 2015.