ANNA WEBBER
A&E Assistant Editor
While less art savvy people may think better art can be found in the local dump, some of the more adventurous art enthusiasts flock to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) on Grand Avenue in Los Angeles. The museum offers something special to an interested viewer, and it does so in a unique way. One will find that the exhibits are always changing and revolving, and its permanent collections are well worth the trip.
According to the museum’s Web site, the museum offers the most extensive collection of contemporary art in the area, always featuring provocative new exhibits. The MOCA is the leading museum in Los Angeles that is committed exclusively to contemporary art.
Deep in the heart of the city’s artsy downtown district, across from the notable Walt Disney Concert Hall, the museum is meant for the eclectic art aficionado. Architecturally, it is a funky, whimsical landmark in its own right and a sight to see for those interested in architecture in Los Angeles.
Designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki and founded in 1979, the MOCA has a very distinctive profile. Isozaki combined pyramids, cubes, cylinders and an array of uncommon materials to create the museum’s design.
From the street, the north and south wings are linked together by a copper-sheathed barrel vault to form a gateway to the museum. This vault is massive, housing the library and encasing an arched window of onyx.
Isozaki utilized the pyramid shape when creating the skylights for the museum, which are made of red Indian sandstone on red granite and allow natural light to illuminate the galleries.
Visitors cannot help but notice the enormous sculpture erected in the courtyard. Created by Nancy Rubins using airplane parts, the piece is titled, “Chas’ Stainless Steel, Mark Thompson’s Airplane Parts, About 1000 Pounds of Stainless Steel Wire, Gagosian’s Beverly Hills Space.” It was acquired in 2001 and covers an expanse of 54 feet. The title serves it well as it looks just like it sounds — a cacophony of scrap metal and airplane parts.
In the mission stated on its Web site, the MOCA strives to be the defining museum of contemporary art by including the collection, presentation and interpretation of work produced since 1940 in all media. It is also committed to preserving that artwork for future generations.
Since 1979, the museum has developed one of the nation’s most renowned permanent collections, according to MOCA.org, and it is steadily growing. It now houses 5,000 invaluable cultural works.
The museum has three unique facilities: MOCA Grand Avenue, MOCA Pacific Design Center, and the presently closed Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, which will reopen in March.
Right now at the Pacific Design Center, the photography exhibit “Bill Owens: Suburbia” offers an insight into the beginning of American suburban life. The exhibition presents a selection of photographs from Owens’s classic 1973 book “Suburbia,” which captured Americans as they transitioned into home ownership and the great expanse of suburban life. As cities became polluted, congested and less hospitable to residential life, Americans embarked on an urban exodus toward the promise of low-traffic cul-de-sacs, thick green lawns, and 4th of July block parties
The current exhibits at the MOCA Grand Avenue include the “Eva Hesse Drawing Gallery,” “Postwar Directions: Abstract Expressionism to Minimalism” and “MOCA Focus: Lecia Dole-Recio.”
The Eva Hesse Drawing Gallery is the main presentation on exhibit at the Grand Avenue venue. Showing through Oct. 23, the exhibit occupies 6,000 square feet in the museum’s D and E galleries and contains a number of two- and three-dimensional sculptures, paintings and works on paper.
In the 1960s, Hesse was one of the leading innovative artists of what is now termed Postminimalism. Her art uses the grids and systematic style of minimalism, but her hand-made touch adds a human element to her art.
Postminimalism is a term used for work that is influenced by the aesthetic of minimalism, which is work that is stripped down to its most fundamental features, its core self-expression. Generally characterized as anti-formalist and to some extent as anti-painting, it ushered in many radical new directions in contemporary art. Postminimalism coincided with Conceptual Art, Earth Art, Performance art, Video and the continuation of Minimalism, Pop Art, Abstract Expressionism, Fluxus and various breakthroughs in realism.
Hesse relies on systems and geometric forms common to the Postminimalist way, though her work distinctively retains an organic quality. Her use of materials – such as latex, fiberglass, rubber, rope, papier-mache and paint – creates bizarre results.
One of her most notable sculptures looks like an umbilical cord hooked onto a stone-like box and the cord coils down onto the floor with a wiry tail at the end. The way she created this cord is so reminiscent of a real umbilical cord that it makes it fascinating to view and decode.
Her paper images often seem to be scrawling off her pages and rambling off into the distance. Since most of her work is untitled and unexplained, she achieves an ambiguous result right up to the interpretation.
The “Postwar Directions” gallery has been on exhibit since July 22 and will continue through Oct. 15. This exhibit contains works in various media by artists such as Andy Warhol, Alfred Jensen, Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, William de Kooning and Mark Rothko. The MOCA has the distinction of containing the most significant organization of Pop Art masterpieces and postwar art on the West Coast, according to its Web site.
The exhibit highlights mid-century American and European art influenced by Robert Rauschenberg, an artist who helped redefine American art in the 1950s and 1960s, providing an alternative to the then popular Abstract Expressionism.
The MOCA Focus gallery has been on exhibit since Aug. 3 and will be up until Oct. 23. The Focus presentation showcases work by emerging Southern California artist Lecia Dole-Recio, who created a new body of work in painting, drawing, collage and architecture for the exhibit. The show reveals her interest in space, geometric abstraction and perspective through deliberately imperfect works. Dole-Recio layers elements and media upon each other, creating abstract, lively and striking images.
Starting Nov. 19, the MOCA will present the first major museum exhibition devoted to the similarities between fashion and architecture called “Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture.” The exhibit will examine the parallels between exterior surfaces and structural framework. It will be the MOCA’s major winter show this year and will present 46 of today’s most creative fashion designers and architects.
Overall, the museum encourages visitors to challenge their way of thinking and explore new fields of artistic expression. All one needs is an open mind and a free afternoon.
09-14-2006
