Art Talk

Little did I know what might happen when I agreed to participate in a special event at the Getty Museum last spring, introducing the screening of the Russian Ark, a whimsical movie shot entirely inside the Hermitage Museum...

There are some situations when it's difficult to decide whether the news is good or bad. A month ago, I read in the LA Times that the sixty-five foot tall sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and, his wife and collaborator, Coosje van Bruggen could not be installed as planned in front of the Disney Concert Hall. The sculpture--in the shape of a giant bowtie and collar-- had already cost the Music Center about $4 million and now, because the metal and fiberglass sculpture had developed dangerous cracks compromising its structure, and therefore its safety, the future of the whole project is uncertain.  It's estimated that fixing the problem will cost another $3 million. At this point, there are no funds to cover the additional cost. To add insult to injury, the artists made a statement blaming the engineers for the structural problems and accepting no responsibility for this situation. To be completely honest, I don't find this development all that upsetting. After all, I have said before that Frank Gehry's Disney Hall is a remarkable sculpture in its own right, and doesn't need another sculpture in front of it that would only distract people from viewing the great building...

Many years ago, a great American performance artist, Laurie Anderson, famously said that talking about art is like dancing about architecture.  The way I interpret her witty words is that unless one tries to experience a work of art first-hand, be it let's say a painting or a building, then forget about it. I believe that words, even at their most eloquent, can only try to convey the physical appearance of the work of art, the artist's intention and the context in which the artwork or building can be experienced and understood. When I talk about art on this program I try to minimize the physical description of a work of art and instead try to elaborate on the emotional impact it had on me and any thoughts and ideas triggered by the encounter. What would it be like, I wondered, to be able to show images "on the air?"...

Last week, I was invited to spend a couple of days in San Diego as a guest of the Museum of Contemporary Art and that turned into a big adventure. The Museum has two facilities, one in La Jolla and the other in downtown San Diego. In a few months, the Museum is expanding into an impressive historic structure, a former Santa Fe depot baggage building. It's located directly across from the Museum's existing building in downtown San Diego. The renovation of this 1915 building by the architect Richard Gluckman is almost finished and the resulting galleries with their abundance of space and daylight are nothing short of inspiring. As luck would have it, a day or two prior to my visit, the Museum had completed the truly heroic labors of installing Richard Serra's monumental sculpture consisting of six blocks forged out of steel: each standing about five feet high, each weighing about 22 tons. The brutality of its geometry creates a good contrast with the gentle arches of the outdoor loggia where the sculpture is placed...

I wonder, what is your way of keeping cool during the crazy, heat wave that has kept us prisoners these past couple of weeks. Movie theaters? Shopping malls? My secret is museum galleries. On Sunday, when the temperature hit 100 degrees and the humidity, I swear, approached 150% I escaped to the Hammer Museum. It was heaven to spend a couple of hours walking through ---The Soci--t-- Anonyme---, the coolest show in town, telling the story of modernism in America. Besides, the Hammer announced that during the whole summer admission to the Museum is free. How cool is that?..

One of the lingering memories of my recent trip to Israel is of walls; famous ones, like the Wailing Wall, and miles upon miles of inescapable eyesores that make up the Separation Wall. What I didn't expect was to pay any attention to the mundane walls along the freeways. Instead of the monotonous barriers that traditionally protect houses and people living in close proximity to freeways, Israelis excel in making these boring structures into surprisingly attractive components of the city fabric...