Stories in Stone at the Getty Villa: Visits 2 and 3
I attended the gallery course at the Getty Villa on March 21 in conjunction with the Stories in Stone exhibit which I had previously seen. In the morning there were three speakers on different topics including a general history of mosaics (while interesting, I could easily have delivered this talk myself), current mosaics (with Lillian Sizemore, a working mosaic artist herself), and some insight into the conservation of mosaics in Tunisia and how the exhibit was brought to Los Angeles. A real treat was a visit to the conservation lab where the head of the department was preparing a new backing for a large mosaic using techniques and materials used in the aerospace industry. Similarly, in the exhibit there is a display of dental tools which are used in conserving the mosaics on site... next time my dentist is invading my mouth I'll just try to think of myself as a mosaic... As it was, I did have a dental appointment that afternoon so after listening to a docent's talk on the exhibit, I ended the day stuck in traffic on Wilshire Blvd. in a desperate attempt to get to Beverly Hills on time. That certainly spoiled the tranquility of another day at the Getty Villa.
I attended the gallery course at the Getty Villa on March 21 in conjunction with the Stories in Stone exhibit which I had previously seen. In the morning there were three speakers on different topics including a general history of mosaics (while interesting, I could easily have delivered this talk myself), current mosaics (with Lillian Sizemore, a working mosaic artist herself), and some insight into the conservation of mosaics in Tunisia and how the exhibit was brought to Los Angeles. A real treat was a visit to the conservation lab where the head of the department was preparing a new backing for a large mosaic using techniques and materials used in the aerospace industry. Similarly, in the exhibit there is a display of dental tools which are used in conserving the mosaics on site... next time my dentist is invading my mouth I'll just try to think of myself as a mosaic... As it was, I did have a dental appointment that afternoon so after listening to a docent's talk on the exhibit, I ended the day stuck in traffic on Wilshire Blvd. in a desperate attempt to get to Beverly Hills on time. That certainly spoiled the tranquility of another day at the Getty Villa.
But I was back that Sunday with another friend in tow. Everybody's favorite mosaic in the exhibit seems to be Oceanus (third century). It is an amazing mosaic, more so everytime I have seen it in person. More amazing is seeing the photograph of it in context with the mosaic work that surrounded it. As I have mentioned elsewhere, until recently archaeologists thought the right thing to do was to remove the figurative portions of the mosaic for safekeeping in museums, leaving the surrounding, usually more geometric designs, to rot. So in the museum, not only do you not see the mosaics intact but totally out of any kind of architectural context. Fortunately, the light bulb went on some years ago and now the policy is to leave mosaics in situ as much as possible, sometimes even covering them with the local soil to bury them for posterity after documentation.
This exhibit closes April 30 and the mosaics return to their homeland. I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to see them three times.
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