ATM: Art, Tiles, Mosaics... an adventure in creativity

Busing to Art

Being forced to live in a state of "less is more" I have now discovered public transportation. In a previous blog I reported on my adventures busing and training to downtown LA with my friend GZ. Since then I have become even more adventurous.
Last Saturday I had a ticket for the lecture on The Golden Graves of Ancient Vani at the Getty Villa and invited GZ. Knowing she had no fear of public transportation I thought it would be fun if we could both find our individual ways there, she from West Hollywood, me from Culver City. She assured me she had a straight shot on the number 2. I took line 33 to Fairfax, then line 584, which dropped me off across the street from the Villa (after a rather convoluted trip that took almost two hours, partly my fault but partly because the West LA Transportation Center is several miles east of me from where I can take a bus to anywhere in the known universe, even if I want to go west).
It turned out her bus had changed the route and she had to walk a mile on Pacific Coast Highway with no sidewalks and traffic coming up behind her at 60 plus miles an hour. Going home we both took the #584 to Fairfax then went our separate ways.
The "Golden Graves" date from around 450-250BC and since the 1930s, archaeologists have uncovered 28 burials. Vani is in the area of today's Georgia, Russia. A highly developed civilization has been discovered that had its own religious and artistic practices, while embracing influences from neighboring cultures.
The kingdom of Colchis gained fame as the destination of Jason and the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece, and indeed, the region has proved to be rich in gold.
The gold jewelry and other objects found in the graves are exquisite and sophisticated. Granulated gold (extremely small gold beads the size of termite castings) were intricately imposed on some of the pieces.
There are also non-burial items in the exhibit such as the elephant lamps and some figurines, all equally interesting in the discussion of this artistic culture.
This exhibit goes through October 5, 2009. As parking at both Gettys is now $15, unless you have a car full of people, I would suggest looking at that bus schedule.

So, for something completely different I decided to bus up to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) on Friday. This was a one-hour trip, door to door, and as Fairfax was a mess on a Friday afternoon, I thought that was pretty good time. I was interested to see Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists From Korea at the BCAM (Broad Contemporary Art Museum, a part of LACMA), otherwise known as the Broad (pronounced "Brode").
It's no secret that I'm not a fan of a lot of contemporary art but I kinda liked this exhibit. I enjoyed walking through HappyHappy at the entrance comprised of strings of brightly colored plastic containers and the chain link fences at the Sixth Street side where you can add your own plastic items. I also liked looking out of the Ahmanson Building to see the swaths of colored fabric criss-crossing the windows.
One of my favorite indoor pieces was the room where there were six movies playing, each one set in different parts of the world. The artist stood still and silent while people passed her by. The passersby became part of the piece too, some ignoring her, some puzzled by her, some smiling or laughing at her presence.
The other was the person-sized stuffed animals. The signage said illegal aliens were inside the costumes as a "performance." One was a rabbit, the other a family of different animals. I found it interesting how my perception changed when for a second I believed there really were people inside, then that they were illegally in this country earning $5 a day for their performance, then the realization that there couldn't be anybody inside.
After that I wandered around the permanent collections, not stopping at anything in particular, just breathing in all the art as a whole, ingesting the peace and serenity.
I walked around outside in the park, viewing the full scale models of the woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers caught in the tar pits tens of thousands of years ago. Climbing the berm to the top of the Page Museum, I saw couples, singles, families, tourists, Angelenos, all enjoying themselves on this wondrous, sun-filled day in southern California... all my problems, dilemmas, unmade decisions, and other troubles of the past months, weeks, and days were nowhere to be found. I was in the moment.