It was in May of 2003 that I last visited the
Museum of Contemporary Art located in
Los Angeles. On that Spring day I
“Saw the Lucian Freud exhibit (mainly nude portraits – very harsh in the portrayal) and Laura Owens exhibit (she doesn’t like to name her works – everything seemed to be “Untitled”!). Treescapes with animals seemed prevalent…” – personal journal, Thursday 1 May 2003. A return was long overdue and I was happy to do so at the suggestion of fellow museum visitor, Sharon.
In travelling to the museum, I first stopped at the
Music Center with the intention of photographing the in-ground water fountain at its various spouting levels. Unfortunately, it was only bubbling at the surface with no spouting at all. I did take some shots anyway – no sense in wasting the opportunity even if it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. However, the surprise on the Plaza was a public music activity known as
Drum Downtown. Between photographing the fountain, I thoroughly enjoyed listening and watching people drum out various rhythms under the guidance of a leader. Although I didn’t participate (had a specific time to be at MOCA), I would definitely do so given the chance again.
The
Walt Disney Concert Hall was on my way to MOCA and I took a few photographs at the building and from across the street. Back in October 2009 I had photographed the Hall, but I didn’t really like many of the pictures – perhaps today’s will appeal to me more. Anyway, after this interlude I continued on my way to a day of museum walking. Arriving at MOCA ahead of Sharon, I didn’t have to wait long before she arrived. Told her about the Drum Downtown and, as she lives in
downtown LA, I asked if she had ever done that activity. Sharon said that she had heard of it, but hadn’t participated. Normally the entrance fee to MOCA is ten dollars, but Sharon is a member of
KCRW, a local radio station, so showing her membership card allowed her to get two tickets for the price of one. So entrance to the museum cost us only five dollars each! Love bargains!
After the usual administrative activities in the museum lobby (checking my backpack, getting a pencil, learning photography restrictions), we began the visit with the
Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective exhibit. Now I had never heard of
Arshile Gorky until Sharon mentioned it was his works that were showing at MOCA. The only Gorky I was aware of was
Maxim Gorky, the writer, and it turns out that Arshile had changed his name to Gorky after his arrival in the United States – a new start, a new identity. MOCA is the third and final stop of the Gorky exhibition (having previously been at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art and at the
Tate Modern). It was time to experience Arshile Gorky.
The layout of the exhibition was such that there were two entrances into it and fortunately we entered at the one that started at the beginning of Gorky’s artistic career, not at the end of it. One of Gorky’s early works was
“Park Street Church, Boston” 1924. I was drawn to this “impressionistic” style painting because of my love of
Impressionism and was delighted to see that the subject was a building I have seen in person; though now there are taller buildings near the church than when Gorky painted it. An unexpected, but nice visual reminder of where I come. The influence of
Paul Cézanne on Gorky can be seen in the still life “
Pears, Peaches, and Pitcher” 1928 through his use of a similar palette and the simplicity of the objects and their placement in the painting. Because she had seen items in the MOCA gift shop depicting another Cézanne inspired work by Gorky, Sharon was looking forward to actually seeing it in the exhibition. However, it turned out that “
Staten Island” 1927, which had been in the Philadelphia Art Museum leg of the exhibition tour, had not traveled to Los Angeles. Unfortunately, there were about sixty exhibition works that weren’t included in this final leg of the tour.
Continuing through the exhibition (a decent flow, but with a number of “dead end rooms”), we came upon “
The Artist and His Mother” 1926-36, a portraiture which is based on a
photograph of Gorky and his mother taken in 1912. Sharon pointed out that there are no details to the hands – the fingers are not detailed, primarily just a mass of color. This tendency in depicting the hands in this manner can be seen in other portraits e.g. “Woman with a Palette” 1928 and even in his “
Self-Portrait” 1937. I do find it interesting that a person whose life work depends on the use of hands would depict them in such an undistinguished way. What are the reasons behind it? Was Gorky ambivalent about his art and was conveying that through the relevant body part or was it simply a stylistic choice with no meaning behind it whatsoever? Just some questions to ponder. My favorite Gorky piece is the abstract painting “
Organization” 1933-36. I like the brightness of the colors and the boldness of the shape outlines and even though, as an abstract, it may not technically have definition; I find more precision in it than in the Gorky portraits and especially in a later abstract titled “Painting” 1944 in which the colors are muted and the shape outlines seem tentatively drawn.
In the middle of the exhibition was a timeline of Gorky’s life on two of the walls and it offered some insight into the factors and events that provided the palette of his life and work. Always good to know something of an artist’s life – it can bring a sense of clarity, on the viewer’s part, to their work. As we continued wandering through the space, we discovered two versions of a 1943 work titled “Waterfall”. Unfortunately they were not in the same room and an easy direct side by side comparison could not be made of the
light and
dark paintings. This was a problem I found with how the exhibit was hung – many finished works and their studies on opposite ends of a room or in different rooms altogether – and as one who minored in the Visual and Performing Arts, I can tell you that I would have gone crazy going back and forth to take notes for a paper on the comparison of two works that logically should have been hung together (I know, art is not always logical).
However, there was one “dead end room” where all the works belonged together and which I call the “Betrothal Room”. The works were a Study, “
The Betrothal”, “
Betrothal I”, and “
Betrothal II”, all created in 1947. How wonderful it was to view all the versions of a work in one place. What a concept! Although the “Betrothal Room” was near the end of the exhibition and thus finishing up on a positive note; there was still “
Agony” (a 1947 abstract painting in red, whose study was, of course, on the other side of the room), to be had as we headed towards the Permanent Collection.
The display agony for me in the Permanent Collection was an exhibit of black and white photographs from the 1960s that had all the title/descriptions of the photos on one side of the exhibit wall instead of having individual titles underneath the photographs. I like to know what I’m looking at right away and not have to figure what that is from a list of titles at one end of the photographic display. The titles have to be written anyway, so why not place them where they would be of the most benefit. On a positive side, out of the current selection from the Permanent Collection on view, I really liked “
Lisp” 1968 by
Edward Ruscha and “Reciprocal Relation, Per I, II” 1969 by
Alfred Jensen. Sharon was interested in a work by
Robert Irwin and plans on learning more about him. And oh, there was another set of black and white photographs displayed in the Permanent Collection and the titles were placed underneath each one. Hurray!
After finishing the morning at MOCA, we stopped at the
museum’s gift shop where Sharon bought a “Staten Island” 1927 magnet and I purchased some cards and a CD of
music from Gorky’s homeland of Armenia. It was time for lunch and (surprise, surprise), we ended up eating at MOCA’s café called
Lemonade. It was good to sit outside and eat very
healthy food after walking inside for such a long time. Long, but enjoyable despite my criticism of the exhibition structure. After our pleasant lunch, we walked down the street a ways until Sharon found a short cut back to her home. We parted there and I went to catch the bus that would return me home.
Images:
Left: “The Artist and His Mother” 1926-36 by Arshile Gorky is from the website moca.org
Center: “Organization” 1933-36 by Arshile Gorky is from the website moca.org
Right: “The Betrothal” 1947 by Arshile Gorky is from the website moca.org
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