It’s like being kids again, when the toy box lid has been lifted. So many choices of toys to play with! Like those kids, we arrived to visit our friends in LA, Sue and Robb, and they presented us with so many ideas for what to do. “Tough decisions” had to be made. Have fun here or there?
The winner for day one was LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. First, we walked to and under Michael Heizer’s “Levitated Mass”, a 340-ton granite boulder art installation on the plaza. Inside, one of the most wonderful entrance pieces we’d seen is “Smoke” by Tony Smith.
The serene Pavilion for Japanese Art, lit by natural light filtered through a rice paper-style material, invited us in. One piece in particular caught our attention, “Bishamonten”, the Buddhist Guardian King of the North. His facial expression and eyes were haunting.
Save the best for last. No, I don’t mean lunch. Our friends took us to see a piece that could not be missed. “Metropolis II” by Chris Burden takes up an entire room in the Museum. It is the largest train track and matchbox car track we’ve ever seen. Metropolis is built as a dense urban space where cars and trains race through intertwined tracks. It’s elaborate, and, as you study the urban setting, you see wonderful touches, such as a mosque and a church, and around the corner is the Eiffel Tower.
It was a wonderful day and we chose well.
April 2013
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