The Los Angeles County Museum (or LACMA as it is called here) is a Museum that mainly shows contemporary art. I should start by saying that I am not a huge fan of contemporary art, but if you are you might want to check it out. It does have the largest collection of Picasso’s I have ever personally seen in one place and the space is pretty large. That being said the price point at $20 a ticket and another $20 to park is pretty steep for families especially for a county run museum.
The parking garage is underground so when we arrived we had to go up to get to the main entrance area. There are a couple of installations outside to look at or you can choose to go straight up the elevator as we did to get to the third floor. That’s another odd thing about this museum you start at the top and work you way down and you can only access the other floors by elevator as the stairs are not accessible by the public.
As I said the Picasso collection was extensive and although I am not a huge fan a few of the pieces did speak to me.
They also had a lot of sculpture which I do tend to like and there was one piece in particular I thought would be interesting to try and recreate in ceramics. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery after all.
Mostly though the art was just so -so from my perspective at least although I was on the lookout for inspiration and some of the colors were pretty terrific.
But mostly it was items that are historically significant but frankly I don’t get it. The painting below was groundbreaking for its time but it just didn’t speak to me personally. I feel on some level less because I don’t get it, and I’m not a fan of art museums that make me feel that way.
One of the coolest things was actually a Textile art temporary exhibit which had some really neat art made from textiles. We spent a lot of time in this section, but unfortunately my pictures didn’t come close to capture the depth and color of these pieces.
The museum is actually three buildings but unfortunately one was closed for renovation. The second building was open though and had a few special exhibits including one on art from World War I. Although I appreciated the fact they had art from both sides of the conflict it wasn’t really my thing so I moved pretty quickly through it. A few pieces caught my eye though.
Unfortunately I wasn’t getting much ceramics in the art we were seeing but the second exhibit had several pieces. It was named Dinner with the Sultan which was somewhat uninspired but had a hodge podge of items and a recreation of a Persian room. I was really impressed by the quality of the VERY old pottery especially the items from Syria. I had no idea Syrian pottery was so impressive.
One of my favorite pieces was a rooster vase. The detail on the piece was extraordinary.
Aside from the pottery was the room installation which was HUGE and had both exquisite woodwork and amazing tiling.
In addition to the pottery they had several other pieces. I really liked the musical instruments.
They also had a section of art grouped by Earth, Wind, Water, an Fire. Again was a bit of a mixed bag.
One of the best items was on the ground floor of the second building and was a HUGE mechanical installation. It’s hard to see but the cars go up a hill and then down a track and they even had a second floor viewing platform for it. Lee spent a ton of time in here and I enjoyed it as well but not nearly as much as him. Super cool though.
Finally we moved outside and saw the outside stuff. One was a set of lampposts which were set at specific angles and I have to admit the shadows it throws are pretty cool. I guess at night its even prettier. There is also a series of 12 giant statues with the heads of the Chinese Zodiac. Lee and I looked ours up and took pictures in front of them.
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