If you haven’t been to LACMA lately, March is the time to make it happen before the James Turrell exhibit closes April 3rd, and while the Alexander Calder exhibit is still fresh. The museum offers so many great shows right now, many of them fascinating for even a young viewer, that deciding which exhibits to spend time on is the hardest decision. Here are recaps of just a few, now on show:
James Turrell: A Retrospective explores nearly fifty years in the career of James Turrell (b. 1943, Los Angeles) includes early geometric light projections, prints and drawings, installations exploring sensory deprivation and seemingly unmodulated fields of colored light, and recent two-dimensional work with holograms.
Go to this exhibit ready to experience, not observe. You can almost step into these light walls and boxes – it can be a meditational experience if you approach with quiet mind, eyes wide open.
Calder and Abstraction: From Avant Garde to Iconic showcases Calder’s most iconic mobiles the kinetic sculptures in which flat pieces of painted metal connected by wire move delicately in the air, propelled by motors or air currents. His later stabiles are monumental structures, whose arching forms and massive steel planes continue his engagement with dynamism and daring innovation.
It’s all you can do not to inhale deeply and blow hard on these delicately hung orbs of steel to make them move (we did, and promptly got shut down by the guards.) Ethereal beauty.
Futbol: The Beautiful Game: The subject of fútbol—or soccer—nicknamed by one sports commentator as “the beautiful game,” touches on issues of nationalism and identity, globalism and mass spectacle, as well as the shared human experience between spectators from many cultures. As the 2014 World Cup takes place next month in Brazil, LACMA mounts an exhibition featuring approximately thirty artists from around the world who examine the sport through video, photography, painting, sculpture, and large-scale installation.
This exhibit that will appeal to the young soccer enthusiast with its clean bright works of art from many cultures, celebrating the art of soccer.
There’s so much more: David Hockney, Agnes Varda, photographs from John Divola. And don’t forget to take a spin by the on-going Metropolis II that still delights me with its kinetic speed, whooshing cars around the tracks at high speed and sound.
A film about a sculpture by Chris Burden. Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman Edited by Max Joseph.