The Obligatory
"Play safe. Ski only in clockwise direction. Let's all have fun together."
Sunday, April 16, 2006
You Only Live 25 Times
I swung by the LACMA last weekend, and found it to be even more rockin' than it usually is.
The museum had a special gallery open to showcase the broad range of gifts they've received from donors for their 40th anniversary, and they also had five huge Gustav Klimt paintings - freshly returned to their rightful owner after being seized by the Nazis and tied up in Austrian courts since the end of WW2.
You've probably seen "The Kiss," before, at least in a high school history book. The weird neck, the golden patterns, etc. Personally, it never did anything for me, but seeing some of Klimt's other works up close, it's completely understandable why people go crazy for the guy. The patterns are incredibly intricate, the vibrance immediate. The flecks of gold in the paintings shine with a brilliance that is impossible to see in any photograph.
It's also fun to think what these early 20th century Austrian society ladies thought when they commissioned portraits and received these bizarro amalgamations of mosaics, Greek pottery designs, Egyptian heiroglyphics and Byzantine religious icons.
Of course, if you're into more modern stuff, it is defintely in your interest to see "You Only Live 25 Times," a multiple room site-specific installation by French artists Petra Mrzyk and Jean-François Moriceau. Basically, they raided the LACMA archives for 19th century satirical/pornographic woodcuts by Félicien Rops and painted a Bosch-meets-Gilliam-meets-1970s comics mural that connects everything together.
It's also very, very funny.
The Klimt exhibit runs through June 30th. "You Only Live Twice" runs through June 4th.
The museum had a special gallery open to showcase the broad range of gifts they've received from donors for their 40th anniversary, and they also had five huge Gustav Klimt paintings - freshly returned to their rightful owner after being seized by the Nazis and tied up in Austrian courts since the end of WW2.
You've probably seen "The Kiss," before, at least in a high school history book. The weird neck, the golden patterns, etc. Personally, it never did anything for me, but seeing some of Klimt's other works up close, it's completely understandable why people go crazy for the guy. The patterns are incredibly intricate, the vibrance immediate. The flecks of gold in the paintings shine with a brilliance that is impossible to see in any photograph.
It's also fun to think what these early 20th century Austrian society ladies thought when they commissioned portraits and received these bizarro amalgamations of mosaics, Greek pottery designs, Egyptian heiroglyphics and Byzantine religious icons.
Of course, if you're into more modern stuff, it is defintely in your interest to see "You Only Live 25 Times," a multiple room site-specific installation by French artists Petra Mrzyk and Jean-François Moriceau. Basically, they raided the LACMA archives for 19th century satirical/pornographic woodcuts by Félicien Rops and painted a Bosch-meets-Gilliam-meets-1970s comics mural that connects everything together.
It's also very, very funny.
The Klimt exhibit runs through June 30th. "You Only Live Twice" runs through June 4th.
that one guy you know, 8:45 PM
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1 Comments:
I was worried I wouldn't find anything to do once I moved to Vegas...now I see that I can just head on over to LA :)
