Me, 25 May, looking around the Pompidou:
That Donald Judd stack is really biffed about: did someone drop it, or did the Pomp get it cheap off the back of a truck?
The world-renowned Pompidou Center of Paris, which set out in March to celebrate the work of Los Angeles artists, has accidentally destroyed two of their works — which fell from museum walls. A third piece was slightly damaged.
Yes, it turns out the Centre has form in trashing art works loaned to it.
“It’s no secret in the museum business that handling can be very sketchy at Pompidou,” said John Walsh, director emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
(Links found via Modern Art Notes.)
I saw the LA show: like everything else at the Pompidou, they stuffed so much into this one exhibition there was no way you could take in everything in a single visit, even if you stayed all day. There were about twenty videos or films, some an hour long, in addition to a couple of hundred static works. Perhaps they were planning for attrition.
After a year in Europe it was great to see a substantial body of art from a place that was new, modern, urbanised (or suburbanised), and spacious (yeah, like Australia). One of the side effects of moving to the UK from Australia is that it has made me want to live in the USA. Even though I can’t drive.
it has made me want to live in the USA. Even though I can't drive.
Well that rules out LA. Though there are rumors that they plan on expanding the useless train system so that it actually goes somewhere. Not holding my breath.
I didn't mind missing out on LA one little bit, until I saw this exhibition.
It's kind of a mix here, Ben. The downsides are that it's ridiculously expensive to live, the traffic is terrible (no mass transit to speak of), and in the summer some parts of town get smoggy.
On the other hand, there are a lot of talented artists, the weather is mostly good, and it's probably the most culturally diverse city in the US.
The one thing that my friends warned me about years ago when I moved out from the east coast, that I would forget how to read, hasn't happened.