Super afternoon at Hauser & Wirth

Detail of capitol of pillar

Four members of the Culver City Art Group shared a lovely visit to Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, an art gallery in the Arts District neighborhood of downtown LA. Three of us, B, K and me, rode the Expo Line to the Red Line to the Gold Line and met R there. She drove. Maybe next time we can get her on the train!

The first exhibit was artwork by Mark Bradford. I’ve seen his work at another art museum and fell in love with his images. See my blog post about that exhibit here.

Some contemporary art I can walk right by and other work sucks me in. His images are definitely of the latter variety.

The gallery was originally an old flour mill built from 1896 to 1929. Fortunately the gallery has left a lot of details from that time.

Bradford’s work is very complex. It’s spectacular from a distance but you need to view it close up to really get it.

Looking up at the skylight in the first gallery

I can’t help it, I was as captivated by the details of the building as I was by the art work!

Shadows and reflections on the window screen.

No visit to an art gallery or museum is complete without lunch. We ate at Manuela, opened since my last visit. For a look at the original post, April 2016, click here.

My choice for lunch was the polenta with mushrooms and egg. Delish.

Can’t go wrong eating outside on a beautiful Southern California April day!

Love nasturtiums. Just some of the edible plants and veggies growing in the planter garden used by the restaurant.

Metal gate

Building on view from across the street.

 

Manuela raises their own chickens for the egg dishes.

Very happy birds…

The beauty of old brick and peeling paint.

Geta Bratescu

Metal exit doors

The galleries are spacious.

Sometimes it’s hard for me to distinguish the artwork from the architecture…. or maybe there is no distinction.

So happy somebody had the vision to incorporate the details from the old factory. This is very satisfying to me.

Let’s not omit the wall in the Ladies Room!

I’ll leave you here. Just a great day of visual delights with good friends who love art as much as I do!

My much anticipated first impression of the Broad

I’ve been watching The Broad (pronounced Brode) being constructed next door to the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles with great anticipation. I love architecture and I love art so I have been salivating for a long time!

The new contemporary art museum on Grand Avenue, founded by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad, is free to the public but tickets have been flying out the door. So when my friends and I planned to go we had to make our reservations a couple of months in advance. Currently, tickets are no longer available for 2015.

The Broad collection ranges from the 1950s to current day. It’s no secret I am not a fan of most contemporary art. But as I have expressed a million times before, and will again I am sure, I enjoy art for its own sake and can even appreciate art I don’t like! Sometimes it’s hard to stand in front of a piece I really hate and find something admirable about it but I keep trying… attempting to figure out what the artist wanted to express.

Visitors start out at the top of the escalator (or elevator shaft) on the third floor where the main gallery is located.

I was immediately attracted to the ceiling.

Natural daylight and artificial light is combined (much like the Reznick Pavilion at LACMA) to create a soft ambience in the galleries.

I probably spent half the time looking up. But I did look carefully at each piece of artwork presented.

I am attracted to the medium of collage and liked the “3Dness” of this piece by Julian Schnabel.

The name of this artist is on the tip of my tongue. But I’m not an art critic so I ‘m not going to worry about the names of artists, that is not what this post is about. I just want to share my impression of my first visit… so you can pretend you are wandering along with me through the museum.

Sliver of daylight in ceiling meets light fixtures. To me this is just as much a work of art as any piece in the collection!

Photos of water towers… how beautiful these are… I love it!

At first glance this looks like a wonderful photo portrait but it’s an immense 100 x 90 in. (254 x 228.6 cm) photorealistic painting by Chuck Close.

A glimpse of the Walt Disney Concert Hall next door through an opening in the wall. As I was bending around in strange positions to get this shot, people drifted over with their iPhones to capture the same view… trendsetter I am!

The second floor has mostly meeting rooms, a theater, etc. And windows into the vaults where the rest of the 2,000 piece collection is housed.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I love reflections and there are some great opportunities to capture them at the Broad!

The stairway looking down to the first floor and the bookstore/gift shop to the right.

The first floor lobby area is very organic… I expected to see hobbits walking along at any second!

I am sure this was just the first of many visits and it’s impossible to cover all the aspects of this museum in one blog post.

Just a few more photos and I’ll let you go… Click on an image to start the slideshow.

Overall my first impression of the museum is much as I had expected: a lovely architectural space to present an art collection in the best possible way. As for the collection itself, no surprises there either… much of it not to my taste but some very interesting pieces I enjoyed seeing. I’m looking forward to returning as other works of art are brought out of the storage vaults.

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