LACMA

As that great philosopher Ferris Bueller once said: 

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it"

So one of my oldest and dearest friends Nadine and I decided to go up to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (or Gallery as we more commonly call them!) and enjoy some of the finer things LA has to offer. 

What a treat! It is based in the Miracle Mile with a bunch of other cool galleries and museums, including the brilliant La Brea Tar Pits next door. As the name would suggest, these are pits of tar that have been in the area for tens of thousands of years, and have preserved the bones of some fascinating creatures. NB no elephants were harmed in the taking of this photo...

Probably the coolest thing in LACMA  there was Chris Burden's Metropolis II. It was amazing - the most fun artwork I have ever seen. Adults and children alike were enthralled by the spectacle. We stayed watching it for about 20 minutes, and had to drag ourselves away.

I filmed a little of it here for your  perusal. It runs for an hour at a time, and the controller (who was not fat) has to wear ear protection because it gets so noisy...Totally wicked!!!

Chris Burden is also responsible for the brilliant 'Urban Light' outside the front of the museum. 200 vintage lamps from California reused to create a fabulous interactive sculpture.

There were some great photographs of sinister LA types from Charlie White, and wonderful artwork from Ed Ruscha in an exhibition entitles 'Standard'

A really interesting exhibition from Michael Heizer entitled 'Actual Size' where he had taken photos of boulders over the US and world, and then blown them up to the size they actually are in real life. This made for some of the largest photos I have ever seen!

And of course lots of very famous pieces by very famous artists. I am sure you know all these guys:

It was the perfect way to spend a Saturday - looking at some priceless and quite frankly astonishing art with my lovely friend!