[Los Angeles] Toxic Waste

Today, I’ve pretty much decided not to do anything. I’m in my swim suit and Jared’s running shorts – I’m planning some exercise. But I might not leave the airport complex. My justification? I have some research to do, and I don’t mean google-stalking.

After much agonizing, I decided to go to the Santa Monica Museum of Art at the Bergamot Station yesterday, where many galleries are also located. I started with the MTA web site, to figure out how to get there on public transportation. Alas, apparently you can’t get there from here. This is funny for a few reasons including that Santa Monica is a relatively small city, and it is reputed to have the best public transit system in the US. But no, you can’t get to their Art Museum on the bus. You have to drive.

So, my bike and I took the #3 Big Blue Bus from the LAX Transit Center to Pico and Lincoln (Hwy 1 – which will take you the entire length of this country, and beyond, along the coast). There, I tootled down some residential streets, ventured a somewhat tenuous freeway crossing, and finally found the art center next to the toxic waste dump.

Of course, the first thing that jumps into your head is “is that what Santa Monica thinks of its art scene? Toxic waste?” But here’s another thought: There’s a long tradition linking industrial and otherwise undesirable land uses with the arts: there’s no money in art (unless you’re Rauschenberg, I guess). So, it makes sense for art uses to occupy these spaces in our cities. This also explains why there’s no public transportation access to the Art Museum. Art is like the least favorite child of a wealthy family (the city): They’ll let him have a car, because they have extras lying around, but not any space in the better areas. The affluent fall on hard times thru art and never the other way around.

Here’s another way of thinking about it: artists struggle, and find cheap space to work to get by. Others admire their work and their pluck. It then becomes a sort of “hip-to-be-square” type of thing. Suddenly, you have to look for new cheap areas to work, bc the previously affordable industrial areas are now made cool by the artists and have become expensive. The part that bothers me about this is that Museums are for the people. Museums are not cute little art galleries that only rich people drive to. They are like libraries – a service of the city to its residents and visitors. If you put it in the middle of nowhere, the museum’s no longer a service to all.

I got the feeling that these galleries are pretty “mainstream”. They mostly featured old works (made interesting by their age), bad works by well-known artists (specifically, Rauschenberg, but not the good stuff), and stuff with weird gimmicks (like this one guy did a series of large painting of the same little Asian girl, multiple times per painting, naked, doing different, sometimes strange, things, like whipping another of herself, having sex with another of herself, running with a group of herselves to play soccer, etc.). I saw some good, skillfully-made art, but it was generally hung at the back or side of the gallery, hard to find.

The museum had a few exhibitions: one by an anthropologist who collects things (Ken Brecher: The Little Room of Epiphanies). It included jars of sand, soil, water, etc. from various places, buttons, flags, etc., all artfully displayed and a video of him talking with his son about what collecting means to him. He believes that collecting is a way of making the world richer, of experiencing the world in an exciting and engaged way. He told a story about going to Syria with his wife, people said it was dangerous to go, but when they got there, they just found other people, people who wanted to tell their side of the story. He said it wasn’t dangerous, but he wouldn’t take his son there just in case. He would, however, take his son places where he can collect things, because that’s how you roll up your sleeves and live in the world (my words) and they want that for their son. The other exhibition was much larger and less interesting, of a Portuguese architect’s work (ALVARO SIZA/ARCHITECT: DRAWINGS, MODELS, PHOTOGRAPHS). I found myself reacting to his work like this: “that’s beautiful… it’s weird… I don’t think I like it.”

I took the bus back to the hotel to meet Jared. We had a near miss with a nap, and then rushed off to Hollywood to see Rachel and Damon at their new place. We went to Thai Town for dinner (they also live near the Armenian district), and then back to their place for homemade ice cream sandwiches (yum!). Their apartment is super cute, and their company, as always, excellent. I would have taken pictures but my camera battery was used up, which reminds me: I’ll plug that in now… and then go for a swim….