Niki de Saint Phalle in Escondido - Who Knew?

As part of my "stay-cation" this summer, I picked up the parents and drove south to Escondido to find the only garden in the United States by internationally-known artist Niki de Saint Phalle.  Titled "Queen Califia's Magical Garden," it takes it's inspiration from California's mythic and cultural roots. It consists of an exterior snake wall, a maze entry, nine large totemic sculptures with integrated seating all made of intricate ceramic mosaic and is very much about girl power!  Go Niki!

For more information and directions to this garden click here: http://www.queencalifia.org/index.html

Hopper Lives

I was in Venice today when I saw this billboard.  Venice resident, artist, actor, eternal hipster (and evidently a wearer of Vans sneakers), Dennis Hopper was cool, will always be cool, forever cool.  We will miss him.



















Click here to see the original trailer for "Easy Rider."  Still so scary to be free.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIfUD70yvz8

"The Clock" by Christian Marclay

After much ballyhoo in New York and London, Christian Marclay's "The Clock" arrived at LACMA. People in New York stood in line for hours in the snow to watch the 24 hour film. Lines went around the block in London at White Cube. Being in the film capital of the world, I got to the museum two hours before it was supposed to start and was the first on line. Culture arrives slowly in LA and without panic. Anyway, I viewed 2 hours from 11am - 1pm and another 2 hours from 7 to 9pm. I found the film captivating! All those clips, edited together so beautifully...how did he do it? Where die he find all those clips? From so many different countries? How long did it take to compile? How many assistants worked on this? How many computers? I had so many questions.

The film is shown in real time which means that you are acutely aware of the passage of time. There is no narrative, per se except that characters complete tasks that are generally similar dependent up on the time of day. For example, lots of musicians wake up around 11am and people go to lunch at noon. Somehow the clips fit seemlessly together and an hour flies by. There is a general big moment on the hour and off you go again. Hope I get a chance to go back around midnight...you an only imagine what mischief goes on in the midnight hours.

In reflecting on the film, I can't help but think that we live in an age of moving images.  Images on television, film, videos on Google, YouTube, Hulu and our own amateur videos on facebook and other social networks are all part of our daily lives, like newspapers were for previous generations and I start thinking is "The Clock" a 24 hour video collage?   Maybe Christian Marclay is a sort of Robert Rauschenberg for the facebook generation.  I found it to be very compelling, an incredible work of art, an incredible film.  Cudos to LACMA for recognizing the genius of Christian Marclay.