Frank Lloyd Wright wasn't nearly expressive enough about museums.....

Frank Lloyd Wright had a well known dislike for museums his entire life. As an ARTIST he knew museums and their staffs saw art as static, lifeless, to be embalmed and entombed and therefore to them, priceless. Museums their staffs and petrified directors didn't see art as alive, breathing nd a part of EVERYDAY LIFE.



Today, Jeanette and I saw three exhibits and had this viewpoint driven directly home. The first exhibit was at LACMA and was a exhibit of the works of Calder. Things started off badly. I had to walk through the grounds, seeing the layers of incoherent remuddling. To an Organic Architect these layers of thoughtless incoherence are extremely annoying. But I wanted to see Calder's work, so I tried to shove down my annoyance.



Next we enter the pavilion, hand our tickets to the guard and I walked right up to a half size mock up of a Stabile. I stood within one pair of its five wings and was pointing out to Jeanette with my finger no closer that a respectable four inches to the steel the weld locations and lengths. Well I was about to that is till an officious security nimbot panicked rushed over and had a hissy fit that I was too close to the art object. I really TRIED to not get pissed, but I may has well left right then. I almost said, but my old age prevented me, "Are you fucking nuts? The full size is in a public park where pigeons shit on the top, people rub it, lean on it, lick it and fornicate at its base at night. The full size is in the weather where it RUSTS. Gimmie a BREAK, over precious twit." I didn't. Jeanette has endured enough embarrassment by my noting reality to people locked in dream states. Besides I just drove an hour and paid for two very overpriced tickets.



So I Stopped looking at the stable and went inside to see some mobiles. LACMA, being a museum hell bent on proving the accuracy of Frank Lloyd Wright's negative opinion of such institutions had displayed the mobiles in niches where they had almost no airflow acting upon them, so they did not act as they were designed to act and did not move constantly. They were STATIC. The almost eighty year old man next to me was pushing a woman my age in a wheelchair and stopped to show her the first mobile. Because it was totally out of the air flow it was static. The old man blew on it so it would MOVE as it of course was designed by Calder to do. A nearby security guard rushed over, almost knocked me and the old man down and instructed him in a urgent voice that blowing was prohibited. Again, I almost demanded my money back and left...



I spent the whole exhibit looking for the security assholes and exhaling as deep breaths as possible in the general direction of the mobiles. Many of them moved and were DELIGHTFUL in their motions. Calder made art for REGULAR people. His art even in the depression was AFFORDABLE. Yes he made huge stuff and complex bigger stuff, but Alexander Calder was a AMERICAN and he wanted to make art for EVERYONE. He wanted it approachable, he made it to be interactive with the environment and the viewer, he made it to DELIGHT those who saw it with its playfulness. He made a lot of it to be TOUCHED. All of this intention of Calder's is LOST on the bone brains who collect art and run museums.  To them the black thread on a mobile has no value if it isn't original. Oh my God !!! Heaven forbid the mobile MOVE and the thread need replaced! That would diminish the

V A L U E. Gag.



In the 1980's I had Greene and Greene clients who were art dealers. They paid me to restore two Calder mobiles, one pre war with color brushed on crudely, one post war with color sprayed on from a spray can. Both made with the urgency of creation, with what one would call "mistakes" like file marks and paint imperfections. I cleaned the rust off them, repainted areas as appropriate and re strung them as the strings had either broken or were on the verge. It seemed strange to see mobiles behind glass, in back of ropes, with anxious guards surrounding them. I held such things in my hands, I worked on them, I gave them life back. Now somehow, sadly they are too precious for anyone to blow on so their movement can be seen.



"To hell with LACMA. Sell off the collection. Build condos." I was pretty pissed.



SO I figured maybe walking into the photography exhibit would cheer me up. Of course photographs now are PRECIOUS.  And since the photographs are PRECIOUS the light level must be adjusted so low that no one can make out any detail in the image unless one stands four inches from them and of course if one gets any closer than a foot from them, you guessed it, the security bone brains start to hover, worry and tell one to step back. It was totally frustrating. Further, not a single Stieglitz to be found. No Heine, No Teske, a teensie bit of Ed Weston, but none of his breathtaking photos of fruit, veggies and ordinary household objects that give a whole new sight, none of his son Brets breathtaking work with reflecting water. Odd crappy 1970's neo retro color photos. One Maplethorpe, and none of his breathtaking color wash work. I mean if we are going to show 1970'/80's color, why not show something really good? Not at all a good exhibit as far as objects chosen and horribly displayed. Second or uh that dirty word, REPRODUCTION prints at a readable light level would have been better, one could have at least SEEN something without violating the sensibilities of the ever present security.



Mercifully, across the street, the A&D museum was showing a collection of reproduced Richard Neutra furniture. These were all pieces Neutra had designed for (oh shutter the thought) PRODUCTION, and most of them were produced in small lots during Neutra's lifetime.  A company is now reproducing them and these copies are as good and in most cases BETTER than the original production models. Amazingly, they can be sat upon. One can compare the fit of the chairs to ones body, can relate to them can discern the subtle differences between leather and cloth upholstery, can marvel at the visual sharpness of mitered corners and how they have been subtly eased so as to not be as sharp to the touch as they are to the eye.  Richard Neutra would have had his perfectionist eye pleased with each of these. That exhibit was worth the drive and they even gave you for the ten dollar price of admission a book on the furniture that will become in time a valuable collectors item....More museums should be run like this and more should have reproduction works that are not so precious that they can not be interacted with as designed.



A & D as a comparison to LACMA is proof ARCHITECTS should run museums....