LACMA

Me at LACMA.

 On my trip to LACMA this month, I noticed a lot of pieces that used film culture to accentuate the exhibit.  The photo to the right is a constantly looping movie where artist, Bruce Nauman, instructs the person whose hands are being filmed as to which finger on which hand to move.  The exhibit was said  to be used to emphasize the lapse time between the mental; hearing of the instructions, and the physical; moving of the fingers.  Instead of pictures and text, the use of video exemplifies the point the artist is trying to make that there indeed exists a lapse period between the two!

 The photo on the left is of noir shots taken from Eadweard Muybridge's first dabbling in the making of films.  In high school, I learned a great deal about Muybridge so it was interesting to see his work as negatives rather than as a film.  The reason behind the first movie he made was to test to see, at any point during a horse's trot, if all four legs were simultaneously off the ground.  Although hard to see, in the third frame on the top, all four legs are airborne, he won the bet!

 Continuing with the use of film culture within art at the exhibit, the next photo is very clearly modeled after a noir movie where, during battle, all of the town is in chaos and a mother loses sight of her baby carriage.  The 30-second scene consists of different angle takes of the carriage rolling down a large set of stairs in the town!  To those who are familiar with the scene, and the fact that it inspired the cinematic technique of showing one short event from many points of view, this collection of black&white photos is very meaningful!

Of course, not the whole of LACMA had an association with film culture.  The photo above is a panoramic shot of a familiar-looking    iron sculpture done by the artist Richard Serra-another one of his pieces is out by Broad in the sculpture building!