Saturday morning, my dad calls me up. He was listening to NPR and they mentioned how it was the 2nd to last day of the Magritte exhibit at the LACMA. A sly way of urging me to go he slips in, “I doubt I’ll make it down there by tomorrow, but I thought you might want to go.” Actually, I was glad he reminded me because I had wanted to go. I was already driving aimlessly in my roommate’s car (he had gone to Vegas for the weekend and conveniently left me his car key) I decided to head over the to show.
The second-to-last day of the show, I knew it’d be crowded. And crowded it was. The set up the show, the exhibition itself, was great I thought. They paid special attention to detail: doors and walkways were carved from his made-famous images (the man the bowler hat, recognizable abstract shapes), the carpet was a repetitive image of his famous sky with clouds.
And it was a lot of fun getting to see a lot of these famous paintings in person (as it always is with images like his). The show was actually titled Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images and was based not only off his works, but features many contemporary artists (31 other artists, to be specific, including Vija Celmins, Andy Warhol, and Robert Gober – to name a few of the memorable ones) whose work had been based off or greatly influenced by his. While is really an interesting concept and worked quite well with some works, some of the pieces were a little far stretched – maybe just playing around with words and word juxtaposition in art rather than actually being more related to Magritte’s works. I guess that this works in some ways, seeing as Magritte’s most celebrated contribution to art history is his play with words and images, but I think his work is deeper than that, and a lot of the contemporary art that I saw wasn’t.
One of my favorite things about this show, however, was due to the audience. Maybe it’s a blessing that I went on the last day with the rest of the Los Angeles crowd. Many of the people were there as families and had brought their young children with them, little ones maybe only five years old, etc. Because of the surrealist nature of his work, it was a lot of fun to see how these kids were reacting the pieces. There was one little boy and his father who were looking at Le temps traversé together. Of course the boy was squirming a bit, it was towards the end of the exhibit, but once the painting got his attention he was exclaiming, “Oh dad, I love this one! I love it!” and then after a brief pause, “Where’s the other part of the train, Daddy?”
There were kids at the show like him, full of wonderment and excitement. And there were others, like the two boys I saw with their parents on my way out who were griping to their moms, “What are these? How are these pictures? I don’t get it” without even really glancing at the works. It was just funny seeing/hearing all the different interpretations of the work, especially from a child’s POV.
Either way, it was overall an interesting show. I would recommend it, if it hadn’t already ended.
5 comments:
I saw this show, VERY cool. Magritte is one of my favorite artists. When I was at the show, a woman has a nervous breakdown. It really adds to the show when you have 20 min of bloodcurdling screams as the soundtrack.
Magritte has been a long time favorite of mine. I saw your post awhile back and kicked myself for not doing whatever I could to bum a ride there. How you described the show makes it sound like LACMA did a fantastic job presenting his work. I would have loved to see the painted ceilings and door cutouts. The thing I found most interesting about your post was your observations of the audience. I think you hit on a very key aspect to Magritte’s work. Magritte developed his concepts in order to play with the minds of his viewer and purposefully left things ambiguous. I read somewhere that after he would finish a series of paintings and then have a group of his artsy friends over and they would all come up with completely random titles for each piece.
The thing I admire most about Magritte is that he is able to come up with these simple surreal concepts and translate them onto canvas in a believable way. In doing so he is allowing an interaction with the viewer that is different than any other artist has to offer. Your comments on the children’s responses were really interesting as well to think how the images will entertain every person in a different way. I am so mad I missed the opportunity to see this incredible exhibit. Good job getting there before it closed and thanks for posting on it so I could experience it in a small way.
Sorry the beginning is repeated...i decided to branch off my old comment...
I saw this show, VERY cool. Magritte is one of my favorite artists. When I was at the show, a woman has a nervous breakdown. It really adds a strange element to the show when you have 20 min of bloodcurdling screams as the soundtrack.
Personally, I could have gone without having the contemporary art alongside Magritte’s work. I ended up just glossing over most of it, if looking at it at all. I was much more interested in studying the surrealist paintings. Some of the contemporary works WERE such a stretch that it almost took from the show because I saw it as almost an excuse for the museum to just add more work to the exhibit. Like they wanted to see if they could attract more people to the show by sticking as many famous names into the program as possible.
I remembered hearing on the audio tour a statement Magritte made about his work that I had heard before (I usually never take audio tours but I found this one particularly interesting). He was asked what his work means, what symbolism the different elements had. His answer was nothing. He said that his work had no real meaning; it was just there to skew your perception and entertain your eye. I was able to relate to his work in this sense because it is usually how I treat my work. Most “meaning” behind my work is accidental.
I liked your response to the audience of the exhibit, it was not particularly crowded when I went so besides the woman having a breakdown, I didn’t really get to observe the reactions of others’ besides my own and my dad’s. Though, even if there were more people, I wonder how much I would have paid attention to them, as I was completely mesmerized by Magritte’s work.
Ahh I'm so jealous you got to see it! I too kept forgetting to go see it and I remembered on the last day when it had already sold out. Sigh :(. I thought that it was interesting however all of the controversy that this exhibit generated from the costumed 'docents' with their bowler hats and the almost 'over-exhibition' of his work. I feel like LACMA thought that they had to make the show a spectacle in order to turn a profit which is quite sad. Magritte is one of the most talented artists of his time, and yet, to be able to attract enough viewers they had to sensationalize the show and make it not completely about the art. I guess you can give them credit for trying to make art more accessible to the masses, but it still makes a sad statement on the state of art in todays society.
wow this show sounds like it was exciting! i've seen magritte's work in books and online, but never in person and am sad to have missed it. i read a few reviews but wish that you had seen and written this one first!!! i definately would have gone then. :-) it seems that his work grabs you a bit more conceptually in person, almost immersing you within this surreal world. and that is more fun than any day at the Getty. LACMA seems to do a good job with a lot of their exhibits... but like someone else said, i wish they didn't try to make such a spectacle just for the money. a lot of work stands very well on its own given the chance.
Post a Comment