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Jan. 20th, 2015 04:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretWent to LA this weekend for my cousin's wedding. The wedding was nice, seeing family was great, meeting family was great. My grandfather's been estranged from his brothers for decades. They only recently reconciled, so I got to meet my great-uncle for the first time. He was kind of a weird old New York Jew (and I say that as someone who is about as Weird Old New York Jew as it is possible for a twenty nine year old to be, myself), but he was so clearly thrilled to be seeing his niece and nephews that it was just... really nice. Unfortunately, my grandfather took ill a few weeks ago and only just left the hospital last week, so my grandparents had to miss the wedding, but my aunt skyped them in and tried to make them feel like they were part of the event.
After the festivities (which were fun but somewhat onerous... multiple dinners and receptions and the like), my family drove out to the Getty Center to see its collections, having received multiple recommendations. Well, I am officially not a fan. The art itself is pretty top-notch, generally speaking, and I enjoyed some of it quite a lot, particularly the El Greco, Van Gogh, and Monet. (Though we only had time to look at the painting collection, ignoring the museum's sculpture, drawings, photographs, manuscripts, and other works) It is not as good a collection as you'll see in the best New York museums, but it's probably as good a collection as you'll see anywhere in America outside New York. No, I'm a bit snobby about New York-quality European art, but that wasn't the problem. The art was excellent. The problem was the presentation.
For the amount of art it has, the Getty takes up a lot of space. This is deliberate, to call attention to large-scale sculpture and landscaping and architecture as crown jewels of the Getty collection. But the architecture is kind of psychotic. Everything is structured around rigid grid patterns and pathways and portals are designed to funnel you through the buildings in specific ways. It's the most fascist art museum I've ever been to. This was particularly highlighted on the tour we were given of the Getty's gardens, which are micromanaged so that the gardens work like an abstract painting rather than an actual garden- all trees are cut to the same heights, plants are used based on color contrasts rather than actual growing practicality. There was something I found really disturbing about this. Even though I objectively know that any garden of this scale involves significant amounts of management, the fact that the trees were being presented as things you ruthlessly sculpt to create specific visual effects rather than as living objects whose organic growth is itself beautiful bothered me.
And the authoritarianism of the museum was reinforced by the trip to the museum itself. The Getty is sited on top of a hill on the outskirts of LA, and the parking garage is at the bottom of the hill, so that in order to get to the museum one must either climb for fifteen minutes, or take a tram for ten minutes or so. But there was parking at the top of the hill, only it was for VIPs only. Which left the impression of the Getty as a fortress of art, accessible (and free) to the public but only if the public was willing to jump through the specific and complicated hoops put in place to limit that access. The whole experience left me a little grumpy. And actually, kind of longing to make another trip to the Met, which I haven't visited in about two years, because I have my own issues with the Met.
I feel like most of the time when I review art museums on this DW, you get grumpy rants. I don't always hate museums, I swear! I love the Frick! I love the Philadelphia Museum of Art! I (mostly) love MoMa! I love the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the MFA in Boston. I love the Guggenheim half the time, and the Whitney a third of the time. It's just that art museums are really powerful, physical experiences and I'm very particular about what I want out of them.
After the festivities (which were fun but somewhat onerous... multiple dinners and receptions and the like), my family drove out to the Getty Center to see its collections, having received multiple recommendations. Well, I am officially not a fan. The art itself is pretty top-notch, generally speaking, and I enjoyed some of it quite a lot, particularly the El Greco, Van Gogh, and Monet. (Though we only had time to look at the painting collection, ignoring the museum's sculpture, drawings, photographs, manuscripts, and other works) It is not as good a collection as you'll see in the best New York museums, but it's probably as good a collection as you'll see anywhere in America outside New York. No, I'm a bit snobby about New York-quality European art, but that wasn't the problem. The art was excellent. The problem was the presentation.
For the amount of art it has, the Getty takes up a lot of space. This is deliberate, to call attention to large-scale sculpture and landscaping and architecture as crown jewels of the Getty collection. But the architecture is kind of psychotic. Everything is structured around rigid grid patterns and pathways and portals are designed to funnel you through the buildings in specific ways. It's the most fascist art museum I've ever been to. This was particularly highlighted on the tour we were given of the Getty's gardens, which are micromanaged so that the gardens work like an abstract painting rather than an actual garden- all trees are cut to the same heights, plants are used based on color contrasts rather than actual growing practicality. There was something I found really disturbing about this. Even though I objectively know that any garden of this scale involves significant amounts of management, the fact that the trees were being presented as things you ruthlessly sculpt to create specific visual effects rather than as living objects whose organic growth is itself beautiful bothered me.
And the authoritarianism of the museum was reinforced by the trip to the museum itself. The Getty is sited on top of a hill on the outskirts of LA, and the parking garage is at the bottom of the hill, so that in order to get to the museum one must either climb for fifteen minutes, or take a tram for ten minutes or so. But there was parking at the top of the hill, only it was for VIPs only. Which left the impression of the Getty as a fortress of art, accessible (and free) to the public but only if the public was willing to jump through the specific and complicated hoops put in place to limit that access. The whole experience left me a little grumpy. And actually, kind of longing to make another trip to the Met, which I haven't visited in about two years, because I have my own issues with the Met.
I feel like most of the time when I review art museums on this DW, you get grumpy rants. I don't always hate museums, I swear! I love the Frick! I love the Philadelphia Museum of Art! I (mostly) love MoMa! I love the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the MFA in Boston. I love the Guggenheim half the time, and the Whitney a third of the time. It's just that art museums are really powerful, physical experiences and I'm very particular about what I want out of them.
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Date: 2015-01-20 10:56 pm (UTC)