{"id":8771,"date":"2019-10-27T07:18:58","date_gmt":"2019-10-27T07:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/?p=8771"},"modified":"2023-07-11T07:22:16","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T07:22:16","slug":"lacma-and-the-la-brae-tar-pits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/misc\/lacma-and-the-la-brae-tar-pits\/","title":{"rendered":"LACMA and the La Brae Tar Pits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"LACMA\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I left the Hollywood History tour a little tired, but decided to soldier on via an LA Metro bus to see LACMA and the La Brae Tar Pits next door. I should point out in advance I didn’t pay to enter either museum; LACMA’s main gallery is currently being rebuilt, and the La Brae Tar Pits museum is largely aimed at kids from what I understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first exhibit I encountered at LACMA’s grounds is an outdoor piece called Levitated Mass<\/a>. It’s an enormous boulder held in place with bolts over a subterranean concrete ramp. Seems simple enough, but due to a mishap with the original boulder the artist had selected, it took several decades to complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"LACMA\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The other big installation outdoors at LACMA is Urban Light, a series of outdoor light posts you might find lining a street, except all bunched up in close-knit grid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is kind of a headtrip to wander through this and see standard urban street furniture intentionally misused, though the main attraction seems to be getting one’s photo taken among the light posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"LACMA\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A more traditional sculpture garden off to the side features various sculptures, currently focusing on “The Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness” by Zak Ov\u00e9 . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This series of statues feature a semi-faceless series of nearly identical statues that look abstract yet somehow of African descent. I was surprised to see it again as this particular work was recently exhibited at Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike the San Francisco version of the exhibit, LACMA’s is enclosed on three sides by a fence with a security guard out front. This changed the meaning completely for me — as a white man — particularly since the security guard was a black man. I don’t know what more to say here other than art can be powerful when the context is shifted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"LACMA\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While trying to find the restrooms I wandered through a massive, two story tall geometric sculpture called “Smoke.” From ground level it felt intimidating, but when I wandered up the stairs and looked down upon it, it seemed much less interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s amazing what perspective can do with large scale art installations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"La<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On the other side of the block there’s the La Brae Tar Pits, an excavation site where various fossil remains were dredged up back in the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today the tar pits are known for their absurd recreations of… woolly mammoths, I guess? They look like some embarrassing 1950’s highway attraction like the “world’s largest ball of twine” or whatever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tar pits themselves smell like tar, similar to when a building is getting a new tar roof. It’s not very pleasant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ll admit part of the reason I went over there was to see if I could spot LA puppeteer, actor, artist, and singer David Liebe Hart — an oddball local character who’s known for hanging out there. Unfortunately for me he was nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The LA Metro Purple Line extension is being built a block down the street, and since it’s located so close to the tar pits the excavation is a slow process with paleontologists ensuring our natural heritage is preserved. As such I had to take a very crowded Metro Rapid bus back downtown instead of the yet to open subway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I left the Hollywood History tour a little tired, but decided to soldier on via an LA Metro bus to see LACMA and the La […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","slim_seo":{"title":"LACMA and the La Brae Tar Pits - MrEricSir.com","description":"I left the Hollywood History tour a little tired, but decided to soldier on via an LA Metro bus to see LACMA and the La Brae Tar Pits next door. I should point"},"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","autoblue_publish_document":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1250,1251,38,222],"class_list":["post-8771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc","tag-los-angeles","tag-museums","tag-photos","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8771"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9714,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8771\/revisions\/9714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}