RIP to the innovative and inspiring performance artist
#Ulay
, who described the importance of art to
@dazed
by saying, "It’s through art that people exchange interpretation and meaning and love." ♥️
"I’m not interested in relationships of color or form or anything else... I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on."— *Mark Rothko.
MOCA is deeply saddened by the passing of Ras G. Ras G was foundational to the production of experimental music in Los Angeles. We are honored to have had hosted him for a program at MOCA Grand last summer, where he shared his artistry with us on our plaza. Rest in peace Ras G.
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting Six Crimee (1982) combines the visual vocabulary of energetic jutting graffiti with dynamic paint gestures reminiscent of 1940s abstract expressionist painting.
#MOCAMasks
: Available Now! Launching today,
@mocastores
is proud to offer limited-production, artist-designed face masks to benefit the museum in response to the COVID-19 safety and health guidelines.
Brazilian artist Vik Muniz’s massive photograph Medusa, after Caravaggio (Pictures of Junk) (2009) presents an image of the decapitated head of the mythological Greek monster Medusa. A closer look reveals that this version is constructed from post-industrial rubbish.
Do Ho Suh: “I don’t really get homesick, but I’ve noticed that I have this longing for this particular space, and I want to recreate that space or bring that space wherever I go.”
#WangechiMutu
is a Kenyan-born, New York-based artist who works almost exclusively on paper. Often her works are tied together by meta-narratives, and the theme of female beauty has become a major preoccupation.
"It seems to me the best art is political and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time.”–Toni Morrison, 1984. RIP American novelist, nobel laureate, and light of her generation Toni Morrison.
As cerebral minimalism reached its peak in the 1970s,
#SusanRothenberg
applied dashes of energetic, textural brushstrokes onto massive canvases to arrive at her iconic images of
#horses
.
Do Ho Suh: “At some point in your life, you have to leave your home. And whenever you go back, it’s just not the same home anymore. I think home is something that you carry along with your life.”
Alejandro Jodorowsky: "I am very old—I'm already 86—so what interests me? Fame no longer interests me. I'm interested in creating honest art work, and I'm interested in demonstrating that you can do it, that David can fight against the industrial Goliath."
In 1961 Claes Oldenburg’s The Store opened for business in New York’s Lower East Side neighborhood. Oldenburg used the back half of a rented storefront space to create the objects that he put on sale in the front half, thereby short-circuiting the studio and the art gallery.
MOCA is offering free admission to all LAUSD students and one guardian or chaperone while teachers are on strike–visit our website for more information on what’s showing at the museum.
Richard Misrach: “I’ve come to believe that beauty can be a very powerful conveyor of difficult ideas. It engages people when they might otherwise look away.”
#EtelAdnan
on her relationship with Mount Tamalpais in Northern California: "That mountain became my best friend, it really did. It was more than just a beautiful mountain: it entered me, existentially, and filled my life. It became a poem around which I orientated myself."
Njideka Akunyili Crosby: “I like to create disparate spaces that speak to differences in cultural perceptions.” Painter Njideka Akunyili Crosby has completed installing her mural on the face of MOCA Grand Avenue!
A.L Steiner: “I want my work to create a wonting desire for what I want. Feminism expanded outward, past academia. Feminism isn’t a historical movement; it’s an ongoing process.”
Felix Gonzalez-Torres: “I don't want to make art just for people who can read Fredrick Jameson sitting upright on a Mackintosh chair. I want to make art for people who watch the Golden Girls and sit in a big, brown, Lazy-boy chair. They're part of my public too, I hope.”
LACMA will be the third stop for the paintings after they leave D.C.; the portraits are expected to be on view here from November 2021 to January 2022.
This is the last weekend to see Xu Zhen: In Just a Blink of an Eye at MOCA Grand, which has been extended through Labor Day! The wait time for general admission is up to 90 minutes.
A MOCA collection piece by Larry Bell called 36-85-1 (1985). Bell, who was a contemporary of Donald Judd and Frank Stella in the 1960s Los Angeles art scene, is well known for his glass cube sculptures.
Brassaï: “I started [photographing] when I was about thirty in Paris. I walked around Paris a lot at night and saw many things. I sought a means of expressing these sights that I saw and a woman loaned me a small camera.”
Xu Zhen: In Just a Blink of an Eye is on view Saturdays and Sundays at MOCA Grand through September 1. No advance reservations or special tickets will be needed to experience the performance–
Mark Rothko: “The progression of a painter’s work, as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity: toward the elimination of all obstacles.” Mark Rothko was born
#OTD
in 1903.🎈
Sunny days in LA have us thinking about this surreal citrus scene from
#JimShaw
's 1997 painting, Oranges in the Classroom, which he claimed came to him in a dream🍊☀️💭
Hannah Wilke (1980): “Women must take control of and have pride in the sensuality of their own bodies and create a sexuality i their own terms, without deferring to concepts degenerated by culture.”
Spring Equinox also means, Norooz, aka Persian New Year! Happy New Year to our friends in Los Angeles and around the world celebrating however they can ♥️
Seen here is Iranian artist Ali Banisadr's painting It's in the Air (2012)
“The world wall is about artists in conversation with each other about a vision of the future without fear, without any arbitration between funders, governments, or authority. “—Judy Baca
JOIN US Saturday, January 11 from 12-4pm to celebrate the start of FREE General Admission with a day filled with art, music, food, and community. See you there ❤️
Robert Gober: “The one thing that an art school never tells you is that they cannot teach you how to be an artist. That should be on their letterhead. That really is up to you to figure out.”