I finally made it to the new downtown art museum and the impressive building was like a large stretch bandage. This many holed skin of the building , allows a lot of natural light into the galleries. The work on the top floor, was all the famous artists working in New York when I was at RISD in the 1980's, so Davis Salle, Julian Schnabel, Jean Michel Basquiat, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holtzer and Jeff Koons. Some of the gallery spaces that housed one artist , for example the Andy Warhol room were problematic for me. The space was much higher than it was broad-- leaving a vertical impression that seems oppressive to the work and made the space look very cramped. Also in the Warhol room, a piece from every period of his work was too much for one space and made it look like the commodification of an artist.
The ground floor was more recent artists, the space seemed more open. I liked the piece by the Icelandic artist Radgnar Kjartansson, showing eight or so screens with video footage of individual musicians playing together and separately to arrive at a crescendo after an hour or so.
All in all good addition to the Museums of Los Angeles, I'm all for this expansion. Now lets keep going and have a museum with 50% of women artists showing great work.
