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a thing in 23 photos in 2003

museum

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After Lee's gallery, we went across the museum and check out Roger Hior's work - he takes metal objects (like this BMW 7-Series engine) and dips them in a copper-sulfate bath
trip to cali part 1: nyc to la
December 10, 2003
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Lee was one of the first female artists to gain widespread recognition in the 1960s.
trip to cali part 1: nyc to la
December 10, 2003
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Pretty neat, right? You LOVE art, I know.
trip to cali part 1: nyc to la
December 10, 2003
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...but then I got caught taking sneaky pics and I had to put my camera away. Her most recent sculpture is some of the most beautiful, striking art I've ever seen and I the exhibit completely overwhelmed. I think I heard that this entire 150+ piece show is coming to New York City this summer - if it does, you should go see it.
trip to cali part 1: nyc to la
December 10, 2003
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On Friday morning, Jordana (who is a painter) took me to the Hammer Museum to see Lee Bontecou's "Retrospective." Here's a cool, drippy permanent installation in the museum's lobby.
trip to cali part 1: nyc to la
December 10, 2003
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She become known for creating these super-creepy canvas and wire sculptures.
trip to cali part 1: nyc to la
December 10, 2003
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I managed to capture a few pics of these scultpures from the mid-seventies, where she was going through a period of creating all these crazy, Egyptian scarab beetle-like scultures...
trip to cali part 1: nyc to la
December 10, 2003
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These pics are all sorta shitty and totally don't do her work justice - they're absolutely striking in person. (You're not supposed to take pics in the museam and I was forced to snap all these ninja style when the guards weren't looking.) Anyway, towards the end of the 60s, Lee started moving away from the scary-looking scultures that she was known for and started more organic flower-like sculptures that were met with tepid critical reactions. So in the early 70s she stopped exhibiting and pretty much dropped out of the art scene. Well it turns out she's spent the last thirty years working and all of the stuff she'd been working on (that nobody's seen until just recently) is completely amazing.
trip to cali part 1: nyc to la
December 10, 2003
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I love going to museums, but enjoy them infinitely more if I'm there with someone who knows alot about what we're seeing and can contextualize it for me. Jordana is one of those people.
trip to cali part 1: nyc to la
December 10, 2003
museum
The Greek authenticity of McDonald's inspired us to check out the airport's small museum of Greek art.
european vacation part 18: leaving crete.
October 30, 2003
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The four of us read this truly amazing story and reflected upon it for a few minutes...
european vacation part 16: scootering again.
October 29, 2003
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We hit the road again and after a lovely thirty-minute windy ride through all sorts of crazy-ass mountain terrain, we arrived at the Arkadia Monestary: which is one of Crete's most celebrated monuments of resistance against the mid-19th century Turkish occupation.
european vacation part 16: scootering again.
October 29, 2003
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How did Megadeth manage to never write a song about this?
european vacation part 16: scootering again.
October 29, 2003
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...before racing over to the cases and posing for pictures with the skulls of bad-ass, martyred Cretans who blew themselves up in order to take out some Turks.
european vacation part 16: scootering again.
October 29, 2003
museum
Now this is cool. It's the oldest road in Europe. We followed it away from the tour and towards lunch.
european vacation part 12: knossos ruins.
October 27, 2003
museum
And a, um, tree.
european vacation part 12: knossos ruins.
October 27, 2003
museum
More stuff that might be old or not.
european vacation part 12: knossos ruins.
October 27, 2003
museum
This was the original throne of king Minos where he decreed that no trace of anything fun should be left in his kingdom.
european vacation part 12: knossos ruins.
October 27, 2003
museum
And nope. No torture chamber either (Turns out the Minoans were an almost entirely peaceful civilization). We held out hope that there was at least a snack bar somewhere, but no such luck there either. There was however, a functional 5,000 year old plumbing system which our 80 year old tour guide told us she would demonstrate. For a second we were scared that she'd pop a squat right in front of us. But she just kind of pointed at it and told us how advanced the Minoans were. Obviously not advanced enough to leave some skulls or a torture chamber to cheer poor Fatty up.
european vacation part 12: knossos ruins.
October 27, 2003
museum
And nope. No torture chamber either (Turns out the Minoans were an almost entirely peaceful civilization). We held out hope that there was at least a snack bar somewhere, but no such luck there either. There was however, a functional 5,000 year old plumbing system which our 80 year old tour guide told us she would demonstrate. For a second we were scared that she'd pop a squat right in front of us. But she just kind of pointed at it and told us how advanced the Minoans were. Obviously not advanced enough to leave some skulls or a torture chamber to cheer poor Fatty up.
european vacation part 12: knossos ruins.
October 27, 2003
museum
Okay, so get this. There is no labyrinth, there are no minotaurs and not only that, there never was a minotaur. The myth is really just like a really, really, really long game of telephone. Turns out there was a king, Minos who was strong and possessed a bullish personality. The palace had like tons of rooms. Before the roof was put on it kind of looked like a maze to bemused locals. That's your labyrinth.
european vacation part 12: knossos ruins.
October 27, 2003
museum
At the beginning of the tour, we were told that the palace ruins that we were exploring were from 3,000 BCE. So the whole time, we're walking around looking at this stuff in awe. Like "Wow this things been standing here for 5,000 years!" Then about halfway through the tour, our guide informed us that everything we'd been looking at was actually all reconstructed from piles of rocks discovered at the excavation site at the beginning of the 20th century.
european vacation part 12: knossos ruins.
October 27, 2003
museum
After our grodey lunch, we decided to go check out the "Mutter Museum of Medical Oddities" at University hospital...but by the time we got there it was goddamned closed.
trip to philly
April 19, 2003