Petition For MOCA

OK, full disclosure, FBC! generally doesn't believe in petitions, and doesn't sign them as a general principle. Rules are made to be broken, so my signature graces the petition to "save MOCA", which you can find here. So if you care about the museum, you can sign it and pass the url to your friends. I must say I'm a bit irritated my full mailing address was required to sign it, as I had no time and no imagination to make up a fake one.

Now this being said, feel free to make as much noise as possible to help the museum, and after it's saved thanks to Eli Broad, to many more generous donors to come and to viewers like you, please ask for accountability. I love MOCA, I love many of the exhibitions it has organized, I like all its curators, it has a great collection, but it needs better management, and that includes administrators as well as the Board of Trustees. You know, people who try to improve the financial situation of the institution way before it drowns in a dire, dire quagmire of near-bankruptcy. The 11th-hour cry for help, the waiting for the museum to be in desperate straits to finally, finally make the situation known, I find it intolerably nerve-wracking.

Meanwhile, sign the petition, make your voice heard, and support your local museums. All of them.

Belgium Invades Los Angeles!

And you thought MOCA was in trouble. Well, research Belgium a bit, and the whole MOCA situation will start looking like a piece of cake.
If you've been a follower of FBC! for a while you know how I like Belgium. I've even made my coming out on Facebook as a (former) closet Belgian. Belgians are usually warm and friendly people with a wicked sense of humor, and they sure know how to drink and to party.
You just wished they would get along better, in between the Walloons, the Flemish and the German-speaking minority (they do have the other usual minorities as well, in case you wonder).
Aside from the linguistic tricky problem, Belgium had produced great bands, great filmmakers (Chantal Akerman anyone?), one world-famous art historian (Thierry de Duve), cycling racers that put Lance Armstrong to shame ( a real cyclist does the Giro, La Vuelta, and the Tour de France, and let's not forget Paris-Roubaix), and of course Magritte and Broodthaers. For a country that's about the size of Maryland, it's a pretty good record, no?
So now that I whetted your appetite for all things Belgian, I recommend you go tonight to the Mandrake Bar watch a selection of Belgian videos, from 7 to 11 PM. It will be raining like crazy outside, so it's a good reason to go have a few drinks while getting culturally enlightened.

Imagine the fabulous conversation you will have at the Thanksgiving table! First explaining to Uncle Chester there is a country called Belgium somewhere (hint: it's in between France, the Netherlands and Germany) where, contrarily to what you'd expect they don't speak Belgian, then telling Grandma Edna you were watching videos by the likes of David Evrard at the Mandrake (that's when you have to tell your bachelor great-uncle Mo you're not speaking about Mandrake The Magician) ... then you get to explain the videos you've seen, and voilà! Your entire Thanksgiving conversation taken care of! Merci qui? Merci Frenchy!

Pic of Mandrake the magician taken here.

The Great Los Angeles Walk Part III

From the writer's desk

The Crosswalk at Western

Bureau of Street Lighting

The hipster furniture store sidewalk display

Geometric Ironworks

The Great Los Angeles Walk Part II

You know you're in Silverlake when all the stores are still closed at 10 AM

Supra Obama Leader Of The Nation. Everybody took this picture!

Don't drink it! Le Beaujolais nouveau is always crappy. Taix restaurant, whose Frenchitude was diluted in the smog decades ago.

That's us, right? In Echo Park.

Chinatown "Gates". Hello hipster artsy-fartsy brethren!

The Great Los Angeles Walk 2008

The organizer of the Great LA Walk, Mike, with Eric the Wilshire specialist

Because there are other things in life than the MOCA crisis (more about this to come), and because FBC! knows that physical exercise is a good antidote to sadness, I joined the Great Los Angeles Walk organized by the folks over at Franklin Avenue. The group of 150 people who met at Union Station between 8 and 9 AM on Saturday morning was slated to walk up Cesar Chavez, Sunset Boulevard and then Santa Monica Boulevard all the way to the ocean.
I took the #33 bus at 7.15 AM at the corner of Venice and Vineyard, opposite World on Wheels and Midtown Lane, and was swiftly taken through a nice tour of downtown all the way to Union Station. I saw some nice architecture on the way, so hey, Mike over at Franklin Avenue! You could do Venice next year? I'd even settle for Washington. I could maybe even cheat a join the walk halfway through...

The abandoned old restaurant at Union Station

Being totally out of shape I knew I wouldn't make it till the end, so my more modest goal was to end somewhere between La Brea an Fairfax and then take a couple buses back home.
It was loads of fun! I love walking or taking the bus in Los Angeles and see the architecture, the people, street life and I got to meet some friendly people.
Many of the Saturday walkers work in the entertainment industry, so it was nice to be outside of the art world for a little while. Among the crowd were some serious hikers, all clad in professional gear, some totally out of shape people like me, some marathoners who in fact carried very little, and even a guy who wore PJs bottoms to the walk. I met "Walter" who had walked down Western all the way to San Pedro (it took him 2 days!) and Eric Lynxwiler who wrote a book about Whilshire, which I'm gonna devour the minute Amazon drops it on my doorstep. It was very well organized, we were all given some maps with every mile clearly marked with some indication of the landmark next to it, but it also felt very free and loose, not as if we had been marshaled into a competition or a tourist venture. I liked the vibe!

Union Station Waiting Room

It was fun to see what pictures people were taking, some were interested only in street signs and graffiti, some others like your truly in architecture, there were some serious foodies who sampled goodies all the way to the sea. All in all it was clean good fun, and I must say we made pretty good time. I started inadvertently at the head of the pack (they ended up at the Britannia pub in Santa Monica 2 hours before everybody, I gather), and then slowly regressed to the middle, until I reached La Brea and the Target store for a pit stop that proved my demise: I was totally unable to move after that. I stopped somewhere for an immemorable lunch, took a couple of buses back home, where I discovered a ping-pong sized blister on the sole of my left foot. Which explained a lot. I felt a bit sorry I didn't manage to go any further and missed the fun of sharing lunch and later dinner with the others, but clearly I was unfit. I went to bed at 6 PM that evening, got up at 6 AM on Sunday and was so sore I couldn't move whatsoever (hence explaining my absence from the MOCA meeting at the Geffen).

Union Station Front Entrance

The WPA Bridge over Venice Boulevard, from the #33 bus stop on Venice and Vineyard

So I'm totally ready to do it again next year, but I will train beforehand, and buy adequate hiking/running gear (and that include SOCKS) of the professional kind, not the cheapo stuff my unemployed self got at Target. Meanwhile, you can admire pictures of the walk on the flickr pool
My only regret is, aside from not making it to the Ocean, I was too shy to take pictures of people. Somewhere between Vermont and Western (I think), I saw a beautiful Filipino barber shop that looked out of the 1930s, and later on in Little Armenia a game parlor where retirees were busy socializing. Both were beautiful and I hope someone smarter than me took pictures of them.
If you want to join next year, remember this will be on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I recommend a bit of training before, and good footwear!

(more pics to come)

MOCA Crisis Reminder: 3 PM Meeting At the Geffen

For all of you who wish to show support for MOCA in this time of crisis, you're invited to show up at 3 PM at the Geffen. Please kindly pay the full admission fee, even if you are a member or ar otherwise entitled to free admittance as a professional.
The meeting organizers, artists Cindy Bernard and Diana Thater, would like to remind everybody this isn't a town hall meeting nor a Q&A to address grievances, neither are you asked to air proposals about the museum's future. It is a rally of support for the museum, so please don't make the meeting morph into a shouting match of confusing ideas, and follow the agenda set by the organizers.
Please note the agenda of the meeting below.
Lastly, FBC! is sorry she cannot attend, but I can hardly move today as a consequence of the Great LA Walk (it was awesome!), so it's physically impossible for me to be there. But I'll welcome anybody who want to report.
Thanks, and go support MOCA!

agenda:

1. Welcome / Cindy Bernard and Diana Thater
2. Remarks / George Baker
3. A reading of an artist statement of support / Cindy Bernard and Diana Thater
4. Remarks / Representative from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs
5. Remarks / Richard Jackson
6. Comments from attendees
7. Walk through of “Index: Conceptualism in California from the Permanent Collection” / George Baker

Thanks, Updates And Corrections

FBC! is a bit frazzled right now, and grieving and really sad, and the result is I cannot remember everything or keep up with the current MOCA drama. So this post is here first of all to thank everybody who has sent me messages, some of them very touching. I've been stunned and moved to get supportive and sweet emails from total strangers as well as from all friends. It's been very helpful, so my heartfelt gratitude goes to all of you. Thank you so much.

Secondly, I received the invite way too late to post it on YSL, so here's the update: there's an opening at the Glendale College Gallery this Saturday. It's called Endless Summer and is curated by Alex Israel, in conjunction with the California Biennial. If you go, please say hi to Alex for me, and to the Gallery Director Roger Dickes as well.

Now, the corrections: I was saying on the precedent post regarding MOCA that I doubted Eli Broad would play Santa Claus, and I was wrong. He's ready to step in, as long as other people do it as well. If you read the (short) editorial he wrote for the LAT, it's pretty good (I'm happy he mentions the WACK! exhibition among the groundbreaking ones organized at MOCA). I like the bit where he says "This is not a one-philanthropist town". In effect, so far it is, but it stands to reason Broad should be weary of always been called to the rescue, and it's not normal that on a city where so many wealthy people live, so few of them contribute to the arts. Where are the movie stars who show up at MOCA's openings when it's time to take out their wallets?
In any case, please still show up at Sunday's meeting at the Geffen (3 PM) if you can. FBC! absolutely cannot make it, but I'd be happy to post or re-post accounts of the meeting. In passing, I'll be away from the computer for the next 48 hours, so it's better you either join the Facebook group mentioned in the preceding post, or check For Your Art (sign up for their email newsletter). Both are updated frequently.
Meanwhile, goodbye, let's reconnect after Thanksgiving. Thank you all.

The picture of the Roni Horn had been taken at MoMA, not at MOCA. Sorry.