Looking for Meaning

Todd Walker, the writer of this blog post, reveals something interesting about the nature of looking at art. Often, attentive viewing can add to the meanings we associate with our own experience. And in turn we bring our attitudes to the experience of art.

In this case, having discovered Camilo José Vergara’s photographs such as the one above in an exhibition at the Getty, Walker remembered seeing similar buildings in his travels. Through the act of photographing and calling attention to such modest places, the artist asks big questions: What separates “high” church buildings and their inhabitants from these impoverished congregations?

Walker ponders his temptation to view such churches as more authentic than “high” places of worship. Does poverty confer a closer relationship to God, he asks?

Image © Camilo José Vergara 1980
Gift of Nancy and Bruce Berman
Camilo José Vergara
American, Chicago, IL, 1980
Chromoge 9 x 13 in.
2005.100.8

Interactivity before the Digital Age

Have you ever looked at a person’s face and immediately drawn conclusions about his or her personality or intelligence? Of course you have. In the 19th century, people even made a parlor game of it, using paper-doll-like faces, substituting different lips, ears, and noses, to often humorous effect.

While looking for paper dolls, this blogger discovered such an interactive device, called a physionotrace, on the Getty Web site. There, you can play with it and many other strange historical interactive Devices of Wonder like magic lanterns, chromotropes, thaumatropes, anamorphic images, and choreutoscopes. Plus, you’ll increase your vocabulary and impress your friends!

Image: Physionotrace, 19th century, England. Getty Research Library, Werner Nekes Collection, 93.R.118

What Traffic?

Friday night traffic in Los Angeles can rattle even the most diehard Angelino. This transplanted San Franciscan knows an escape route: Climb high up above it all, and revel in the company of others enjoying the beginning of their weekends, art, music, and drinks. And look down in pity at all those trapped on the 405.

She’s talking about the Getty’s Fridays off the 405.

Goat Mania, Continued

We couldn’t resist adding some staff snaps of the Getty goats. Here you can see that after a hard day of mowing hillside greenery, they are eager for their photo opp.

A goat named “Red” diverts attention from his accomplice, who is busy snatching an unsuspecting Getty staffer’s badge.

Photos: Brenda Podemski

Goats? At the Getty Center?

How many people can count goats as their work colleagues? Well, here at the Getty Center, our new temporary hires may not have high salaries, but at least they get free lunch all during the month of May.

Every spring the goats arrive to rid the surrounding slopes of fire-prone vegetation.

Turns out goats have a presence on the inside of the Getty too. Here’s one example where two medieval goats munch away ever so elegantly:

Northumberland Bestiary, English, about 1250 - 1260, Ms.100, fol. 14v det., J. Paul Getty Museum

A Mom Reviews the Getty Center

When it comes to kids visiting art museums, it may come as a surprise that parents have “to literally tear them away.” But that’s what this mother had to do during a visit to the Getty Center’s Family Room.

Kids who just can’t get enough of the Getty can explore the Museum’s collections online. They can explore the details of the Getty Museum’s collections by playing GettyGames, or go on an art treasure hunt at the virtual Getty Museum in the virtual world for kids called Whyville.

Sketchy Fun

Juggling Man, Adrian de Vries, about 1610–1615, bronze. The J. Paul Getty Museum

Trying to copy a work of art has several benefits: 1) It makes you understand and remember the object; 2) It sharpens your skills; 3) It really REALLY makes you feel humble.

Next time you visit an art museum, try it. There’s always room for humility. And if you come to the Getty Center, you can join others in our Sketching Gallery and we’ll give you the materials you need to get started.

You can even add your own spin, as this clever visitor did:

Sketch by Edna Cabcabin Moran

How to Grasp the Getty Museum

Photo courtesy of BuildingCollector.com

With a campus as varied as the Getty Center, I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise to find on visitors’ blogs an almost infinite range of topics and images taken from their experiences here.

In turn, one of the delights of doing this blog is that we get to see what captures our visitors’ attention. For instance, it would seem there is a mini-cult surrounding our 3D stainless steel maps.

Why have such maps, you wonder? For starters, some people aren’t able to read 2D maps well, so it helps to see the buildings and their relationships in miniature. And it also helps those with eyesight limitations, since they can touch the map and its braille captions.

Photo courtesy of Glenda Sims

Note how the giant rocks are accurately depicted:

Photo courtesy of Marshall Astor

Here the map is disguised as a guesswhereLA entry:

And here it is contrasted with the real architecture:

Social Photography

Photo courtesy of JN Design

An eager flock of flickr photographers descended on the Getty Center last Saturday. Judging from the posted photos, the group’s combined talents captured a huge spectrum of subjects and moods. And it is a joy to behold such camaraderie!

We’ll post some of our favorites later, but for now, here are some chosen by the group.

Happenings!

A first for the Getty Center! Over our ten years we have had almost every conceivable type of organized visiting group: presidents, royals, people with seeing-eye dogs, students, architects, etc. But this Saturday we had a hundreds-long conga line that snaked through in follow-the-leader style.

Agents from Improv Everywhere completed the following mission last Saturday:

“Los Angeles, CA. Form a line, introduce a ripple effect of various actions, and then tighten into a spiral as designated by the lead Agent.”

Unsuspecting spectators seemed enthralled, if puzzled. Was this a happening that had escaped from MoCA? Was it a Work of Art?

Next Saturday we’ll see another group assembling here–and we hope to post some of the resulting photos. Stay tuned.