Oh Come, All Ye Poor L.A. County Residents

Isn’t it awesome when simply being a resident of California gets you in someplace for free? On weekdays after 5 pm, L.A. County residents get free general admission to all of the L.A. County Museum of Art’s permanent galleries and non-ticketed exhibitions. Since I live nearby, I figured I’d have myself an evening full of (free!) art.

The last time I visited LACMA was in high school, for a school field trip. Walking through the museum, I only recognized the courtyard behind the Ahmanson Building. That made me a little nervous, since at 26 I shouldn’t have trouble remembering things. But no, the change in appearance is actually the result of a ten-year expansion and renovation project known as the Transformation. (Whew!)

Now, I’m a word person, so the appreciation of art can sometimes be beyond me, especially when it comes to contemporary art. But as I’d never seen the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, which was part of the expansion, I wanted to check it out. There were definitely some interesting pieces. I liked Balloon Dog (Blue) by Jeff Koons, which was absolutely huge, as well as a series of plates by Jasper Johns, in which he used catenaries as points of reference. (A catenary is a curve formed by wire, rope, or chain hanging freely from two points. I like to look words up in the dictionary, what can I say ☺.)


My favorite section of LACMA is the Ahmanson Building, which houses the European art. Besides all of the usual lovely suspects, there was an exhibition on the mythological and cultural sources of Wagner’s operas. I love mythology and so was very interested in this exhibition. One particular section was devoted to Achim Freyer’s vision of the Ring Cycle, as put on by the Los Angeles Opera. The displayed costumes were as strange as I’d remembered them to be, having seen one and a half of these operas at L.A. Opera. (Yes, I left during the intermission of one of the operas. But I can explain. Really.)

Since my dad loves opera (he was even a semi-professional opera singer at one point!), he has season tickets to L.A. Opera and I’ve been lucky enough to go to several operas with him. I love listening to the music, and my “ear” has even improved, but I am always interested in the story (a hazard of being a bookworm). When I heard Wagner’s Ring Cycle was based on Norse mythology, I was really excited. But, as I found out, you have to be a serious opera lover to love Wagner. His works tend to be really long, and German, when sung, tends to sound harsh to the ear (exception: The Magic Flute). Combine all of that with Achim Freyer’s extremely abstract set design and costuming, and I found L.A. Opera’s Ring Cycle to be inaccessible. Though I do admire L.A. Opera for taking a risk (after all, my favorite opera was an adaptation of the Old English epic Beowulf).

Even though I’m not a big fan, learning about the inspiration for Wagner’s works was really interesting. The Wagner exhibition at LACMA runs through August 16th.