"Hold Fast" by Kiel Johnson at the Long Beach Museum of Art. Photo copyright 2016 by Anna Boudinot.
A Long Beach resident recently told me, “Long Beach is like a miniature Los Angeles.”
Twenty-five miles south of downtown LA, Long Beach does seem to have a lot of the same traits of its large neighbor. Long Beach has great food, great bars, the beach, a thriving gay community, a thriving Asian community, problems with crime in some areas, and multi-million dollar homes in other areas. And it has a killer art museum.
Overlooking the ocean, the Long Beach Museum of Art encompasses two adjacent buildings: the Anderson House, built in 1912, and the Ronald and Sylvia Hartman Pavillion, completed in 2000. While the former doesn't house much art, it does have a very Los Angeles-eque history (click on the “tycoons” tag below to see what I mean). Elizabeth Milbank Anderson, the daughter of a railroad and food products magnate, built the beautiful Craftsman as a summer home. She was an avid art collector and benefactor of the arts. When she died in 1921, the house changed hands a couple times before it was finally purchased by the City of Long Beach in 1950. It became the Long Beach Museum of Art in 1957. Today it is the site of a restaurant and is also available for event rentals – a wedding was about to take place there on the day I visited.
Art by Aaron De La Cruz (left) and Li-Hill (right) at the Long Beach Museum of Art. Photo copyright 2016 by Anna Boudinot.
The museum's diverse permanent collection is made up of over 3,200 pieces. According to the museum's website, “Highlights from the collection include furniture by Charles and Ray Eames, ceramics by Beatrice Wood, and sculptures by Claire Falkenstein, George Rickney and Peter Voulokos; Early 20th Century European Modernist paintings by Vasily Kandinsky, Alexej Jawlensky and others... and contemporary artists such as James Jean, Sherrie Wolf, and Sandow Birk.” I didn't get to see any of these works, however: the Pavillion is currently filled to the brim with “Vitality and Verve in the Third Dimension,” which runs through October 16, 2016.
GO SEE THIS SHOW. With only a $7 admission fee, I have to admit I wasn't expecting much from the museum. But when I was greeted at the top of the stairs by the squawking TV set of Craig “Skibs” Barker's Channel 3 Only, I was hooked. It wasn't just a television, it was an entire wall full of shelves, knickknacks, and paintings, and the wall behind it was painted as well. The bright pink and orange, sky blue, and deep red were as welcoming as Grandma's kitchen, their 1950s theme reinforced with images of vintage pinups and old-fashioned neon signs. One sign carried a tiny message: “Bowie Lives.” As with the rest of the pieces in the show, it was evident that the art was deeply inspired.
This inspiration manifested itself in not only the subjects of the art but the methods: with almost every piece, the artist had painted on the walls of the museum itself. The whimsical, Keith Haring-like Abrazos y Bezos by Aaron De La Cruz and the psychedelic room created by Mark Dean Veca are two notable examples. You can watch Veca create the room and hear him discuss his vision in this video, but you really need to sit in the room for the full experience. Black lights, a chill electronica soundtrack, and beanbag chairs make you want to stay there for hours and relax. Indeed, an old man sitting in the corner had fallen asleep snoring while I was there.
“Treasure Maps” by Jaime Molina at the Long Beach Museum of Art. Photo copyright 2016 by Anna Boudinot.
My favorite work in the show was Hold Fast by Kiel Johnson. The primary media were cardboard and construction paper, and “construction” is used very literally here. On one side of the room, hundreds of meticulously-crafted trees, buildings, and vehicles appeared to be the product of a strange machine that was spitting them out on a conveyor belt. A larger structure in the center of the room depicted the shipping containers that are a common sight in the nearby port of Long Beach, as well as a crane and its controls. One wall featured a huge sheet of smooth wood, covered with an intricate map that was sketched out in graphite. All were fascinating to examine. “You're going to want to touch some of the art,” the museum employee had warned me as she sold me my ticket. “But please do not touch it.” As I prowled through room after room, engaged at every turn, I had to remember her words.
I could go on and on to explain each sculpture, each painting, each assemblage, each photograph, because the truth is that there wasn't a single piece of art there that wasn't good. But I don't want to spoil the whole show for you, so you'll just need to explore it yourself. With 31 vibrant and inventive artists represented, you're bound to be transfixed by at least one of them.
I will comment on a funny juxtaposition that you may not get to experience. Fan of Man by Glazed Paradise (Mark Jenkins and Sandra Fernandez) included two menacing, lifelike sculptures of men in hoodies, their faces obscured, perched on the balcony on the side of the museum. They point at each other with those big foam hands you see at sporting events, each proclaiming themselves “#1.” Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you feel about weddings, the wedding I mentioned earlier was taking place in the grassy area between the Pavillion and the Anderson House, and would undoubtedly be affected by the frightening figures looming overhead. If the bride and groom were smart they took it as a symbol to mean they were #1 in each other's hearts.