LACMA

For many Angelenos, or those heavily immersed in visual arts circles, the term LACMA is a familiar one. If you don’t fall under either one of those categories, LACMA is an acronym for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, one one of the finest art museums in the world, in my estimation.

Majesties of Spain, Splendors of Versailles, and Palaces of St. Petersburg are some of the many exhibits I’ve attended over the years. I have always enjoyed going to art museums for several reasons. First, I am an admirer of the aesthetics of a painting and seeing how the splashes and combination of colors can stir someone’s emotions. Secondly, nothing but respect is all I can give to artists, who toil away for years at a craft that I would never have the ability to perform. All of this without a single guarantee or promise that their work will ever be placed on any pedestals. This is the marking of a true artist.

However, since my arrival to California, I had been eager to pay LACMA a visit, but simply didn’t have the chance to go there…until last week.

It had been announced months ago that A Story of Photography: The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection would be LACMA’s newest exhibit. This exhibit consists of a diverse selection of photographs that were the private collection of Leonard Vernon, an Californian industrial tycoon, and his wife Marjorie. Many of these photos date back to the 19th century, as early as the 1840s. Although both Vernon and Marjorie have passed away, their legacy lives on in these photographic stills.

This exhibit officially went up last week, and I seized the opportunity to go see them. This was the first time I had seen a photography collection of this magnitude; it was impressive, to say the least. Something timeless is created when the lighting is right and the subject of the photograph displays a complete unawareness of the camera; this unawareness is what allows us to peer into the soul of not only the subject, but the photographer as well.

Another striking exhibit LACMA had was the African Art exhibit. This collection was colorful array of masks, beads, and metal works. For those looking to go to LACMA immediately after reading this article, African Art can be found to your immediate right when you enter the Ahmanson Building. Literally, I was walking right past it and caused me almost slip when turning back. That’s what great art can do. Make you almost hurt yourself wanting to see it.

I would tell you more about what other exhibits LACMA has, but I, and probably the museum as well, would like for you to go see them for yourself, as the words on this blog hardly do them justice. Some of the greatest artistic minds in this world’s history have their works featured here; such as Monet, Renoir, and some guy named Picasso that everyone’s raving about.

No, wait. Picasso is the name of the Google Photo Storage/Editing program, right? Nevermind.

The point is, you should go to LACMA. Seriously. You won’t regret it.