In Wonderland- The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and The United States

May 4 2012

Planned for weeks, Amy, Abraham, and I finally got to see the "In Wonderland Exhibit" along with practically every other exhibition going on at the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art. I asked them if they would want to save the wonderland exhibit for last and they said yes so we went to the other buildings first.

Kathe Kollwitz Das Volk 1922-23

This was one of the first pieces of that day that really resonated with me. While studying relief printing in school, I was always drawn to the negative space in art and especially in printmaking. I love this woodcut by Kollwitz because of all that negative space, the look of agony, the hands, the unmoved face in the center. I thought it was interesting because looking around in the room, there were so many detailed woodcuts, intaglio prints, lithography prints, but this one was by far my favorite.

Morris Louis Beta Ro 1959-1960

I've seen a lot of Louis pieces in big museums and I've never really been a fan but for some reason I really enjoyed this one and I've learned to appreciate this kind of abstract expressionism more in the past few years. I was really excited to see some Richard Diebenkorn pieces but they only had one and I realized, "oh yeah, I'm not in the bay area, of course I'm not going to see a whole room of bay area figurative movement pieces".

Jesus Rafael Soto Penetrable 1990

A sculpture that moves with the viewer. I think everyone loves interactive art pieces. I do, and when I found out there weren't any signs that said "DO NOT TOUCH" I was all over it. I remembering being in the sculpture with a ton of little kids running around and feeling like I enjoyed it just as much as they did.

Happy mistakes are good and overexposing this shot was one of those really happy mistakes. I love this photo of Amy. It's a perfect representation of an amazing woman.

I remember telling Abraham, "look sad!" I like this face better, on the verge of smiling.

Chris Burden Metropolis II 2010

This is by far, in my young life, the coolest kinetic installation I've ever witnessed. Thank you Chris Burden for making a lot of kids dreams come true. It was funny to imagine having this as a child or any child having this in their home. When we got to this piece there were a ton of people surrounding it and the cars were just sitting on the bottom and on the conveyer belt not yet moving. It wasn't until a technician went in the center of the piece and flipped a switch and that's when all the cars started zipping by. And what made it even better was you could go up a flight of stairs that would let you look down at the piece, literally a bird's eye view. Now I want to see an entire building that holds a small/big city by Burden.

Frida Kahlo Frieda y Diego Rivera 1931

And finally, we arrived at the Resnick Pavilion for a very special exhibition. What a wonderful collection of work from so many amazing surrealist artist. The space was so crowded, and people just flocked to the Kahlo paintings. This portrait of Frida and Rivera has always been my favorite, I remember seeing it in an art book once and noticing her feet compared to his. And for some reason I've always hated that and loved it at the same time, and finally seeing it in person was just a very cool experience. I had to get a photo of the feet.

Sylvia Fein The Tea Party 1943

And then I saw all these wonderful paintings by Sylvia Fein and I fell in love again. I think the nice thing about this exhibit was finding out about so many amazing artist. I went into it knowing about Louise Bourgeois, Kay Sage, Frida Kahlo, Lee Miller, Remedios Varo, but I've never even seen a glimpse of these amazing paintings by Sylvia Fien, Dorothea Tanning, Gerrie Gutmann and plenty more.

By far this painting by Sylvia Fein was my favorite, the amount of ghost like detail in the foreground and background was just stunning and made me want to paint more. Absolutely gorgeous.

The walk back to the car, starving and excited for Abraham to take us to the infamous Swingers diner in Hollywood. Amy and I were not disappointed, well I kinda was just because I chose the wrong dish but the vegan nachos, sweet potato fries and bite of Abe's Swinger burger made it a new favorite spot.



























These two, trying to find Narnia.

One of my favorite discoveries of the day was finding out that Abraham is really knowledgable about plants. We officially have a botanist as a best friend, I don't know the name of this flower but I'm sure Abe could tell you. He collected a ton of succulents and brought them home to grow. I picked a rose for Amy and got one of the dirtiest looks from some neighbor lady, she also said some things but I was in the heat of the moment so I didn't hear her.



























And our night ended with the Griffith Observatory. All the years that I've lived in the Los Angeles area I've never been to the Griffith Observatory. Yes, I know, I'm a noob. And what do you know, the moon was out glowing and showing off. The observatory is so cool, there were all kinds of people there, young adults, little kids on field trips, old scientist dads explaining the wonders of the sun to their uninterested children. We walked the entire perimeter and got to see all the cool stuff inside. I liked walking on the scales for each planet to see how much I weighed. I definitely want to go back soon to get a fuller experience. We only had a chance to take a few pictures with Albert Einstein, not even enough time to talk to him!

And here's to Amy and Abraham for being great friends and for sharing such a great day together.
(photo credit- Abraham Jupiter Santos II and Amy Hamburgerler Bones)