#RSRSeesTheUSA Day 30: Los Angeles, CA

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I really do like art museums.

I know that probably sounds pretty straightforward and obvious given that I’ve worked in them for most of my career.

But given how the museum field has done so poorly by so many of its workers (and visitors)—especially during the pandemic—and given how sourly my last museum job ended, my enjoyment of art museums was really up in the air for a while.

I know a lot about how the museum sausage gets made, and it’s often full of small-minded traditionalism and institutional racism and ugly big-money capitalism. None of which, should you be in any way confused, are things that interest me.

I resigned from my job in Aspen because of a combination of all three of these, and I wasn’t sure I wanted anything to do with working in museums ever again. I stopped paying attention to the goings-on in the museum field for the first chunk of 2021 and took a sabbatical from museums as a whole.

It was the promise of COVID vaccines allowing a return to travel—and more specifically, the recognition that I’d definitely want to visit museums everywhere I was eventually able to travel—that reminded me that I still fundamentally enjoy the experience of discovering and looking at and talking about art that’s on view to a public audience.

As a cis white woman with multiple art history degrees, I carry enough privilege that museums feel like safe and friendly spaces to me. I hate that they don’t feel the same to everyone. And yet, they do feel that way to me, and that’s no less real a truth, even though it’s not a truth for everyone.

So even though some of the ugliness of museum traditionalism raised its head on my visit to LACMA today (visitors being scolded for drinking water while far away from artwork, no photos allowed during the installation process of a new show, wall text with more than its fair share of academic language), I still had a great time.

René Magritte’s La Trahison des images

I had the fun surprise of turning a corner to be met with old friends from Art History 101.

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Gustave Caillebotte’s Sur le pont de l’Europe

Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Pollice Verso

I had the familiar fondness of finding some paintings that are buddies from my grad school days.

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Alfonse Thomasse hand-painted silk fan, circa 1905

I discovered some wacky new objects (seriously… what?!)

Michael McMillen’s Central Meridian (The Garage)

I got engrossed in several immersive installations.

Lezley Saar’s Of a bed of night iris shredding petals one by one, like the hours of darkness

I found new-to-me artists whose work drew me in and made me curious.

Gallery Sounds

LACMA, Los Angeles, CA

My museum visits on this trip have been reminders that I do still love these places, and that they make me think. Think critically and disappointedly and aspirationally and fondly and many more adverbs besides. But I’m not done with them, in either a personal or a professional sense.

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Creative Writing Corner:

It seemed a very site specific day, appreciating art and relaxation and surprise celebrity encounters.

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