Wilshire Boulevard : Exploring a Sidewalk Gallery

Third in a series of photo essays by Cassy Cohen

Some consider Wilshire Boulevard the ultimate in drive-in art museums or, to be more precise, drive-by museums. The street abounds with a lively mixture of classic and avant-garde sculpture that has a little something for everyone.

Some of the street’s highlights include, clockwise from top left, “Alameda,” a rock-and-metal sculpture designed by Woods Davy that has been standing at the Otis Art Institute of the Parsons School of Design for about a year. Nearby, Our Lady of the Chapel graces the front of St. Basil Catholic Church, which has stood for 17 years in the mid-Wilshire area. Another Otis Institute sculpture, “White Dwarf/Cellular Vortex” is a metal basket-like piece designed by Eugene Sturman. Both it and “Alameda” were commissioned as part of a 10-work MacArthur Park public art program.

Down the road, on the grounds of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, there’s a cluster of metallic tubes called “Phoenix,” designed by Alexander Liberman. This sculpture is 23 feet high and 10 years old.

In contrast to the rock and steel, water dancing from the fountain in Museum Square creates its own fluid sculpture, especially when the afternoon sun makes the beads of water glisten like jewels.