A Wingding for the Museum of Art’s New Building

A guest at the opening party for the new wing of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art glanced at the gloomy sky and drizzle and said, “Maybe with all this precipitation it’s raining culture.”

His observation Monday night may not have been far off, since some consider the gala opening of the Robert O. Anderson Building and the Times Mirror Central Court the beginning of a new era in visual arts in Los Angeles.

Nine hundred people braved the rain and wind for the official unveiling of the building at a black-tie bash. Guests dodged drips and puddles in the outdoor court as they grazed on appetizers. Some found refuge inside the galleries or huddled under heat lamps trying to soak up warmth. And women tried to avoid having their high heels sink into the rubber grout.

Early Arrivals

Robert O. Anderson (wearing his trademark cowboy hat) and wife Barbara arrived early for another look at the building that was named for him. Anderson is the chairman of the executive committee of Arco, and it was under his leadership that an Arco grant of $3.5 million was given to the museum for the building project.

The scaffoldings, sprays of wood chips and empty boxes were cleared away for the gala. Still, some guests remained skeptical that everything was in proper working order. Said one man, “I hope the elevators work.”

They did, and throughout the night carried people up and down to three floors of contemporary and modern art, through David Hockney’s “Mulholland Drive,” Claes Oldenberg’s “Giant Pool Balls,” Ed Ruscha’s “Actual Size” (he termed the work, done in 1962, “a golden oldie”), and other works that were oohed and ahhed over.

Some guests doffed their shoes and walked through Lucas Samaras’ mirrored “Corridor,” while others simply stood and stared. One woman, staring at Yves Klein’s “Anthropometry” turned to her husband and said, “Her head is too small,” before she realized that the cobalt blue nude had no head.

Museum directors from across the country attended, including E. A. Carmean Jr. of the Fort Worth Art Museum, Martin Friedman, director of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and John R. Lane, director of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, who next year will be the director of the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.

Said Lane, “This building will take a long time just to know how good it is. I think it’s one of the greatest challenges any architect had to face. It tries to capture the quality of L.A.--you look at it and think, it’s just so BIG!”

Impressive Dimensions

The building’s dimensions and cost are impressive: The four-level building has 115,000 square feet and it, plus the Central Court, were built for $35.3 million.

Not all comments on the new Anderson building have been favorable; a critical piece in the New York Times blasted the architecture. “The fact that it’s controversial makes it an exciting building,” said Earl A. (Rusty) Powell III, director of the museum. “It’s a wonderfully complicated and interesting building to be in. There are going to be people who don’t like it--there’s no way of avoiding that.”

Principal architect Norman Pfeiffer of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates had been through the building countless times, but this time admitted that the Central Court “feels much different. With so many people it becomes a small living room.”

Pfeiffer said that working in Los Angeles he has noticed “an openness on the part of the people in terms of accepting new ideas.” His work must have been gratifying. Said Pfeiffer, who now lives in New York, “We’ve decided to move here.”

”. . . As soon as it (the museum) gets its footing it’ll be incredible,” said artist Billy Al Bengston, who was wearing pumps embroidered with gold “B’s.” Did he feel that this museum, along with the opening of Museum of Contemporary Art next month, will put L.A. on the map in terms of the arts? “I haven’t had any trouble finding L.A. on the map,” he said with a fine deadpan. “I can even find it without a map.”

Among the pieces in the new Anderson building is Picasso’s “Centaur.” It is one of two works donated by producer David Wolper and wife Gloria; they are veteran Picasso collectors. “I know the ‘Centaur’ is at home,” Gloria Wolper said, perusing the back of the sculpture, “because there is a little cobweb going from his head to his neck.”

In, Out of the Galleries

Seen in and out of the galleries were artists David Hockney, John Baldessari, Robert Graham and Nancy Graves; art collector Marcia Weisman, architects Hugh Hardy and wife Tiziana and Malcolm Holzman and wife Andrea; museum trustees B. G. and Iris Cantor, F. Daniel and Camilla Frost, Dr. Franklin and Judy Murphy, and Richard and Dee Sherwood; art dealers Betty Asher, Sir Geoffrey Agnew, Irving Blum and Mary Boone; museum patrons Philip and Mary Hawley, art donors James and Ilene Nathan and gallery donors Steven and Sue Antebi.

Museum honchos found it hard to take more than a few steps without being stopped by well-wishers.

“Your curatorial abilities are exceptional,” artist Ed Moses said to Maurice Tuchman, senior curator of 20th-Century art.

A slew of parties, press conferences and tours this week celebrate the opening of the three-story Anderson Building. Festivities started with a Saturday luncheon for artists and dealers, followed by a luncheon for gallery donors and trustees Sunday, then the black-tie gala Monday night.

Sunday afternoon, 200 guests ambled up the Grand Staircase, past the charcoal marble wall etched with museum donors’ names. They got their seating card and scurried into the museum before lunch to see what their contributions had wrought.

Eavesdropping on conversations in the galleries, “fabulous” and “incredible” were used with abandon. “It’s magnificent,” Barbara Anderson said. “I love these panels,” she said, meaning the porcelain-covered white curved blocks that make up the exterior. “I love the fact that they undulate, and that at different times of the day they take on a slight pink cast. The whole thing, the materials and the spaces, are wonderful. Though everybody must say the same thing.”

Intrigued by Love Seats

They did, more or less. Second-floor guests were intrigued by the carved love seats created by Sam Maloof. Designed to be sat in while gazing at the artworks, guests treated them with the respect some paintings didn’t get, and some even hunted for the identification card, convinced they were priceless works of art.

Maggie and Harry Wetzel chatted near Andy Warhol’s “Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Boxes,” LACMA Director Powell took friends on a guided tour and Dona Kendall searched for husband Dwight to show him the gallery that bears their names in etched green glass. “Dwight hasn’t seen it yet. The gallery is sort of chopped up, with partitions,” she said. “And we have Kandinsky!”

Julian and Jo Ann Ganz were there, as well as Sen. Alan Cranston and wife Norma, Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp and wife Andrea, Edward and Hannah Carter, Robert and Susan McGuire, Francie Brody, Elizabeth Keck, and county Supervisor Ed Edelman.

“People didn’t know we had so many of these works,” said Stephanie Barron, curator of 20th-Century art. “They feel that finally we have a world-class institution for 20th-Century art.”

After lunch, held in the Central Court, there were speeches; Daniel Belin, president of the board of trustees, thanked the presidents who had preceded him, as well as the corporations and individuals who had made multimillion dollar donations to the museum.

Anderson called the wing an “architectural triumph” and added that the building was merely “a stop--a moment in its progress . . . This is a point of departure for an even greater period. It’s an honor to have the Anderson name on that very beautiful building.”