NOTHINGNESS

A little over a week ago, my buddy from New Jersey came to Los Angeles for a visit. Being a graphic artist (like myself), he possesses a very strong understanding of, and interest in, “the world of art”--fine art, modern art, contemporary art.

So, I naturally scheduled him for several trips to the finest art museums L.A. has to offer. Our excursions into the world of L.A. art were very rewarding--until the fateful day we visited the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Temporary Contemporary.

To our utter dismay, we found both presentations to be extraordinarily pretentious, totally devoid of meaning and shockingly vacuous.

Rather than attempting to reward us with intellectually stimulating, aesthetically moving and/or mind-involving contemporary art, we were greeted with massive walls of total nothingness.

Huge, empty canvases that repelled rather than invited our serious attention! At several points along the tortuous way, my friend remarked that the majority of pieces we had seen might, at best, pass as acceptable wall-space decoration, selected by an architect involved in designing a corporate headquarters.

But to have the nerve to attempt to pass this stuff off as serious and noteworthy contemporary art?

Come on. If this is Los Angeles’ best attempt to satisfy contemporary art lovers, then our cultural community is certainly in very serious trouble.

BOB KELEMEN

Van Nuys