linda fetch

OK, I went to the “Land of Retinal Delights” exhibit which is currently showing at the Laguna Art Museum

http://www.lagunaartmuseum.org/Current-Exhibit.html ( this URL ought to be valid June 22 – October 5, 2008 )

Even the most hardcore cynic has got to give this a 10 for execution and intention. This show includes (usually) a single work from 150 of the best artists of the last 50 years or so. The main concentration is since 2000, I would say, but some of the underground, avant-garde, etc. artists even going back to the 1960s are included.

Just to drop a few names; there are works by Alex Grey, Shepherd Fairey, Todd Schorr, Mark Ryden, Shag, Dalek, Murakami, Robert Williams, Big Daddy Roth, and the like.

I remember picking up Juxtapoz magazine for the first time a few years ago, and I thought it was very exciting. If this is lowbrow, I guess I’m lowbrow.

The museum is wonderful. It’s right next to a fantastic beach, there’s a worthy restaurant right next door, and even though we went on a Summer Sunday, because we got there at 10:00 AM there was no problem with parking on the street just half a block away (metered, $1 an hour). Admission was $10, which was a fantastic deal. For the first half hour, the museum was practically ours alone. I felt like going out on the street and dragging people in to see the amazing works. Spent too much money in the tiny museum shop.

Just for something different to do, we went down the block and looked in all the art galleries along the boulevard. Frankly, we didn’t see anything that could touch any work in the exhibit for daring, intensity and committment. Everything in the galleries was “decorative”: even if the work wasn’t as smarmy and treacly as a Thomas Kinkade, it certainly was inoffensive enough to be hung in any restaurant or bourgeois home. No offense.

I really can’t recommend this highly enough. I’ll write some more about it as I get time (and things occur to me). I was very excited about the Murakami exhibit, and it was really worth the trip, but that was the vision of one guy whereas here you get an amazing feast of 150 people.