Category Archives: Museums

MOCA Pacific Design Center Opening Engagement for “The Total Look”

03/04/2012 – 11:27 PM

This past Friday, March 2, I had the privilege of attending the members’ only opening engagement for “The Total Look: The Creative Collaboration Between Rudi Gernreich, Peggy Moffitt, and William Claxton” at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Pacific Design Center location on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood.

The line to get in was absolutely horrendous! We got in line at about 7:45 PM and did not get inside the museum until probably about 8:30-8:45 PM. At one point, people in line were even worried they wouldn’t be able to get in before closing. Fortunately, a security officer was walking around and alerted the crowd that they would in fact be able to get in as the museum/museum staff had decided to extend the event in order to accommodate all guests.

This metal neck piece was one of my favorite parts of the featured pieces. Granted, I wasn’t too much of a fan of the dress as a whole – perhaps the mannequin did not do this outfit justice, I still absolutely loved this collar and how this one metal piece was basically keeping that entire dress on the mannequin’s body.

Each and every one of the late Rudi Gernreich’s pieces were amazing. I could see myself wearing each and every one. I’m personally a huge fan of sixties/mod fashion, and Gernreich’s designs are iconic of that era. The late William Claxton’s photographs of Peggy Moffitt in Rudi Gernreich’s pieces were, in my opinion, unique, interesting, and well thought out. Claxton, Gernreich, and Moffitt definitely complement one another, and through this exhibit, you an see why they worked together for so many years before. One of the most interesting visuals in the exhibit was a video montage of Claxton’s photoshoots with Moffitt. You could tell how comfortable she felt posing for his camera and how easily she would let herself go (i.e. dancing, jumping, etc.) in order to get fun and interesting shots.

I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting Peggy Moffitt herself, in the flesh, and taking a photograph with her! It’s a funny story, really. I had noticed her and said, “Wow, how cute! That lady dressed up to look exactly like Peggy Moffitt… Wait, isn’t that? That’s her, isn’t it?!” And yes, in fact, it was none other than the model herself. A small crowd had started to gather around her, so I was lucky to sneak in a photo op. with her. Please ignore my bangs – I wish I had time to fix them, but I was just too nervous and worried I’d miss the opportunity to take a photo with her! I love her immediate “model pose” as this photo was snapped. It must come so naturally for her – “what a pro!” Ah, this was definitely the highlight of my evening!

Peggy Moffitt’s outfit was absolutely adorable and very retro! I found it amusing how she manages to do her hair and make-up exactly as she had it in her old photographs to this day. Loved the clutch – note the piece where you’re supposed to slip your fingers through to hold onto it (at least, that’s what I believe it’s for). Anyone know the maker of this clutch, by the way?

This was definitely one of the more interesting opening engagements I have attended. I enjoyed the photographs, the designs, the model – everything just seemed to come together so well!

You can read more about the exhibit over at the MOCA website. If you happen to be in the Los Angeles area or close by, I definitely recommend for you to check out “The Total Look!”

Tags Art, Beverly Hills, Fashion, fashion design, MOCA, Model, Museum of Contemporary Art, Pacific Design center, Peggy Moffitt, Rudi Gernreich, The Total Look, West Hollywood, William Claxton | Comment (1)

Coffee Drinks Food Museums Restaurants & Cafes

Dinosaur Hall Member Preview at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles

07/10/2011 – 11:59 PM

Today was the members-only preview of the new Dinosaur Hall at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. Fortunately, I am indeed a member. My Sunday afternoon was well-spent with the dinosaurs!

Upon entering the dino hall, you are greeted by a triceratops and a brontosaurus (I believe it is a brontosaurus. Please correct me if I am wrong). The long neck of the brontosaurus left me awestruck!

I tried tweeting a photo of the fossils upon entering, but unfortunately, I had no signal in the hall.

This exhibit seems to love T-Rexes. It seriously seemed like they were everywhere!

These little guys are oddly cute, despite how strange they look.

Apparently no blog post about a museum visit is complete without obligatory photos of me looking at some type of interactive display or looking at my cell phone. Alas, I am doing both in the above.

The sizes of some of the fossils are amazing. Can you believe this is only half of a dinosaur’s leg? It’s as big as I am!

This dinosaur was found with an unborn baby inside! If you look closely, you can see the fossilized fetus in the center, through the bones on the bottom.

I fell in love with this quote upon reading it. I completely agree with Proust. I am a sucker for quotes.

I was very pleased to find that the Dinosaur Hall actually extends into two halls for more dinosaur fun.

The second hall is home to the Tyrannosaurus Rex family – adult, teenager, and child!

Overwhelmed by all the awesome displays, I had almost completely missed this guy! This stegosaurus is definitely one of the exhibits I found most interesting. The poor stegosaurus has to fight off the T-Rex, who is about to attack him from behind! It is amazing how this stegosaurus display consists of mostly casts of fossils, with a few actual fossils connected. Apparently a T-Rex fossil was found with a stegosaurus’s spike (from its tail) stuck into it. Defense!

Overall, I was very impressed by the Dinosaur Hall. I wish I had more time to read each and every description for all the displays. That shall be my goal on my next visit!

With a few minutes to spare and having never seen the Butterfly Pavilion yet (even though I’m an NHM member!), we headed over to catch a glimpse of some butterflies before closing!

I have never been very intrigued by butterflies and moths, but the two above were pretty interesting! Butterflies attempting to make butterfly babies? Oh, my!

Dress – Banana Republic, tote – One Language “Moi” Tote

The great weather and beautiful natural sunlight was too good to pass up!

I love the grassy park area right outside of the Natural History Museum, and I apparently also loved this tree.

Right before arriving at the Natural History Museum, I was on a quest to find good coffee close by. I hadn’t had my coffee fix for the day yet! Using my handy-dandy smartphone, I was pleased to find Spring for Coffee. Granted, Spring for Coffee is a few miles passed the Natural History Museum, but it was totally worth it. Spring for Coffee is a tiny little coffee shop on Spring Street that serves a wide array of different coffees, including Blue Bottle! Apparently the owner of Spring for Coffee has exclusive rights with Blue Bottle, and only his establishments can serve Blue Bottle coffee in the Los Angeles area. Blue Bottle Coffee is a small chain of coffee shops available in the San Francisco Bay Area, with, I believe, one location in New York. I absolutely loved my latte at the Blue Bottle location at SFMOMA on my last visit to San Francisco! Back to Spring for Coffee, I don’t think they used Blue Bottle coffee for my order, but regardless, my latte definitely goes on the list of one of the best lattes I’ve had. Remember to order a “regular” size as the “small” is seriously quite small.

Tags Banana Republic, Blue Bottle Coffee, Coffee, Dino Hall, Dinosaur Hall, Dinosaurs, Drinks, Museums, Natural History Museum, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, NHM, NHMLA, One Language, Restaurants & Cafes, Spring for Coffee, YL | Comments (2)

Architecture Art Friends Museums Street Art

Downtown Los Angeles Landmarks

04/16/2011 – 11:40 PM

The weather was great, and I had been wanting to visit Angel’s Knoll, home of the bench on which Tom and Summer sit in (500) Days of Summer. Enter our quick tour of Downtown Los Angeles Landmarks.

Yes, our first stop was Angel’s Knoll. THE bench even has a plaque on the back indicating its the one used in the (500) Days of Summer movie!

The famous Angel’s Flight is not far from Angel’s Knoll. Across the street is the Grand Central Market. On the walk from Angel’s Knoll to Angel’s Flight, there was a little taco stand. Reycel and I were hungry for a snack, so we bought some food from there. We didn’t realize we were so close to Grand Central Market! We should have just bought food there. Oh, well.

I was so hungry, I started eating my burrito while crossing the street to get to Grand Central Market.

Continuing our trek through Downtown Los Angeles, we spotted many art installations in front of buildings.

We arrived at the Richard J. Riordan Central Library. I love the quote at the top of the building: “Books alone are liberal and free. They give to all who ask. They emancipate all who serve them faithfully.”

Across the street from the Central Library is Bunker Hill. We decided to go up the elevator and check out the buildings at the top.

The view from the balcony of the Citibank building looks pretty cool. I love how you can see all the architecture that makes up Downtown Los Angeles – both new and old.

I tried to be happy with the sun shining above me, but I just ended up making an angry face. ;]

We tried to go to the MOCA store, but it was unfortunately closed. I was very sad – we had just missed it by five minutes! The MOCA store on Grand Avenue closes at 6:30PM on Saturdays and Sundays.

It is very interesting what people consider art these days. Pictured above is an art installation just outside the MOCA store. Pictured on my face is what I thought of this particular art piece.

Just down the street from MOCA on Grand Avenue is the Walt Disney Concert Hall. I have never been inside this building, but I do hope to see a concert there someday soon.

Not pictured but part of our LA trek is Pershing Square and other random buildings we found along the way.

We finished up our Downtown Los Angeles trek pretty quickly and decided to head on over to Little Tokyo and see what the crowds were up to for the Art in the Streets preview night. We’ll have to visit Downtown L.A. again soon and do a more detailed tour of all the landmarks, most definitely!

The wall of the Geffen Contemporary featured street art by Blade. Outside of the museum, people were setting up another art installation. I have no idea who the artist is, but the slogan, “Desire. Obtain. Cherish.,” is pretty cool. There were free stickers too. I dig the giant spilled ice cream cone.

BeiBei was busy during the day and did not join our downtown trek. However, she did join us for dinner at Jazz Cat! She and I had been craving Jazz Cat/some type of shabu shabu all week!

I cannot wait to see the Art in the Streets exhibit. I regret not joining as a KCRW member so I could have had access to the preview night. I also want to plan another more-detailed Downtown Los Angeles trip. It’s all a matter of time, really, and unfortunately, free time is what I am lacking. Perhaps this L.A. trip will be postponed until the summer time, but Art in the Streets will definitely be happening in the latter part of May.

Tags (500) Days of Summer, Allan Chiou, Art, BeiBei Chen, Downtown LA, Downtown Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Reycel Reyes, Street Art | Comment (0)

Museums

April’s “First Fridays” at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles & Griffith Observatory

04/01/2011 – 11:46 PM

Since today happens to be the first Friday in the month of April, it was opportune to attend First Fridays at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. This event consists of a fun-filled night of informative and interesting science lectures, live music, live DJs, several bars, and open access to the museum’s exhibits. Today’s agenda can be seen here. Admission costs $9 for for adults (regular general admission for the museum), but we opted to get the “Active” membership, which gives two individuals annual general membership benefits. We figured if we went to a couple more First Fridays and visited the museum a couple times aside from First Fridays, then the annual membership would be totally worth it.

The ambiance inside the museum is awesome. They dim the lights and have music playing at all times in the background in the main foyer. Plus, the dinosaur fossils in the photo above are absolutely amazing. Poor triceratops!

We listened to the “Planet Microbe: How the Smallest Organisms Created Our World and Are Now Saving It” lecture at 6:30 PM. The speaker, Dr. Steven Finkel, managed to explain everything concisely and in layman’s terms, keeping the audience engaged and the topic interesting. Did you know that your teeth has 50,000,000 bacteria? (I think that’s the number, if I recall correctly). Remember to brush multiple times a day!

After the lecture, we roamed around the museum and checked out the exhibits. Look at all those mounted heads! Creepy!

Overall, it was a great event. I can’t wait to visit the museum again and spend more time perusing all the exhibits and reading all the descriptions!

We left the museum a bit early at about 9 PM and headed to the Griffith Observatory so we could get there before closing (10 PM). Huge pro: free access!

The view from the third floor terrace is spectacular! The weather could have been better, though. It was a bit foggy. Imagine how awesome it would have looked had the sky been absolutely clear.

Future adventures will consist of:

More time dedicated to the exhibits at the Natural History Museum
More First Fridays
The Planetarium at the Griffith Observatory

I now possess a Disneyland annual pass (for fourth? fifth? time) and a Natural History Museum annual pass. We are set for a year of awesome!

Tags First Fridays, Griffith Observatory, Natural History Museum, YL | Comment (1)

Art Museums Outdoors & Recreation Scenery

Sturtevant Falls & LACMA

02/23/2011 – 1:25 AM

Since Monday was President’s Day, I had a day off work. Turned out to be a pretty eventful day!

Some time shortly after noon, I went on my first ever hike! We began at Chantry Flat, within the Angeles National Forest, in Big Santa Anita Canyon. Destination: Sturtevant Falls.

Along the trail, we saw these ducks taking an afternoon nap! Male and female mallard ducks – the mister and the misses.

I thought this sign was rather morbid. I love it! Funny, dark humor, straight to the point.

Alas, Sturtevant Falls! It was very cold around the falls, especially when you could feel the mist from the water.

Nature is beautiful.

Hiking back, we found that this duck couple was busy having their afternoon snack!

And here we have the trails.

I was glad to discover that my hiking stamina is pretty good, although this particular hike was a short and easy one. I didn’t even break a sweat! The hardest part was the hike back, which consisted of a lot of uphill trekking, but it was definitely not bad at all. Table tennis and wushu has paid off! Now I’m ready and excited to try out some harder hikes.

Following the hike and a brief afternoon breather, we proceeded to LACMA. A perk of President’s Day being on a Monday is that LACMA observes Target Free Holiday Mondays. Entrance to the museum was absolutely free, given that you still have to pay for parking, of course.

Outside the museum, there is currently this awesome art installation, “Urban Light” by Chris Burden.

Inside there were many art installations, including this one of giant billiard balls.

…and this one of a giant comb.

“Urban Light” is even more amazing at night.

One of the current exhibitions is “Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700–1915,” which will be at LACMA from October 2, 2010–March 27, 2011. I was extremely excited to discover this was on exhibit during our visit! I absolutely love vintage European fashion.