So I walk to MOCA, here in LA, almost every weekend. Right up that bitchin' hill on Grand Ave. I'm a member, and I loves to walk around the City of Angels (dérive as a clever Frenchman once called it), despite what Dale Bozzio sings about the city. The current show, "Collecting Collections" , has drawn comparisons to the current current artstravaganza at LACMA, the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum, or the "Bee-kam" as the kids are calling it. The Broad has a broad survey of what I have been describing as the Time-Life Greatest Hits of Contemporary Art. Big, brand name stuff, inside and out (though some of it is already on its way out), it has school field trip written all over it. In comparison, the MOCA show is like a really great, long, mix CD by your friend who's a little more into the music scene, but isn't trying to show you how hip he or she is by including anything too obscure or weird or current. BCAM has the chart toppers; MOCA the great album tracks. BCAM has the Beatles and the Sex Pistols; MOCA has the Zombies and the Buzzcocks. Two different kinds of awesome.
A clunky metaphor at best, but as an art fan it bears thinking about, the hierarchy of art and its relative greatness and influence. It’s hits, its pioneers, and how it all fits together. I write this as a call to artists and art fans, to those who talk and discuss art the way music fans talk about music and the way film people talk about film. I’m such a sucker for the presence of artworks, its difficult for me to find serious fault in either show. The Guerilla Girls have a legitimate gripe about the BCAM, though Cindy Sherman’s single giant room presence is a highlight among highlights. The MOCA show is more ‘with-it’ by comparison, and ideally younger artists should probably find more fault with the BCAM’s established pantheon. It is their piss and vinegar that hydrates the fertile soil of the art to come.
