Larry Sultan LACMA Oxygen

I fucking love art and I love my friends. On a sunny day, when you should be doing this and you should be doing that, the reality is you're not doing this and you're not doing that and it's not good lying around, perusing social media and basically NOT GETTING SHIT DONE. So, the first order of business is to LEAVE YOUR HOUSE. The next is to realize you live in an incredible city with incredible people and incredible beauty and insight. The next? Breathe....

Beautiful Stephanie, with Oxygen (which by the way, cured her migraine!)

This Sunday, a friend of mine, Heather, invited some girls over for a Valentine's Brunch at her place near LACMA where she prepared quiches, coffee and pulled out an oxygen tank.

Heather practically air guitaring her oxygen tank

I love oxygen. I just had no idea how sexy it could make someone look but seriously, my friends look hot with oxygen masks on! Anyway, it was fun to hang out, catch up, have girl talk and use her oxygen mask (and her massage chair which is not like the massage chair at the nail places. It's really good).

Afterwards I had THE BEST TIME because like an addict, I went to nearby LACMA for yet another hit of Larry Sultan.

Sharon Wild, by Larry Sultan

Larry Sultan is AMAZING. He grew up in The Valley and took these outstanding photographs to interpret, reimagine, and make good of his upbringing, environment and family. Some of the most unnerving, comical, disturbing and provoking photos are the ones he took of porn stars and porn production. I've never seen anything like it. Like this one above of Sharon Wild. The bare mattress, the weird pink gauze-y sheet, the suitcase. Her face with anger, acceptance, sadness? Her pose of protectiveness, like "I'm off the clock, Larry, you don't get this when I'm off the clock, you get me." 

But it's the photos of his parents that sell it. So uncomfortable, so comical. And I love the quote on the wall that he took these photographs, motivated by this desire to stop time; that he wanted his parents to live forever:

There's something so vulnerable, so sweet, so human, so bare and this feeling like They're just trying. They're just people. They're just giving it their best shot with what they have at the moment in time, in their generation. Oh my God, the photos of his parents just killed me.

LACMA is seriously one of the best museums on earth. I'm sure of this. And it's right here, right in our backyard. Right real close to Heather's house. I mean she could walk there. And what is so cool was on Sunday after Heather's, my husband met me there. First I showed him Larry Sultan but then we went to the top floor of the Broad Contemporary Bldg. to the Abstract show, which, by the way, he had made some cracks about because I think it's called "Conversations In and Around Abstract Painting." I mean that is pretty fun to make fun of but then, of course, the show won us over AND we stumbled upon an amazing fact: a friend of my husband's is in the show!

Terry, my husband, beside HIS FRIEND'S ART: Love Forever (Cave) for MW by Mary Weatherford

Yeah, we're gonna talk about that shit now, right? We were so pleasantly surprised. I mean so much so that when he looked at Mary's piece, appropo of nothing, he said, "I like that one." And then we got up close and realized it was Mary's! Of course when I realized this, I told anyone who would listen, Yeah, we know the artist. Yeah, she's a local. A good friend of my husband's. Uh huh. So fucking cool! 

Abstract Art at LACMA in one of those PAN photos which I'm not sure is a good or a bad iPhone feature

So if you go to LACMA, and if you're smart you will, go check that out. And while you're on that floor, check out the movie(s) entitled Touch Parade in the room behind Mary's. There's a piece there featuring this guy wearing a white sneaker rolling around a pickle until he crushes it with his foot. I know that might not sound entertaining but for some reason it's EXTREMELY entertaining.

But really, the big thing is to make sure you see Larry Sultan's show.

Collaboration with Mike Mandel - billboards they had put all around LA

Incredible re-imagining of Larry Sultan's upbringing by extracting stills from home movies

Off Sepulveda, 2001 (creepy porn moment - but amazing shot)

LACMA IS OXYGEN.

LACMA is at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, LA, CA 90036. Hours are Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 11-5. Friday 11-8. Saturday and Sunday 11-7. Daily "children" under 17 can go for free, as long as they're accompanied by at least one adult (reminds me how I used to get into Danceteria in NYC). After 3p on Mondays and Fridays, LACMA is free to LA residents, but bring proof of residency like your license. Also the 2nd Tuesday of each month LACMA is free to all. YAY! If you're going on a weekday, parking on Wilshire is not allowed after 4pm. So park on 6th for metered parking and walk through the back. It's nice to enter that way anyway. You get to walk by the Tar Pits that always look lame to me but if you have a kid with you, they might think that's cool.

ENJOY!

Why is a guy crushing a pickle with a white sneaker so freakin hypnotic?