Larry Bell in his studio, January 22, 2012

Artist Larry Bell creates sculptures that play with optical effects, light, and perception. He opened his studio and shared creative insights into his creative process last January 22 as part of “In Studio,” a program we in the Museum’s Education Department organized featuring six artists whose work was included in the exhibition Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents. The following questions grew out of that visit.

How are you different as an artist now than you were in the ‘60s and ‘70s?

I’m a lot older, is the main difference!

Your 2002 work Time Machine [pictured below] is enthralling. Two participants sit facing each other, separated by a large piece of coated glass. When both people adjust to the right location, their faces are transposed. How does the experience that this sculpture fosters relate to your larger body of work?

It’s an interesting tool to improvise an installation with. It controls the viewer’s attention.

Course participants explore Larry Bell's sculpture Time Machine, January 22, 2012

Course participants explore Larry Bell's sculpture Time Machine in the artist's studio, January 22, 2012

During our studio visit, you said that when you’re making art, how you’re feeling takes precedence over the visual composition. What do you hope the viewer feels in the presence of your work?
I try to make things I have not seen before, and I would hope viewers respond accordingly, but I have no control of that.

What’s a question you never get asked, but wish you would?

“Why do you do this?” The answer is that I’m addicted to doing it. I do not know how to do anything else.

Larry Bell discusses his work with course participants

Larry Bell discusses his work with course participants

 
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Do artworks have an inner life? You might think so when you visit a new exhibition opening today at the Getty Center. The Life of Art: Context, Collecting, and Display presents the life stories of four objects made to serve beauty and function, offering you the chance to examine them closely to understand how they were made, how they’ve been used, and what’s happened to them over time.

Today this silver fountain is a museum object, but 300 years ago it did dirty work washing used tableware. Mounted on a plexiglass panel to reveal its back, a gilt-bronze wall light reveals clues about its past: breaks and repairs, its time in the rooms of a certain French queen, and what it must have been like to  put its 14 pieces together (take stem A, now insert panel B…no wait…).

Interactive features on iPads in the galleries, as well as online and in a forthcoming free iPad app, offer a touchable tour with more secrets about each object, encouraging you to explore in greater depth.

The four pieces are presented under dramatic lighting and at unexpected angles (see the photos above, taken from a motorized lift by one of our intrepid preparators)—very different from the more traditional display in the galleries. They’re also placed at a much lower height than usual, so you can pull up a chair and—is chat the right word? I think it is.

 
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The Research Library at the Getty Research Institute has recently finished digitizing historic catalogs of the library of Łańcut Castle in Podkarpackie, Poland, and making them available to the U.S. Consul General in Krakow and the director of the Łańcut Castle Museum.

Page from a 1832 inventory of the Lancut Castle library listing atlases and maps in the collection

Page from Catalogue de la bibliothèque à Lancut de Son Excellence Monsieur le comte Alfrede (sic) Potocki (1832). The Getty Research Institute, 910146B

The digitization is part of the Research Institute’s ongoing work to make items from our library’s holdings freely accessible online. The two Łańcut catalogs—which include one compiled in Latin in 1757 listing some 800 titles, and a second written in French in 1832 in 1832 inventorying approximately 1,800 prints and 7,500 books—are available to all for free download on the Internet Archive, where they join over 8,700 other books we’ve digitized since 2008.

Richinda Brim of the Getty Research Institute works with scanning equipment used to digitize the inventories. Shown under glass is the 1832 catalog

Richinda Brim of the Getty Research Institute works with scanning equipment used to digitize the inventories. Shown here under glass is the 1832 catalog.

Opening page from Catalogus bibliothecae Lancutensis, Stanislai principis Lubomirski (1757)

Opening page from Catalogus bibliothecae Lancutensis, Stanislai principis Lubomirski (1757). The Getty Research Institute, 910146A

Łańcut Castle, now a museum, dates back to the 17th century, and the buildings, interiors, and library remain largely intact. In 1944 the surviving heir to the castle took the catalogs with him when he fled in advance of the Russian Army. Later they were purchased by the Getty Research Institute, and we now hold them in our Research Library. The museum has no early catalogs of its collections and is thrilled to locate them and receive digitized copies.

This week Lee A. Feinstein, U.S. ambassador to Poland, will visit Łańcut Castle Museum and present beautifully printed facsimiles of the catalogs created using the hi-res digital scans to Wit Karol Wojtowicz, director of the Museum. We’re delighted to assist in this project, which U.S. Consul General Allen Greenberg described as a great example of the friendship between the people of the United States and Poland.

Lancut Castle, Poland

Łańcut Castle today. Photo: Lestat (Jan Mehlich) / Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5

 
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Gallery view of Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents at the Getty Center

Vija Celmins's 1966 painting Freeway is dramatically spotlit in Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents at the Getty Center. (Collection of Harold Cook, Ph.D. © Vija Celmins)

As you move through Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A.: Painting and Sculpture, closing this Sunday, the colors of the walls or the unusual angles of the wall panels might not be the first thing you notice. But Museum designers have plotted your journey through the galleries as meticulously as the curators have selected the artworks that populate the space.

To follow up on the walkthrough of the artworks in Crosscurrents we posted when the show opened, here’s a second, farewell tour—through design eyes.

When crafting an exhibition, designers begin with a long list of considerations: How should the space flow? What’s the best light, and the best viewing distance, for each piece? What colors and type express the personality of the show? After many discussions and plans comes a detailed foam-core mockup hung with tiny artworks—all to scale—so the team can scrutinize the smallest detail.

Foam-core mockup of the assemblage gallery in Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents at the Getty Center

Foam-core mockup of the assemblage gallery featuring scale replicas of every artwork on display

I wanted to know how Getty Museum designers Emily Morishita and Irma Ramirez approached Crosscurrents and its varied visual feast, which features hard-edge paintings side by side with large-scale ceramics, radical assemblages just around the corner from resin orbs and Pop canvases.

The answer? Understatement. “We knew we wanted to make a modern, white-walled space because we wanted a minimal look,” Emily told me. “We wanted this to be a blank canvas.”

The look may be minimal, but the design is full of thoughtful details. Setting the stage is a title wall featuring vintage photos of L.A.’s iconic freeways. John Mason’s wall-sized ceramic beckons you into the first gallery, a bright white expanse that’s the perfect foil for intensely colorful paintings and ceramics. Tall text panels jut out of corners at an angle; each panel has a few thematic words, marked in bold—a parallel to the punctuated moments of L.A. art on view in the show.

Title wall of Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents at the Getty Center

Foam-core mockup of the title wall of Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture

Title wall of Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents as installed (above), and as crafted in foam-core and cardboard during the design process (above)

The next gallery is the opposite: it’s intimate, dimmer. Small sculptures and assemblages hang close together as in a salon. The walls are a warm tan. The labels for each work are gathered together in spaces off to the side so they don’t intrude into the experience.

From there, you turn into a dark passageway that transports you back to postwar L.A. of the ’60s and ’70s. Louis Hock’s cinemural Southern California loops images of urban life and the ocean lapping against the sand, while a Julius Shulman photomural lets you hover above the glittering lights of Hollywood. You’re invited to reflect, take a breather before absorbing more.

The space provides a thematic transition into the next chunk of the exhibition, which explores how California’s industrial, surf, and car cultures influenced the art made here. This gallery has dramatically spotlit pieces featuring clouds and freeways, as well as a sculpture that, well, leans. Emily and Irma allowed plenty of room around this resin plank and made sure there’s a long sight line so you can spot it—and avoid knocking against it—as you walk through the small gallery.

Presiding over this space is the larger-than-life figure of Walter Hopps, holding court on his own circular island. Look up at the mirrored oculus, and you can see yourself and the art-world impresario side by side.

This smaller space gives way to a dramatic gallery with large, colorful paintings blanketing the white walls, including the exhibition’s signature piece, Ruscha’s Standard Station. Overhead, louvers are left open—for conservation reasons, during the first and last weeks of the exhibition only—to allow the great big L.A. paintings to appear under their hometown light. A seating station with iPads features oral-history videos about the art you see around you, bringing you into connection with the works through the artists’ eyes.

Irma Ramirez (right) and design manager Merritt Price refine the design for the iPad seating station in Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents

Irma Ramirez (right) and design manager Merritt Price refine the design for the iPad seating station

The final gallery presents stunning, luminous works. Both lighting and colors are dramatic here; for example, Mary Corse’s Untitled (White Light Grid Series-V) seems to glow from within thanks to a trio of spotlights hung on a brace from the ceiling.

For both the designers and the curators, putting huge, astonishing works at the end of the trip was intentional, just like every inch of every room. “It’s like a finale,” Emily said.

 
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5,000 ladybugs in the Getty Center's Central Garden

5,000 ladybugs visit the Getty and play in the straw

Artist Hirokazu Kosaka’s much anticipated presentation of “Kalpa” on January 20 at the Getty Center was an experimental performance spectacular, featuring hundreds of spools of thread being pulled in the mouths of Butoh dancers, and a shining spotlight that illuminated their path down the Tram Arrival Plaza. Originally, the performance was also supposed to include the release of thousands of ladybugs into the air, but Kosaka made the last-minute artistic decision not to release them.

This left us with a question: where to take 5,000 of the black-spotted critters?

The answer? To the Getty’s Central Garden, of course!

Our grounds and garden supervisor, Michael DeHart, was asked to take in the orphaned insects and use them as pest control in the Central Garden.

“Ladybugs eat aphids, which are a threat to many of the plants in the garden,” Michael told me. “Since we avoid using pesticides, we use ladybugs every year to ensure that aphids don’t overrun our beautiful foliage.”

I followed Michael early one sunny morning as he removed the ladybugs from a muslin sack and released them into the garden. Typically, ladybugs are sold by the “quart” to the public, and by the “gallon” (5,000 bugs) wholesale. This is what a gallon looks like:

Michael DeHart displays a sack of 5,000 ladybugs in the Getty Center's Central Garden

Grounds and Garden supervisor Michael DeHart with 5,000 ladybugs

After sprinkling water on a bush threatened by aphids, Michael placed the ladybugs in the soil and on the tips of the branches.

Michael DeHart releases ladybugs in the Getty Center's Central Garden bushes

Michael DeHart releases ladybugs in one of the Central Garden's bushes

He also placed the ladybugs near the Central Garden’s stream, to give them a nice drink (don’t worry, they can float on the water!).

5,000 ladybugs at Getty Center's Central Garden

Ladybugs take a sip of water

5,000 ladybugs at Getty Center's Central Garden

Ladybugs hanging out on the rocks

Ladybugs can live one to two years, so we hope these Coccinella magnifica continue to flourish among the Getty’s flora.

Michael DeHart with 5,000 ladybugs at Getty Center's Central Garden

Michael DeHart with the ladybugs after their release

 
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Bodacious Buggerrilla members DaShell Hart and Barbara Lewis at the Getty Center in a scene from "Killer Joe"

DaShell Hart and Barbara Lewis of the Bodacious Buggerrilla in a scene from "Killer Joe"

In South-Central in the ‘60s and ‘70s, everybody knew Bodacious Buggerrilla. The street theater group staged shocking and hilarious consciousness-raising skits at schools, churches, cafes, prisons, even Laundromats.

Members of the group spoke with us before their recent appearance at the Getty Center as part of the just-concluded Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival. They’d just finished a dress rehearsal for the evening’s reprise of “Killer Joe,” a comical vignette about a shameless pimp who loses his Cadillac, cash, and chicks and is shamed home to his Bible-toting mother.

How do you define Bodacious Buggerrilla?

Ed Bereal: Bad motherf****rs.

We’re a guerrilla theater group involved in social and political critique.

Bodacious Buggerrilla got started out of a UC Riverside black studies class. Tell us how.

Larry Broussard: Me and Ed got to talking about we could be effective and spread truth. Young people—young men especially—were getting killed. As a result, Ed came up with the idea of this theater group. We would get together and start thinking about ways we could influence young folks to get an education and do the right thing.

Each skit has something to tell you, even “Killer Joe.” In the black community, Killer Joe was revered by young people. He’s all about the illusion of wealth, of status and all of that stuff. It ain’t real. It can disappear in an instant.

Tendai Jordan: You can liken that to people who want to be rap stars now.

Barbara Lewis: You can liken it to reality shows.

Alyce Smith-Cooper: And underneath all of it is a lot of pain: “How can we keep our brothers from getting killed?” We were expressing our pain about not knowing what to do and very often bringing the humor, because that’s often what comes out of pain.

Larry Broussard, DaShell Hart, Ed Bereal (in pig mask), and Bobby Farlice rehearse "Killer Joe" at the Getty Center

Larry Broussard, DaShell Hart, Ed Bereal (in pig mask), and Bobby Farlice in "Killer Joe"

Did a skit like “Killer Joe” have to come out of a black studies class? Could it have come out of an art history class, a performance art class?

Alyce Smith-Cooper: If could have been a film class, a nursing class. It had to be people with the same compassionate edge who wanted to see a change.

Ed Bereal: We could probably do a “Killer Joe” mechanics class.

Bobby Farlice: The ‘60s was the first time we were really allowed to explore ourselves and research our histories…it was a rich time, because everything was new and we hadn’t done this before.

Larry Broussard: We had to take it to the street. It had to go to the people. This couldn’t be done in nice theaters, this had to be done on the street, in the fields. We took it to the street because that’s where the people who were getting killed were.

Bodacious Buggerrilla member DaShell Hart at the Getty Center in a scene from "Killer Joe"

Killer Joe loses it all.

How does it feel to get back together after 40 years?

Bobby Farlice: It’s a very interesting feeling. We’re all on the same page. We still hold the same truths, and we still hold the same beliefs and convictions.

Alyce Smith-Cooper: The compassion we had [for one another and the audience], I felt that instantly again. We worked together like family. In three days, we got the magic back again.

Ed Bereal: We mess with each other a lot. It’s like family. What happens on stage is just a reflection of the way we’ve interacted with one another. There was a magic in this group, a fantastic magic.

What’s the group about today?

Bobby Farlice: We’re a reflection of what’s going on in the world today. What spawned us in the ‘60s—the conditions that existed politically and socially—are coming back.

What conditions are coming back today?

Larry Broussard: It’s the 99% versus the 1%.

Bobby Farlice: In the last year, I’ve never seen as many people beat on by the police as since the ‘60s, the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement.

Alyce Smith-Cooper: It’s still about race, it’s still about class. It’s still about economics. It’s still about the elite versus those who don’t have as much, and their intention to keep it that way. Some of the dynamics have changed: now we have an African American president, and I didn’t even think about that in the ‘60s. But many of the other dynamics are still there.

Bodacious Buggerrilla member DaShell Hart at the Getty Center in a scene from “Killer Joe”

Bodacious Buggerrilla member DaShell Hart as Killer Joe

Do you relate at all to what the Occupy movement has been doing?

Larry Broussard: Both are protests. Our form of protest is to leave you with some degree of education, some degree of reality about your condition and what you can do about it. When you know, you can act. When you don’t know, you can’t act.

We bring a universal truth, a universal teaching about hate, about violence, about what you do when you find yourself in that position.

Ed Bereal: We were talking to a very specific audience [in the ‘60s and ‘70s]. We understood that audience, because we were them and they were us. In many ways we were their voice.

We used humor a lot even though the subject matter was dead serious. We’d often do it in a satiric way because our audience got it, seemed to like it better, and was more open to us if the satire or the humor was there.

What makes humor so effective?

Ed Bereal: If you’re laughing, your mouth is open. If your mouth is open, somebody can put something in it. (Laughter.)

Barbara Lewis: It’s the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down.

Tendai Jordan: And you can relate to it. The whole idea is activism, but we weren’t just on stage. We were part of the audience, and the audience was part of our performances.

Bodacious Buggerilla on stage at the Getty Center with curator Malik Gaines

Bodacious Buggerilla on stage for the panel discussion with curator Malik Gaines

One of Bodacious Buggerrilla’s goals is to uplift people. How do you do that?

Larry Broussard: They see themselves in some of the stuff we do. There’s a story Ed tells about a guy who came in after we did “Killer Joe” and the whole audience looked at him and knew. They laughed the poor guy out of the place.

Ed Bereal: He came in dressed like the character we had just ridiculed! The whole place was hollering, and he had no idea.

Tendai Jordan: About being uplifting, we had discussions about how we ended any vignette so that it would be uplifting and leave the individual knowing that there is hope, that there is action they can take, that they have some power in their life.

Larry Broussard: The thing with “Killer Joe” that’s important is that you can always go home. And you’re going to have to go home when you’re butt naked with nothing. You’re going to have to go home to the very roots, go back and get it right.

Tendai Jordan: That’s the message: you are better than that.

 
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Since 2008, the antiquities conservation and curatorial departments at the J. Paul Getty Museum have been working with colleagues at the Antikensammlung in Berlin to study and conserve a group of South Italian (Apulian) vases dating to the 4th century B.C. from Berlin’s collection.

Marie Svoboda and Teresa Navarro-Gomez working with a loutrophoros from the Berlin Antikensammlung in the conservation studios at the Getty Villa.

Marie Svoboda and graduate intern Teresa Navarro-Gomez working with a loutrophoros from the Berlin Antikensammlung in the conservation studios at the Getty Villa

The group consists of thirteen vases, reportedly discovered in fragments in three adjoining chamber tombs at Ceglie in Southern Italy in the early 19th century. Five of the vases had already been treated in Berlin in recent years; the remaining eight were divided between Berlin and the Getty with the goal of examining and treating them in preparation for an exhibition of all thirteen vases at the Getty Villa in 2014. The four vases currently being conserved at the Getty consist of two volute kraters (mixing vessels) and two loutrophoroi (ritual vases), all of monumental size.

The project began with the study of one of the loutrophoroi, shown below. Decorated with a group of satyrs and maenads accompanying Dionysos, and a battle between Greeks and native Italians, the vase measures 1.1 meters (over 3 ½ feet) tall, including its separate lid and foot. Although ostensibly complete, even a brief visual inspection indicated that the vessel has been extensively restored after its discovery.

Loutrophoros / Greek, 300s B.C.

Loutrophoros (ritual vase), Greek (made in Italy), 300s B.C. Terracotta, 40 3/16 in. high. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

The interior had been lined with a white, plaster-like material, which made it impossible to see breaks and missing sections from within. But when we closely studied the exterior, we saw that parts of the surface were flaking, primarily on the bottom half of the vase. This immediately raised questions. Ancient vases were not painted but rather glazed, so we should not expect to see any flaking if the surface were truly ancient.

Furthermore, in areas where the paint has been lost, the surface underneath was not the typical orangey color of ancient terracotta, but gray. These were our first positive signs that the vase had been restored—albeit expertly—after its discovery in fragments.

It became clear that we needed to employ more advanced techniques to better understand the loutrophoros’s condition and history. In an effort to reveal how much of the vase is ancient and how much is restoration, we decided to use radiography. The vase was an ideal candidate for creating a “roll-out” X-ray, since it’s an almost perfect cylinder.

To achieve a continuous X-ray, we placed the loutrophoros on a stand that slowly rotated. The X-ray film, which was cut into three adjoining strips and inserted into the vase, was exposed to X-rays only 5 millimeters at time. We achieved this by putting two sheets of lead spaced 5 millimeters apart between the X-ray tube and the vase, as shown in the photo below.

A loutrophoros from the Berlin Antikensammlung being x-rayed in the antiquities conservation studios at the Getty Villa

Central section of the Berlin loutrophoros being x-rayed in the antiquities conservation studios at the Getty Villa

We also inserted a lead “plug” inside the body to prevent X-rays from penetrating straight through the vase and imaging the opposite side. This setup produced one continuous X-ray with little distortion, and revealed that the bottom third of the vase had been fabricated using ceramic blanks (visible in the X-ray as the lighter areas).

X-ray of a loutrophoros from the Berlin Antikensammlung created at the antiquities conservation studios at the Getty Villa

X-ray of a loutrophoros from the Berlin Antikensammlung created at the antiquities conservation studios at the Getty Villa

These modern additions and their method of attachment to the original fragments were not obvious to the naked eye, because the interior of the vase had been covered with plaster and the exterior with paint.

Having identified the section that had been reconstructed, we then examined and photographed the vase using ultraviolet illumination (UV) to better understand the areas that had been overpainted (restored). Materials such as glue and paint, which would have been used by the 19th-century restorers, produce a unique visible fluorescence under UV light, whereas an untouched ancient surface should not.

Photograph of a loutrophoros from the Berlin Antikensammlung under ultraviolet light

The results were clear. Areas with white paint on the surface of the vase fluoresced brightly. This observation, in combination with the prominence of these white painted areas in the X-ray, led us to conclude that the added pigment is likely a modern lead white paint. An example of this can be seen with the white shield held by the warrior with a raised spear. The shield fluoresces brightly in UV and can also be seen in the X-ray. The presence of lead white paint was later confirmed by chemical analyses done by the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI).

The examination of the loutrophoros using a variety of imaging techniques has enabled us to obtain a clear—and previously unseen—view of the extent to which the vase was reconstructed. In identifying the materials and techniques that were used, we are now able to appreciate the lengths to which 19th-century restorers went in repairing fragmentary vases, and their efforts to hide evidence of their intervention.

Our discoveries have led us to adjust our original conservation plan, for this vase is not only an ancient artifact. It is also an example of 19th-century tastes and practices, and our responsibility today is to preserve that, just as much as the ancient craftsmanship.

 
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Lita Albuquerque signs Amy Hood's jumpsuit after the performance of Spine of the Earth 2012

Lita Albuquerque signs my red jumpsuit, part of Spine of the Earth 2012

At 8:15 Sunday morning I found myself scurrying through a parking lot in Culver City to get on an old-fashioned-looking red and white bus. I took one of the last empty seats alongside dozens of other chipper volunteers as we listened to a group leader tell us about the day ahead of us.

As part of over 300 volunteers for Lita Albuquerque’s performance Spine of the Earth 2012, we had important instructions to follow: there were lines to stand in, forms to sign, red jumpsuits to don, and a big hill to descend—twice.

A charter bus takes participants to Lita Albuquerque's Spine of the Earth 2012

In 1980 Lita Albuquerque staged Spine of the Earth on the dry El Mirage dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert. Circles and lines were traced on the desert floor in red, black, and yellow pigment. The piece, visible in its totality only from above, used the surface of the earth as a drawing plane and emphasized connection with the sky. More than 30 years later, the red pigment would be replaced by humans dressed in red; I was a part of the “spine.”

The bus took us to the top of the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook. There I stood in line, chatting with other volunteers and taking in the view. When it was my turn at the table I signed a release form and was given two things—red painter’s coveralls and a red piece of paper with the following prose:

THE LANDSCAPE IS LISTENING

THIS IS SUNDAY, JANUARY 22 OF THE YEAR 2012

CULVER CITY, CALIFORNIA

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

WESTERN HEMISPHERE

 

PAY ATTENTION TO THE FEET

YOU EXTEND FROM EARTH TO SKY

RED EARTH

BLUE

FROM INSIDE THE RED

BLUE PLANET

YOU ARE

SURROUNDED IN BLUE

ONE VERTEBRAE IN THE SPINE OF THE EARTH

That missive confirmed for me something I had already suspected when I signed up to participate – that the performance experience was as much about the people in it as it was a spectacle for the audience. Like the people who’d be watching the event, the performers were meant to have their own distinct, possibly transformative, experience of the work. The paper was a set of instructions as important as the choreography we were rehearsing. I had my marching orders: Pay attention.

Artist Lita Albuquerque during the rehearsal of Spine of the Earth 2012

Artist Lita Albuquerque during the preparations for Spine of the Earth 2012

Things were already changing by the time I got to the staging area. On the bus and in line the volunteers were a diverse group of strangers bundled up against the cold in our own clothes. But now, with those (flattering!) red jumpsuits over our clothes, we were all startling to look a little bit alike. We were broken in groups of 15 to 20, so group leaders could go over the movements and timing with us. I was delighted to find that I was in the same group as two of my colleagues, Rani Singh and Lucy Bradnock of the Getty Research Institute, who have been central to the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time exhibitions and events.

Rani Singh, Lucy Bradnock, and Amy Hood participating in Spine of the Earth 2012 by Lita Albuquerque

Rani, Lucy, and I in our red jumpsuits, waiting for the performance to begin

After a lot of standing around and photo snapping, we were ready to rehearse. Suddenly, our little group was part of a larger line, slowly stepping toward the top of the 287 steps from the overlook to the base of the trail. Another group of participants walked in a spiral formation with the artist at the lead, then joined our line going down the steps. We walked with our hands on the shoulders of the person in front of us and counted to keep time (“one one thousand, two one thousand…”) trying to keep the line even and unbroken.

Maintaining this pace proved a little challenging on the stairs, which are steep and uneven, and slowly lowering one’s body at each step without breaking formation became the prime objective. Since it was just a rehearsal, I took the liberty of snapping a few pictures while the line was paused on the steps. It was quite a sight, standing in the middle of the staircase, with a cascade of red covered heads and shoulders before me, winding out of the landscape toward civilization below.

Practicing for Lita Albuquerque's Spine of the Earth 2012

Practicing for Lita Albuquerque's Spine of the Earth 2012

After rehearsal we broke for lunch, and I ran into a few more colleagues and friends, some in red and some just there to watch. You could sense the excitement as people buzzed around talking about how they came to be there that day, or what other events they would see as part of the Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival.

Now we gathered for the real performance, which would take longer than the rehearsal. We heard our last set of instructions, put up our red hoods, and stood in line watching the sky for the sky diver who would be our signal to start. As we waited, Ms. Albuquerque read the words that were handed out earlier to a silent crowd via walkie talkies, reminding us to “pay attention to the feet.”

The plane started circling, and at a few minutes after noon she jumped! Clad in her own red jumpsuit, skydiver Anne Helliwell glided down, red smoke trailing behind her, and perfectly hit her mark, a plume of red smoke in the center of a ring of participants at the top of the overlook. It was a thrilling spectacle and after a few moments of raucous cheers the skydiver took her place at the back of the line and we started the slow procession down the hill.

Now it seemed easier to find our pace and it only took a few seconds of steady stepping for the counting, “one one thousand, two one thousand,” to begin to feel like chanting. This time there was no craning our heads to look, no stopping for pictures; we kept our heads down and focused on staying evenly in line.

My view was mainly the shrubbery around us, the stone and mud steps below us and a sea of red in front of me, though occasionally I had a fleeting glimpse of the crowd of spectators watching from below and the city sprawled out beyond them. When the front of the line reached the bottom step, we stopped. In a slow, steady wave we raised our arms for about four seconds and then lowered them. We stood there in silence for a few minutes, and the sound of steady counting was replaced by beat of the helicopter circling overheard.

As I stood there quietly, the bushes rustling in a mild breeze and the steady breathing of 300 quiet people barely audible to me, I tried to imagine what it looked like from the helicopter above. That’s when I really found meaning in the piece. I realized that I couldn’t see the big picture, but that I was an integral part of it. That no matter one’s place in line, if we stay connected to the people and places around us, every now and then it’s possible to stop and imagine a bigger picture and our link to it.

After this illuminating pause, we continued down the hill, until everyone in the line had wound their way down the stairs and around a bend to an out-of-sight spot. There we shed the red and returned to being regular people.

As I made my way down the trail to my family, I decided I needed to come back to that place soon.  Maybe I’ll even take few minutes to stand again in that same spot on the stairs, enjoying the view and paying attention to the world around me and my role in it.

Participants in Lita Albuquerque's Spine of the Earth 2012

 
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Erene Morcos at the entrance to the Getty Center manuscripts exhibition Gothic Grandeur

My relationship with the Getty began when I was still an undergrad studying architecture and the history of art. As a junior I applied for the Multicultural Undergraduate Internship offered by the Getty Foundation, and was thrilled to receive an internship with the Manuscripts Department at the Museum.

There was only one problem: I didn’t know much about manuscripts.

My education in this art tradition started on day one, as I began an intensive exploration of the Getty’s outstanding collection. The collection focuses primarily on western medieval manuscripts but embraces a variety of rarities ranging in period and geography from a 10th-century Coptic devotional leaf to an illuminated British storybook from the early 20th-century.

The internship provided me with an intimate look at this fascinating medium, and gave me a behind-the-scenes glimpse at how a museum operates. I worked with the large group of people who work collaboratively to put on an exhibit. I learned more about our artworks through conversations with the manuscripts conservator and the Getty Conservation Institute scientists who also work on them. And I helped piece together bits of content for a variety of exhibitions.

A little more than a year after my internship, the Manuscripts Department had an opening for which I applied, resulting in the opportunity for me to return as a curatorial assistant. I’ve been involved in a variety of projects in our busy group, including co-curating the show Gothic Grandeur: Manuscript Illumination, 1200–1350.

In my current post, I refer to the introductory knowledge of manuscripts my internship offered two summers ago. More importantly, however, I draw on the opportunity it gave me to put the pieces of my experiences together, combining the academic subjects I studied at college with the real-world roles I’ve played at the museum.

As another group of students submits applications for the Multicultural Undergraduate Internship (the deadline for the 2012 program is February 1), I realize that I didn’t necessarily need an extensive background in manuscripts to benefit from my internship here. I just needed the willingness to jump into something new, the chance to consider all the pieces of my studies and career, and the freedom to put them together.

 
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Dancers, a World War II searchlight, and 400 spools of thread combined to turn the Getty Center’s Arrival Plaza into a performative installation last Friday night. Hirokazu Kosaka’s Kalpa was part of the Pacific Standard Time Public Art Festival, an 11-day celebration of performance art in public spaces.

Because of the setting, it took hours of rehearsal to plan the piece. Check out the video to get a glimpse of some of the preparation that took place before the performance.

 
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