Scene and Heard: Frank Gehry
Photo courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP
Photo courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP
Photo courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP
Photo courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP
Photo courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP
Photo Credit: Fredrik Nilsen
Photo Credit: Fredrik Nilsen
Photo Credit: Fredrik Nilsen
Photo Credit: Fredrik Nilsen
“Our job is to create feelings that we can transfer to people,” said architect Frank Gehry on Wednesday, September 9, at the opening of his retrospective exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). He laughed, and then added, “I know it’s a pompous thing to think.” Gehry explained that a bronze figure shaped to resemble a prizefighter—from 300 B.C.—can convey feelings of defeat and dejection from losing a fight that we recognize as such today. So too, he thinks, should art in the modern era. “Michael Heizer transmitted his feelings through that big rock out there,” added Gehry, pointing to LACMA’s Levitated Mass sculpture.
LACMA curator Stephanie Barron noted that the exhibition which includes 200 free form, continuous line sketches and 65 models was designed by Gehry’s office, but not Gehry himself, despite the architect’s frequent work for the museum including his concepts for the recent Calder exhibition. “Frank says this is his retrospective, so he can’t really design his own exhibition. But in every meeting we had with his staff, he managed to walk in and make a few comments,” Baron said. The show runs through March 2016, and includes a room filled with new projects that Gehry’s office is currently tackling. Models of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s renovation, a number of proposed residential houses, and even the Facebook campus are on display.
Though he’s always been adamant about not looking back, Gehry talked about his early years in L.A. at the show opening. He found the climate for architecture in California in the early 1960s to be really positive. “The L.A. art scene and the architecture scene was kind of provincial and you could play under the radar,” he said. “There was a freedom here because nobody cared what you did.” Gehry found himself inspired by Asian influences, and the Japanese woodblocks that Frank Lloyd Wright and the Greene brothers also sought out for their work in the golden state. Gehry noted that the creative environment was rich. Thomas Mann, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, and Aldous Huxley all spent time in L.A., and Ed Ruscha was getting his start in town too. “Stuff was going on here and we were drinking it up,” said Gehry.
by Elizabeth Varnell
Pictured: A photograph of Frank Gehry’s Nationale-Nederlanden building in Prague on display at LACMA’s Gehry retrospective.
Photo courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP
