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The Getty Center Museum. It's a gift to Our Town, funded by the The Getty Trust whose mission extends far beyond this museum to include education, research, and conservation institutes.
Admission is always free. Parking is $7 per car but you are welcome to walk in from the bus stop.
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These bowls are filled with aromatics and face down into the tram area. When the tram doors open you are immediately met with the unique combination of sights and smells, transported really, such that you are not in daily life anymore but are at The Getty.
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From the plaza at the tran station. The statue came many years after the opening and is an excellent addition.
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Check her out. She is balanced entirely on her hip and she's doing really really hard leg lifts.
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This, also shown in the pictures above, is a construction over the main entrance and is meant to represent the gate of a castle raised in welcome and in the offer of delights and refuge. According to one of the tour guides that is. I can go for that.
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You know that funky sculpture prominently featured as you get off the tram? The one that everyone hates?
I like it. Because it seems somehow brave, standing there all huge and a-kimbo and the object of such scorn. It makes nice shapes, and the engineering is cool, and it's been there from the beginning and we'd miss it if it was gone.
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The architect Richard Meier chose this lilac color, according to the same tour guide, on a whim. This is the only colored surface I can think of now. The umbrellas shade one of the many concession stands located around the grounds.
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More.
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And another one, for good measure.
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Sorry, two too many...
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...and then here comes another one, this time from the other side.
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From inside the Entry Hall. The famed Getty Center travertine and shapes and angles and views. It's one giant photo-op.
The Getty (the Center, Villa, Research Institute, Conservation Institute, and The Getty Foundation) website has a lot of interesting information which I will reference here as the topics apply.
Here's Travertine. The main site address is www.getty.edu, in case they change their links.
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Another view inside the Entry Hall.
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Just outside the Entry Hall looking up from the Plaza.
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From standing in virtually the same spot as the picture above a few degrees different in orientation, from a different day, and showing a different view altogether. So far, in the numberless visits that make up this collection no two photos have turned out the same.
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Art too? Looking north-west from the Plaza Level.
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The stairs leading to a touring exhibition gallery.
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The quality of the permanent art collection at the Getty Center is a point of some contention. There are those who find it overpriced, unfocused and pedestrian. And even, say some, boring.
But you can walk up any time and go in for free or pay seven bucks for a car load of people and have an entirely splendid day. Any time you want to, just go on up. What's to complain?
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What they themselves have to say about the collection. There's a lot of explanatory/educational material in their website about the items and artists in the museum.
The Getty Center Museum offers many public education opportunity. The Trust funds formal academic programs for research and conservation.
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Scandalous, no?
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Everywhere you look, photo photo.
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From the Entry Hall looking towards the West Gallery.
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Looking back to the Entry Hall. More lounging opportunities. It's all just too fine.
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This is the same view further back, from inside the West gallery.
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Fall at the Getty. We get all the seasons!
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Absolutely no end to fotofoto.
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And into the gallery courtyard.
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Reflect-o in the building above.
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Inside one of the gallery spaces.
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Check out these two faces. It's fantastic!
There are many free tours available throughout the day and all are well worth the time if you're in the mood to shuffle along with a group. The guides, all volunteers, have a lot of freedom to choose their own program so you can go again and again and always get a different perspective.
Here's a link to the Tours and Gallery Talks.
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Another gallery shot.
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A lovely quiet spot for a rest in the shade. It's hard to find so if you know it from this picture you qualify as a true Getty Center aficionado.
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More.
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Self-portraits in the glass. Hi Burt-o! No one goes just once because once you've been you'll be scheduling your next visit before you even leave.
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The J. Paul Getty Trust commissioned Robert Irwin's Central Garden as a work of art, which Irwin himself described as "a sculpture in the form of a garden aspiring to be art."
Here's the link about The Garden. This is just a promotional pitch from the Getty's own website and doesn't have any of the flavor of the actual drama of the garden's concept and construction.
The building of the museum and the garden was the longest running soap opera in Hollywood. These men, architect Richard Meier and artist Robert Irwin, in different times, would have killed each other in a duel. Of this there is no one with a shred of doubt.
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Here's a shot from a nearby place in February. We don't have many scenes that change so much by the seasons. Around here it's usually evergreens and palm trees.
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A view from the West Gallery looking onto the garden and the ocean views beyond.
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Intended entry.
My favorite garden story is about how this path came to be as it is, and you won't be finding this story on their website!
Somewhere along the line, well into the process I understand, some government inspector told Robert Irwin his design was not ADA compliant and he would have to provide wheelchair ramps from the museum into the garden.
Our Mr Irwin was not about to disfigure his art project to lay down some extraneous ramps so he decided construction could just jolly well wait, he would redo the whole concept of the access thing altogether. His design was going to be his design and he was not going to just stick a ramp in it.
From this display of arrogant stubbornness came one of my favorite reasons to return often.
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In winter you can see the garden path through the bare trees.
Go early, before they open even. Then as you stand between the rebar trees and the entrance to the garden path, close your eyes and just listen and breathe and do some zen-ish mind calming exercise and then you are ready to walk down the garden path.
The walk is really I think more about listening than about looking and that's why crowds are so disruptive to the experience. You'll want to hear your footsteps sound on the various surfaces and how the sound of the water reflects the changing shape of the rocks and hear the plants shimmering in relation to each other. Even the difference in sound as you move in and out of the trees is quite purposeful.
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Entering from a different direction and a first sighting of the iconic rebar bougainvillea trees.
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One of the evening events taking advantage of Rebar Trees for a glorious backdrop.
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More of what you can see from up there.
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All these fabulous lawns are there for the using. You can enjoy a picnic, watch the kids roll themselves stupid, or just sit and take the sun.
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Rebar bougainvillea trees. Who wouldn't want a rebar bougainvillea tree?!
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A few years later.
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Backing up a little on a different day.
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Standing under the tree.
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Another season, another view.
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Yet another season, and yet Another view!
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Because I Just Can't Stop.
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I've been complaining about this guy ever since he first appeared a while back. Now they've got the grasses growing around him, and flowers, and I've entirely softened. He looks like he's at home there now and I welcome him to stay. Funny how that is.
(Now he's gone! and I miss him!)
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Here come a string of garden shots. There is of course some limit to how many of these things you can tolerate.
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The garden's motto,
carved in stone at the entrance:
"Always changing, never twice the same"
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More.
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Geometry. I hope you'll have time to enjoy the garden early before the crowds become a factor.
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Can you guess anything about the size of Mr Stuck-Bug? Of course not. This guy is a small section from a work that extends the full height of two floors. Art.
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The scale thing...
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Banners outside the children's pavilion.
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In real life the real picture (this is a small section) is total eye candy. Everyone has a quickening intake of breath followed by a peppermint sugar rush when first catching sight and it is a favorite to see again and to show your friends who are here for the first time.
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This reminds me of the Villa. Go there when you can! The Getty Villa.
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A couple 'a billion dollar babes.
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DONE! The Villa is OPEN. Have you been following the story? I think the curator chick is getting a bum rap.
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A great sight around every corner.
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You can get yourself some good eats at the Getty.
The premium restaurant (The Restaurant) is right up there with LA fine dining establishments including Cal-Trendy yet well prepared food and a well respected wine list.
The self service cafe is more museum standard but even at that the quality and selection of the food and the expansive, scenic location make it a most comfortable spot for lunch. This shot is out the back door of the cafe.
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More from 'around the corner'.
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I've never seen them dissuade picnickers either.
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June gloom. But on a clear day...
I was looking for some information on the siting of the Getty. I remember commuting down the 405, lurching and jerking over-the-hill watching the buildings go up, for maybe TEN YEARS. It took a very long time and the story is very interesting but... I Forget.
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Up on the roof...
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The fact that in the permanent collections you can take pictures freely (no flash of course) is so so fun, if ol' JP was around I'd thank him.
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A thing I do now by habit, when scanning LA Weekly looking for the haps, I check what's what up at the Getty. The exhibitions can be fantastic and they also have classes and performances.
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Me and the Louies.
Both Angela and Darryl really enjoyed the whole Outrageous France in the 1700s scene that the Getty has faithfully recreated in what seems an entire floor - room after room of Decorative Arts in Furniture
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Trees, the second generation as the first choices didn't make it.
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Just another plaza in paradise.
I noticed in August 2006 that this plaza is getting redesigned into a sculpture garden and these plants are gone! We'll have to check back to see how it turns out. Always changing, never twice the same.
In mid 2007 the plants were indeed gone and the sculpture in. It's all black marble against the blazingly bright outside, and I haven't caught a decent shot yet.
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Here's a website with a nice description of The Evolution of Styles of Fountains.
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The collection pool from the fountain above.
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Wow. I just got one snap off before the guard told me this was one of the on-loan pictures (on loan from Forest Lawn(!)) and no photos allowed. Isn't it magnificent.
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A small clip from a big picture. You never know what's going to catch your eye!
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A guide is discussing this picture and the crowd is entirely engrossed in her words, listening carefully, jockeying for position to see better, and asking thoughtful engaged questions.
They'll probably leave having had a personal experience with a picture and isn't that basically the whole point.
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I took this photo and the next two when on a visit with my nine month old grandbaby and her nine month old friend (yes and their moms came too!)
So my mind was taken up with all-babies-all-the-time.
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Centuries apart. Someday someday I WILL go to the museum with this story in mind and get info on the work - dates, artist etc..
It's amazing wonderful engrossing touching just to be there and I think it's even more of all that when you know what you're looking at!
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The baby man face. Or the man baby. Ya gotta wonder.
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Hopping the tram back down to real life starting in the parking garage reminiscent to so very many, of the Nine Circles of Hell. But worth it.
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the Tram.
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These sunset pictures don't work slotted in with the others. A dilemma.
Another view of the opening sculpture.
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The opening sculpture reflected in the tram station.
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Moon and glow.
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Dining at sunset.
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Coming down in the dark. Time to go home.
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