{"id":18435,"date":"2014-06-19T00:01:49","date_gmt":"2014-06-19T07:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=18435"},"modified":"2014-06-19T00:01:49","modified_gmt":"2014-06-19T07:01:49","slug":"at-the-la-county-museum-of-art-van-gogh-kandinsky-and-a-bump-on-the-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/at-the-la-county-museum-of-art-van-gogh-kandinsky-and-a-bump-on-the-head\/","title":{"rendered":"At the LA County Museum of Art: Van Gogh, Kandinsky and a Bump on the Head"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Red<\/a>
Walkway at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. No glass walls to encounter here. Photo by BF Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"A<\/a>\u201cIn a fire, between a Rembrandt, and a cat, I would save the cat.\u201d \u2013<\/em><\/strong> Alberto Giacometti <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWalk carefully and remember that your lives are more important than a piece of art.\u201d\u00a0 — \u201cThe Monuments Men\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

For Giacometti, the twentieth-century Swiss sculptor, a living thing was more important than an inanimate object, even if that inanimate object happened to be a 300-year-old painting by Rembrandt.<\/p>\n

And the heroes of the movie, \u201cThe Monuments Men,\u201d charged with preventing the destruction of much of Europe\u2019s art treasures during the closing months of World War II, were told more than once that human lives, including their own, were more important than the art they hoped to save.<\/p>\n

It so happens that the Los Angeles County Museum of Contemporary Art was obliged recently to choose between life and art. I’m happy to report that it opted for life.<\/p>\n

That is, it chose to make the wrap-around windows in its in-house coffee shop, Coffee + Milk, a little less pretty and a little more safe.<\/p>\n

That was a week ago Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Too late for me. Because, just two days before that, while departing Coffee + Milk, I crashed into the crystal clear \u2013 and oh-so-aesthetically pleasing \u2013 glass wall at the coffee shop exit.<\/p>\n

Like any normal, safety-conscious person, I was watching where my feet were about to step as I left the caf\u00e9. Because I was watching where I was going, I did not see the \u2013 tastefully faint \u2013 cross hatchings located above my gaze in the glass wall next to the open door.<\/p>\n

Whack! My forehead hit the glass. Wham! The back of my right hand hit the glass. Bam! My left knee hit the glass.<\/p>\n

Not to mention \u2013 splash! My latte leapt from my hand and spattered all over me and<\/p>\n

\"After<\/a>
A barista mops up my spilled latte from the floor below the frameless glass window that is barely visible in this photo — as it was in real life. Photo by BF Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

what I now realized was not an open door, but an \u2013 unframed \u2013 panel of glass.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you OK?\u201d my husband and the Coffee + Milk staffers wanted to know.<\/p>\n

In situations like this you’re supposed to be nice. You’re supposed to say, \u201cI\u2019m fine. Don\u2019t worry.\u201d<\/p>\n

But I was not fine. I was in pain. I was rattled. \u201cNo, I\u2019m not OK,\u201d I bellowed.<\/p>\n

The baristas were kind and apologetic. They offered to make me a fresh latte. I declined; I didn\u2019t think I could drink it.<\/p>\n

The shop manager, also kind and apologetic, showed up.<\/p>\n

I bellowed some more. I raised a nice ruckus. I was angry. I lambasted the venerable LACMA for caring more about how things looked than how things might feel when a hapless museum-goer crashes into a crystal clear \u2013 and oh-so-tasteful \u2013 glass wall.<\/p>\n

I let everybody within earshot know that the museum \u2013 and these staffers \u2013 needed to do something about that glass wall now<\/em>, before somebody else got hurt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One week later, my head was still sore to the touch, my knee bruised, and my hand still hurt.<\/p>\n

I decided to call the museum press office to find out if there were plans to fix that consarned glass wall.<\/p>\n

LACMA is a beautiful museum, I wanted to say. And I loved the paintings I saw last week \u2013 expressionists from\u00a0 Van Gogh to Kandinsky, my favorites. But I thought the museum needed to be a little less beautiful and a little more concerned about the living, breathing organisms that gaze through its glass walls \u2013 and sometimes walk into them.<\/p>\n

\"Glass<\/a>
Two days after I hit the wall, a second safety strip was installed on the cafe’s glass perimeter, and both strips were made darker, a museum spokesperson said. Photo courtesy LACMA<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The press office wasted no time connecting me to Brooke Fruchtman, associate vice president of marketing and guest services. Fruchtman \u2013 also kind and apologetic \u2013 told me that there had been a previous collision with a glass wall at Coffee + Milk, which is run by Patina Restaurant Group. It had taken a few weeks to get a solution designed and installed.<\/p>\n

And so, as of last Wednesday, there are now two safety strips on the glass, she said. One at five feet and one at three feet. And they\u2019re darker. \u201cIf that doesn\u2019t work, we are going to frost the entire window.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those remediation plans were already in the works when I banged my head, hand and knee on the coffee shop wall, Fruchtman said. \u201cWe never, never want anyone to be injured here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, I\u2019m glad I bellowed. I like to think it sped things up a bit and maybe spared somebody else a nasty, unaesthetic head banging.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a little googling reveals that I’m not the first person stopped in her tracks by a glass wall. In the past few years, Justin Bieber<\/a>, that paragon of youth and cool, has had himself not one, but two, collisions with glass<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More arts and crafts stories at\u00a0 “The Ghost of 300 Million Drought-Killed Trees Hovers Over a Lake in Texas,”<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 “Photo Op: Pentwater, Michigan — A Small Town on a Big Lake”<\/a>\u00a0 and\u00a0 “Atotonilco, Mexico: High Art, Folk Art, Hot Springs, Food!”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"After<\/a><\/p>\n

Like any normal, safety-conscious person, I was watching where my feet were about to step as I left the caf\u00e9 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.. I did not see the \u2013 tastefully faint \u2013 safety strip in the glass wall. Whack! My forehead hit the glass. Wham! The back of my hand hit the glass. Bam! My knee hit the glass. Splash! My latte crashed to the floor. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1255,1256,1257,1258,82,1259,1260,1261,1262],"class_list":["post-18435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","tag-art-vs-life","tag-kandinsky","tag-lacma","tag-los-angeles-county-museum-of-art","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-save-the-cat-or-the-rembrandt","tag-the-monuments-men","tag-van-gogh","tag-walking-into-glass"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}