iLos Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)Miracle Mile
Eileen Cowin: Between Panic and Paradise
Five decades of the L.A. artist's provocative photography and video, blurring fact and fiction to probe romance, rivalry and the mystery of daily life. BCAM, Level 2.
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You walk into galleries painted in dark, noirish tones instead of white, which Alta's critic compared to entering a darkened theater. In the newest work, The Uninvited Visitor, Cowin stands in an oversize scarlet bathrobe with her face buried in a white cloth.
This is the L.A. photographer's first major museum show: more than 50 works from 1967 on, hung by theme rather than date. Family Docudrama (1980 to 1984) stages soap-opera scenes with her new husband and his two teenage children. Anyone who has spent a holiday with a partner's teenagers will recognise the genre. Fear Itself puts actors on five monitors, wordless, each facing their worst fear.
Art and Cake called it "thoughtful, intimate, and arresting". Leave ten minutes for the video Another Year Closer to Death, where Cowin, made up to look ninety, talks about ageing. BCAM Level 2, included with general admission ($30), open until 8pm on Fridays.
Look for
The Uninvited Visitor
Look for Cowin in a scarlet bathrobe with her face in a white cloth, and a shot of the back of her head with her curls blown upward.
Fear Itself (2014)
Five monitors of actors reacting to their greatest fear with no words, only music written to match the emotion.
Something Out of the Ordinary (2006)
A selection from a 352-photograph self-portrait made of her belongings: report cards, datebooks, faculty IDs, keys, gloves and makeup.
Family Docudrama (1980 to 1984)
Staged scenes of a couple at home, lit like a soap opera, paired with the couple's teenage children acting out a parallel moment.
The book-spine murals
Three mural-sized photographs of book spines floating on black, titled Killing Time, Waiting and Lost in America.
Good for
- Dates
- Evening Visits
- Locals Who've Seen It All
Skip if
You want documentary photography: nearly everything here is staged, from soap-opera family scenes to actors performing fear.
Free in the same building
- Chris Burden: Urban Light202 restored cast-iron street lamps from 1920s-30s Los Angeles, installed on Wilshire Blvd in 2008 and adopted as an unofficial symbol of the city.
- Michael Heizer: Levitated MassA 340-ton granite boulder perched over a 456-foot concrete slot you can walk beneath. Conceived 1969, realised 2012; outdoors on the campus.
Also at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
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Image credits
8
- Eileen Cowin: Between Panic and Paradise© Eileen Cowin, courtesy of the artist
- Screenwriting: Takes on LA NoirCourtesy of Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
- Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood IconCourtesy of Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
- Studio Ghiblis PONYOCourtesy of Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)ArchEyes Magazine / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
- Academy Museum of Motion PicturesDowntowngal / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Petersen Automotive MuseumDavid Zaitz / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Craft ContemporaryPaul Esposito / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain