Contemporary Art Space: Marciano Art Foundation, LA

The first thing that caught my attention with this gallery was a Yayoi Kusama piece I saw on Instagram (you know, where I get all my information 😁). So I went investigating and found the Marciano was FREE and easy to reserve a space for. That’s a top tip: reserve your space.

I ended up missing my first reservation due to a big night the night before but now I think that was meant to be, ’cause now they have an Ai Weiwei exhibit as well!

The gallery is a typical LA art gallery- basically a super rich family who are giving back to the community. I love how they do that so much here. It’s free to get in and free to park, a very big bonus. It’s a huge space over 3 floors in an old Masons building. It seriously surprised me how big this place is.

The special exhibits at the moment are really good and will be on display into 2019, but the usual pieces are good too. Sometimes I get too caught up in the exhibit and then get surprised by how interesting the other pieces are. Which is exactly what happened here.

Now I am in no way an art critic. I just like what I like and I don’t really know why. Usually it comes down to colour but sometimes it’s just an ensuing texture that you can’t go past.

One of my favourite gallery games is seeing if I can pick which is the ‘famous’ piece in the room without looking at the guide. I get it sometimes. It’s a bit of an easy game at the Marciano right now which such big exhibit, but it’s still fun in the other rooms.

A couple of favourites:

Yayoi Kusama: of course. It’s just fun. The staff were really nice as well, taking a pic for me after I got dumped by Al who was too busy nursing a hangover to come with me.

Ai Weiwei: the depth of Ai’s pieces are always captivating. From the millions of hand made porcelain sunflower seeds to the detail of the bamboo & silk creatures.

Ugo Rondinone: I love the colours of these windows.

Jim Lambie:

Roe Etheridge:

Seriously there’s way more, but you should go and see for yourself. What have you got to lose?

I’m always on the look out for “hidden gems” like the Marciano. If you’ve got any suggestion for me, I’d love to hear them.