Collection: MOCA's First Thirty Years

The first thought I had as I walked around the exhibition was the amount of variety that the artists showed. Then I realized it made total sense, because the works represented over 200 artists and a time period from about 1940 to now. MOCA holds the most important artworks from the postwar period to now. Nevertheless, from paintings to sculptures to sketches to musical art to poster art to mechanical design to video art, it was like tapping into an amazing resource of many ideas coming together, somehow under the pretense of being one coherent show. As Liz Larner said, "There is a whole tradition where volume and density and mass are almost the same thing..."

I chose to visit The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, showing the portion of the Collection dated from 1980 to current times. As I said, MOCA found it difficult to categorize the many different forms, concepts, and media that had arose during the last 30 years. They also chose to display artwork not only from Los Angeles and the United States, but also from international channels.

The artwork that caught my eye the most was a series of blurry pictures of a woman, taken from a suspicious angle and perspective, coupled with the minutes and description of her activities. I found it strange at first that the seeming work of a stalker, or possibly a detective, could be displayed to the world so easily. I read the diary of the lady, which was the underlying piece in her series, which explained that she had hired the detective man anonymously to follow her around one day. She bumped into him a couple times, and went about her day as normally as possible. However, her ultimate aim was to draw the attention of the man so that he may possibly be attracted to her. This artwork resulted in mixed feelings for me: at first I thought it was crazy the strange desperate measures she took in order to get noticed. Was it her loneliness that caused her to actually hire someone to violate her privacy? But then I realized she had given up her privacy on purpose, and therefore he was not invading it. She was conscious of it the entire time. Her call for love and attention seemed normal, as anyone would do because everyone experiences loneliness one time or another. It could also be an exciting factor to a normal, dull day--watching over your shoulder for a man who could perhaps end up being your lover.

Another art piece that caught my eye was a normal dining table featuring simple, everyday items that typically occupy that space: a plate, bowl, small plant, etc. What at first glance seemed nothing special was actually a piece of mechanical wonder. All the items on the table were rotating, upon deeper observation, at a very slow velocity. The various battery-powered machines hidden underneath the table showed proof of the artist's work. This took me by surprise because I understood that this was to show people that they should really take a second look at whatever seems normal, obvious, and on-the-surface. One could barely tell that these things were rotating, even upon close observation, but traces of movement could be detected, if just barely. This piece also encouraged me to view other artworks in the exhibition with extra careful eyes.

Overall, I enjoyed this gallery of collections from MOCA's First Thirty Years. I was amazed by many of the artworks and even the collection as a whole. The creativity and the new ways of demonstrating concepts were thrilling. It really showed me how even in the last thirty years, there has been so many different movements all over the world--and how we should look forward to more.

-Joyce Pak