LAX
It's 9:24 p.m. Gate-22 at LAX.
I'm weary, yet exhilarated while staring at a bare, grayish wall that appears lonely amid the human clutter of the waiting room that's 65-percent full. The wall is maybe 12-feet high and
25-feet wide. A light illuminates its emptiness.
Rewind 36 hours.
I'm driving a rental car on I-110 North into downtown Los Angeles ... stop, go, stop, go, stop, go. It's like this just about all the way. Finally, I arrive at my destination, a downtown hotel for this quick art trip.
To even a casual observer on a fly through, Los Angeles is a city of traffic, smog, distant hills, anemic-looking palm trees, immigrants and nouveau riche ... all engaged in a strangers' dance. A symbiotic samba of intimacy and suspicion, heightened by the newness of the place. All of which make Los Angeles one of the most contemporary cities in America.
Los Angeles could and really should be the capital of contemporary art. There are so many dichotomies here that make it an artist's playpen. Ruined paradise, suburban hipness, grit and glitz and the absence of tradition. Of course, great art museums and galleries are here and the play on contemporary has long been done.
Yet at the heart of the movement is LAX, the fly-girl, fly-boy ambassador for the city. Those huge white letters at the airport entrance are shining a Colgate smile, welcoming and waving away travellers like the Hollywood sign, winking at budding stars. Ambition is packed. It's a promise that this is a town for hipsters, wannabe hipsters, and people on the way up. You come here to go places.
Fast forward 36 hours.
I'm still staring at this bare, grayish wall. And another one. And another. They're not going away, but I am and so are all of these people playing the waiting game at Gate-22. As we sit,
stand and meditate, we're a captive crowd. These bare, grayish walls are being ignored, but they don't have to be. They can be up to the moment. They're silently screaming for proof of L.A's contemporary art measure.
A painting or two, out of reach, but not out of sight, will do. A living gallery, a cluttered waiting area. Another symbiotic samba. Art for the masses. Art can travel, you know.
In this case, L.A style. Pack your ambition.