Los Angeles County Museum of Art from “My So-Called Life”

Urban-Light-LACMA-(35-of-41)

Since I spend the majority of my weekends dragging the Grim Cheaper out on various stalking adventures, this past Saturday, in honor of our first Valentine’s Day together as a married couple, I decided to create a scavenger hunt for him based on his many likes and hobbies.  I do have to admit that while most of our destinations were places that I had little to no interest in visiting, the hunt was not entirely an un-selfish endeavor on my part.  A few of our stops were, in fact, stalking locations – most notably the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, aka LACMA, which was featured in an episode of fave show My So-Called Life.  As I mentioned a few weeks back, I just recently started re-watching My So-Called Life from the beginning and I became just a bit obsessed with tracking down the museum where Angela Chase (aka Claire Danes) and the gang go on a field trip in the episode titled “Why Jordan Can’t Read”.  Because the series was filmed so prominently in the Pasadena area, I had a hunch that the museum used was the Huntington Library – a place where I just so happen to have a filming contact.  So, I emailed a few screen captures from the episode over to Dinah, my contact, to see if she could confirm or deny my suspicion.  As it turns out, though, my hunch was wrong – hey, it does happen!  Winking smile – Huntington was not the museum which appeared in the episode.  Thankfully though, Dinah knows her museums!  She informed me that she was 99.9% certain that filming had taken place at LACMA.  So, because the GC absolutely LOVES visiting museums, while I typically do not, I immediately added the place to his Valentine’s Day scavenger hunt and we headed out there this past Saturday morning.  And, let me tell you, once he found out that we would spending the day at a museum, he could NOT have been more excited.

ScreenCap419 ScreenCap420

ScreenCap421 ScreenCap432

In the “Why Jordan Can’t Read” episode of My So-Called Life, Angela and her classmates, Jordan Catalano (aka Jared Leto), Rayanne Graff (aka A.J. Langer), Rickie Vasquez (aka Wilson Cruz), and Brian Krakow (aka Devon Gummersall), spend the morning on a field trip at a supposed Three Rivers, Pennsylvania-area museum, during which Jordan is nice to Angela, as she says, “like out of nowhere!”

LACMA numbers 1 LACMA numbers 2

Because the museum has been remodeled in recent years and various artworks relocated to different galleries, it was quite difficult to pinpoint the exact spot where filming had taken place.  I had a few clues to help me out on my quest, though, most notably a set of numbers that was visible in the background of several scenes.  As you can see in the above screen captures, those numbers were all in the 200 range.

IMG_3891

Oddly enough, though, I could only find numbers like that in one area of the museum – on the third floor of the Hammer Building in the Art of the Ancient World section – yet those numbers were all in the 300 range, which left me completely puzzled.  As fate would have it, though, I happened to run into an EXTREMELY helpful and EXTREMELY friendly museum docent who became determined to assist me with my quest.  I had downloaded twenty or so screen captures from the “Why Jordan Can’t Read” episode onto the GC’s iPad – which he was gifted for Christmas from his boss and which is an absolutely AMAZING stalking tool – which I proceeded to show to my new friend.  After seeing those 200 numbers, he informed me that the third level of the Hammer building was actually known as the second level back in the ‘90s when My So-Called Life was filmed, and had only be re-numbered in recent years during the remodel.  Which meant that I was in the right spot!  Yay!

IMG_3895 IMG_3900

IMG_3918 IMG_3920

By looking at the screen captures, the docent and I were able to determine that all of the filming of the episode had taken place on the now third floor (former second floor) of the museum’s Hammer Building in the Charles E. and Flora L. Thornton Gallery and a few of the smaller galleries which surround it.

Wainscotting MSCL Wainscotting MSCL 3

As you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, the wainscoting on the gallery walls and the molding on the gallery entrances match up perfectly to what appeared onscreen.

ScreenCap423 IMG_3892

Once I figured out that I was in the right place, I then proceeded to go on a scavenger hunt of my very own to track down a few of the specific works of art that had appeared in the episode.  And, let me tell you, I had an absolute blast doing so!  In fact, it was quite possibly the most fun that I have had at a museum in my entire life!  A few of the works that I was able to locate include a Rembrandt portrait;

ScreenCap424 IMG_3893

a painting titled “Portrait of Cardinal Roberto Ubaldino” by Guido Reni;

ScreenCap427 IMG_3894

the sculptures that Angela, Jordan, and Brian looked at;

MSCL painting IMG_3908

the portrait that Angela and Jordan were standing in front of when he invited her to watch his band, the Frozen Embryos, rehearse;

ScreenCap431 IMG_3916

and the scary-looking sculpture that the camera panned in on towards the end of the museum scene.

ScreenCap433 IMG_3906

I was most excited, though, to spot the statute where Jordan and Angela first started talking in the episode.

ScreenCap434 IMG_3904

And I, of course, just had to re-create Jordan’s pensive stare after I found it, which the GC was NOT at all happy about.  Winking smile The statue is currently displayed on a much shorter base than it was when My So-Called Life was filmed, which is why it appears to be so much lower to the ground in my photograph than it appeared onscreen.

My So Called Life Sculpture IMG_3911

Sadly, the sculpture room where Sharon Cherski (aka Devon Odessa) and her boyfriend Kyle Vinnovich (aka Johnny Green) spent the majority of the field trip has since been dismantled.  Although I did manage to locate one of the sculptures which appeared in that scene.

ScreenCap430

Even sadder still was the fact that I could not for the life of me track down the display case where Rayanne inadvertently left Angela’s love letter to Jordan.

ScreenCap410 ScreenCap411

ScreenCap414 ScreenCap415

ScreenCap417 ScreenCap418

The very same area of LACMA also appears briefly in the 1991 comedy L.A. Story, in the scene in which Harris K. Telemacher (aka Steve Martin) roller-skates through a museum while his friend Ariel (aka Susan Forristal) video-tapes his exploits.

My So-Called Life picture

The “Portrait of Cardinal Roberto Ubaldino”, which appeared in My So-Called Life, was also featured in L.A. Story.

My So-Called Life statue

As was Jordan and Angela’s statue.  Love it!

ScreenCap438 ScreenCap440

ScreenCap441 ScreenCap442

LACMA was also the site of the black-and-white ball, to which superstar Cher wore red, in 1992’s The Player.

ScreenCap443 ScreenCap444

ScreenCap447 ScreenCap449

In the Season 4 episode of Melrose Place titled “Drawing Henry”, Brooke Armstrong (aka Kristin Davis) and Jack Parezi (aka Antonio Sabato Jr.) meet up at LACMA to discuss their burgeoning affair and wind up being spotted by Billy Campbell (aka Andrew Shue).

[ad]

ScreenCap409 ScreenCap406

ScreenCap405 ScreenCap408

Located in front of LACMA’s main entrance is the famous Urban Light display, which I blogged about back in April of last year after its appearance in a Vanity Fair photo shoot featuring the male members of the cast of Glee.  That very same light instillation was also used in the recently-released No Strings Attached, in the scene in which Adam (aka Ashton Kutcher) takes Emma (aka Natalie Portman) out on a Valentine’s Day date.  LACMA was also featured in Breaking All The Rules, Strong Medicine, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, Born Yesterday, The Rockford Files, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Now You See It, Now You Don’t.

IMG_3879 IMG_3880

LACMA also has a few celebrity connections, as well.  There is a statue titled “Michael Jackson and Bubbles”, which was designed by artist Jeff Koons in 1988, on display in the Broad Contemporary Art Museum building.

IMG_3881

I so love that Mr. Koons captured MJ’s ever-present loafer-and-white-sock-combination so perfectly!

IMG_3924

And there is also a Tiffany lamp from Barbra Streisand’s personal collection on display in the Ahmanson Building.

IMG_3923

IMG_3922 IMG_3921

Also in the Ahmanson Building is an extremely ornate rosewood mirror which boasts an intriguing history.  The massive mirror, which was designed by New York’s Herter Brothers interior design firm in 1873, originally belonged to Milton Slocum Latham, a former U.S. senator and governor of California, and was on display in his 50-room Menlo Park mansion, Thurlow Lodge.  Slocum went bankrupt shortly after construction on his mansion was completed and then passed away in 1882.  His former home was demolished in 1942 and the mirror was subsequently transferred to none other than the prop department of a Hollywood movie studio – although I am unsure of which one – where it remained until 1991, at which time it became the property of LACMA.   So incredibly interesting!  I am going to have to keep my eyes peeled from now on to see if that mirror pops up in any movies that were made between 1942 and 1991!

IMG_3884 IMG_3913

For those fellow stalkers who are also interested in seeing works of art as well as filming locations Winking smile, the museum features some amazing pieces, including paintings by both Monet and Picasso.

IMG_3876 IMG_3877

There is also a great view of the Hollywood sign which can be seen from the top of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum building.

Big THANK YOU to Dinah, from the Huntington Library, for finding this location for me!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, from My So-Called Life and L.A. Story, is located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.  You can visit the museum’s official website here.  Both My So-Called Life and L.A. Story were filmed in the museum’s Art of the Ancient World section, which can be found on the third floor of the Hammer Building, in the Charles E. and Flora L. Thornton Gallery.   The works of art that appeared in MSCL are spread out among the different galleries located on the third floor of the Hammer Building.

The “Glee” Vanity Fair Photo Shoot

glee

In early December of last year, I came across these Fan Sites Network photographs of the male stars of Glee – including my latest love, cutie Matthew Morrison – posing for an upcoming issue of Vanity Fair at the Urban Light display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and I just about died.  I absolutely COULD NOT WAIT for the article to be published so that I could stalk the display and blog about it.  I’m really not kidding – on January 1st, February 1st, and March 1st of this year, I literally ran to my local newsstand to check out the latest issue of the magazine to see if the Glee pics were in there.  Well, the photos – ahem – photo was finally published this past Thursday in the magazine’s May issue and I have to say that I was sorely disappointed with it. I had whole-heartedly been expecting the Glee actors to garner a cover story or, at the very least, a full-fledged feature article, so, you can imagine my disappointment last Thursday upon discovering that the actual publication consisted of a single page.  Yes, you read that right – ONE single, solitary page.  In my never-to-be humble opinion ;), I have to say that Vanity Fair really dropped the ball on this one!  I mean, HELLO!  Glee is not only the biggest new show of the 2009 Fall television season and is finally returning to the airwaves after a FOUR MONTH hiatus, but it also recently won both a Golden Globe Award (for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy) and a SAG Award (for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series) along with countless other awards and nominations too numerous to list here – before its very first season had even been completed, no less!  Shouldn’t that at least garner them more than a half page picture and tiny write-up buried all the way on page 181?  Shame on you, VF!  Not only that, but I wasn’t exactly crazy about the sole photograph that did get published, either.  It is a pretty dark and dreary picture, especially considering that Glee is a show chock full of . . . well, glee!  But, even though I wasn’t very happy about the finalized product, I still just HAD to stalk the place where the photo shoot took place.  So, this past weekend I dragged my fiancé out to Wilshire’s Miracle Mile District and did just that. 

Glee-Vanity-Fair-Chris-Burden-Urban-Light-23

 Glee-Vanity-Fair-Chris-Burden-Urban-Light-37 

Glee-Vanity-Fair-Chris-Burden-Urban-Light-35

I’ve actually driven by the Urban Light display countless times over the past few years and have always found it a bit odd, to say the least.   As you can see in the above photographs, the large scale art installation consists of a group of grey-colored lights standing right smack dab in the middle of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s central courtyard which is located along the heavily trafficked Wilshire Boulevard in Mid-Town L.A.  Trust me when I say that the whole thing looks very bizarre when driving by at 35 miles per hour.  And even though I’ve always admired the many vintage street lamps that are in still in use around the Los Angeles area, the Urban Light display always seemed out of place to me and I never had any interest in stopping my car to get a closer look. 

ScreenShot4145

That is, until my good friend Renae sent me the above picture of her family taken earlier this year, which I thought was just about the coolest family photograph I had ever seen!   I absolutely loved, loved, loved it and, in turn, realized what an amazing display the Urban Light installation actually was.  I mean can you even imagine taking wedding photographs there??  They would be A-MA-ZING!

Glee-Vanity-Fair-Chris-Burden-Urban-Light-18

The Urban Light display, which is comprised of a group of 202 actual working 1920’s and 1930’s era Los Angeles street lamps that took over seven years to collect, was created by performance artist and sculptor Chris Burden in early 2008.  Burden is perhaps best known for his highly controversial performance pieces from the early 1970s, the most famous of which was entitled “Shoot” and involved an assistant actually shooting him in the arm while onstage.  Not surprisingly, he was made to see a therapist after that production.  😉  Burden also once had himself nailed to a Volkswagen Beetle during a show.   Needless to say, the guy’s a bit out there.  According to this article which was written by Susan Freudenheim and appeared in the January 30th, 2008 issue of the Los Angeles Times, in recent years Burden has shifted his attention from performance art to “large-scale assemblage sculptures”.   He first stumbled upon the vintage street lamps that would become the foundation of his “Urban Light” display in December of 2000 at the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena.  Even though he had no plan for them at the time, he immediately purchased a pair of the vintage lights for $1600.   An avid collector of a wide array of tchotchkes, Burden soon found himself in possession of 150 of the street lamps and used them to build a small scale display outside of his studio.  Eventually, a few big wigs at LACMA viewed the installation and knew it would be the perfect piece to stand in the middle of the new courtyard that was being built outside of the museum.  Andrew M. Gordon, a chairman on the LACMA board, donated the money to purchase the display, to which Burden had added 52 more lamps, and the rest, as they say, is history.  The installation’s first lighting was on February 7, 2008 and coincided with the opening of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA.  In a humorous side note, not only did each of the 202 lamps have to actually be installed per Los Angeles City Code, but they were also all inspected by the Bureau of Street Lighting.  No that’s not a joke, Los Angeles actually has a Bureau of Street Lighting!

Glee-Vanity-Fair-Chris-Burden-Urban-Light-11 

Seeing the Urban Light sculpture up close and personal is extremely jarring as the display is absolutely HUGE, much more so then it appears to be when simply driving by.  Burden designed the piece so that visitors could actually walk through each of the lights to experience what he describes as “architecture without walls”.  And let me tell you, one can easily get lost in the middle of the installation, as I obviously did in the above photograph.  🙂  I honestly can’t recommend stalking the Urban Light display enough.  It is an absolutely beautiful and truly unique place that everyone should see in person at least once.

Glee-Vanity-Fair-Chris-Burden-Urban-Light-25 

[ad]

Glee-Vanity-Fair-Chris-Burden-Urban-Light-26

And, of course, I just had to pose in the exact spot where the Glee picture was taken, which is on the northwest corner of the installation.  🙂

Glee-Vanity-Fair-Chris-Burden-Urban-Light-30 

Note – The Glee photograph which appears in this post does not belong to me, but remains the sole property of photographer Michael Roberts and Vanity Fair Magazine.

Glee-Vanity-Fair-Chris-Burden-Urban-Light-17

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Chris Burden’s “Urban Light” display, where the Glee guys’ Vanity Fair photo shoot took place, is located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, in front of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in Mid-Town L.A.  The Glee boys posed in the display’s northwest corner, which is pictured above.  The May issue of Vanity Fair, which features the Glee photograph, will be on sale throughout the end of April.  If you would like to check out a more in-depth photoshoot of the cast, pick up this month’s Glamour.