A darkened auditorium. Two empty chairs onstage. Three full bottles of Arrowhead spring water: two on a table, one on the floor. Why did they leave, these two people who are no longer here? Are they lost, confused -- thirsty?
Perhaps they did not leave at all; perhaps they have not yet arrived.
These thoughts needle the mind as the hypnotically repetitive music of Minimalist composer Philip Glass plays in the Ahmanson Auditorium, downstairs, downtown at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. The work of other Minimalist musicians, including Steve Reich, Terry Riley and Meredith Monk, follows in a continuous loop.
Spending a few minutes as the sole spectator at a nonappearance by two people provides the perfect mood enhancer for the main event: "A Minimal Future? Art as Object: 1958-1968," a landmark retrospective of the Minimal movement, continuing through Aug. 2.
Who comes to an exhibition of Minimalist art in Los Angeles? To find the answer, one must tear oneself from the dark velvet underground to head upstairs to brightly lighted galleries containing 150 objects from an art movement that, according to museum notes, "propelled a redefinition of the structure, form, material, and production of a work of art, as well as its relationship to physical and temporal space, to other objects, and the spectator."
Such a description surely does not forecast peaceful landscapes and still-lifes with fruit, pastel waterlilies or self-portraits with one ear -- all available on tote bags and note cards in the gift shop. A certain degree of challenge is implied.
And, for the most part, on a recent Friday, the visitors -- a mix of art professionals who reveled in the opportunity to see the early work of familiar artists, students on assignment and the merely curious -- seemed up to that challenge.
Victoria and Kevin McDaniel of Orange County were celebrating their 20th anniversary with a trip to Los Angeles and decided to drop in with three of their seven children: Josh, 18, Tyler, 16, and Liam, 9 months. "We just wandered in off the street," said Victoria McDaniel. "Obviously we don't know everything the tour lady was telling people, but some of the pieces are just fun."
Son Josh was having fun too: "Some of them go right over your head, but some of them play games with perspective," he observed. The family said baby Liam particularly enjoyed an installation of large, colorful blocks.
