Another Getty Tuesday

Despite not having much time, I decided to trip to the Getty Center to see a new exhibit. Reggie Burrows Hodges is the Los Angeles based artist; his first solo hometown exhibit is A Theater of Passions. The Getty website explains, "Reggie highlights the drama and theatricality behind 17th-century Italian paintings from Getty's collection" (all on display in nearby galleries). The originals are by father-daughter painter duo Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi.

If I'd paid more attention to the website – or maybe some signage – I could have attended a talk by Reggie that very evening. He has local exhibits running from October 20th through February 28th—one at the California African American Museum I visited last winter, and the other at Art + Practice in Leimert Park. He's an intriguing artist I want to follow, though I didn't take pics of the five paintings in this particular installation because the colors overwhelmed and depressed me.

In the color theory class I took (that along with two semesters of cultural anthropology remains the most useful of my life), the instructor told us some color palettes "always work." She mentioned red, yellow, blue, along with red and black. Can they be done badly? Of course. But I've never cared for red and black or even the less pronounced pink and grey. Most likely I would have enjoyed Reggie's art a lot more if he used different colors.

• Pieter Claesz, Still Life with Assorted Fruit, about 1622

After A Theatre of Passions I visited mostly seventeenth century Dutch and Flemish paintings in the same building.

• Jan van Huysum, Fruit Piece, 1722

• Gerrit van Honthorst, A Musical Group on a Balcony (ceiling art!), 1622

You may have heard the Getty Center will be closing for a year come March 2027 so it can become smarter, greener, and more accessible. Yesterday a docent told me because the tram will be gone late December, visitors will take a shuttle bus to the museum. She also said everything will be more disorganized than it currently is. That sounds like some good blog content!

• Tuna Tuesday at Subway