Magritte at LACMA

Eric and I had a great day yesterday, played hooky and immersed ourselves in food and art - my two favorite things. We had a too-large lunch at the ever-yummy Jongewaard’s Bake-n-Broil. I love this place! We split a slice of zucchini and basil quiche AND a BLT. And they have truly awesome cornbread, and I'm pretty damn picky about my cornbread.

Then we made our way to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. There's a great Rene Magritte exhibition right now, designed by John Baldessari, another great artist. The design Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images has many wonderfully cheeky moments - you walk on clouds and under highways, and all the guards wear bowlers, a la Magritte's famous portraits. I can't say the audio tour was really worth it, even though the narrator is Pierce Brosnan, and he has a lovely voice. But I think it's difficult to verbally describe artwork that is not necessarily supposed to mean anything in particular - or, at least, its meaning is wide open and completely up to each person's interpretation.

One treat we'd never before explored at LACMA is the Japanese Pavilion, a separate building that houses the museum's collection of Japanese works dating from around 3000 b.c. to the 20th century, including archaeological materials, Buddhist and Shinto sculpture, ceramics, lacquer wares, textiles, armor, and cloisonné. The building is set up in a wonderful, maze-like manner - you begin your visit on the top floor and wind your way down. The exterior walls look like Japanese vellum screens, but they're actually filtered fiberglass panels, which protect the delicate paintings and works on paper from UV rays, while letting in natural light. It's beautiful!