Four blocks along Grand Avenue offer a sketch of shifting ideas in public art
LA TimesNancy Rubins’ sculptural steel maelstrom of salvaged airplane parts on the plaza of the Museum of Contemporary Art will soon be relocated to Little Tokyo’s Geffen Contemporary. And war is very much what drove the era’s public art — not necessarily the Southeast Asian conflict, but more generally the Cold War that dominated America’s cultural life. The descriptive title of L.A.-based artist Nancy Rubins’ sculptural extravaganza ends with a nod to its original location and eventual resting place: “Chas’ Stainless Steel, Mark Thompson’s Airplane Parts, About 1,000 Pounds of Steel Wire, and Gagosian’s Beverly Hills Space, at MOCA.” The broad, V-shaped contour suggests a bird in flight — nature distantly recalled via Industrial Age detritus. At the corner of Grand and 5th, a 1930 mural dubbed “The Apotheosis of Power” inside the Art Deco lobby of the CalEdison building, shows the hand of God descending from the sky to bring hydroelectric energy to 16th century English physicist William Gilbert, who coined the word electricity; kite-flier Benjamin Franklin; and an indigenous couple looking like a neutered Adam and Eve.
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