Let me say this post has two parts. First sharing about a new art exhibit you can check out now. Secondly, how a museum doesn't exist that it's housed in and that Caltrans has too much power and money.
BLDBLG brought to my attention the work of Simon Rouby's Yellow Line Project, currently up at
the death fortress, I mean housed in Caltrans District 7 Headquarters, which you might have seen in the Disney movie about hamsters G-Force. It's in the so called California Transportation Museum, which has
no website that I can find nor has and section or updates on the
Caltrans 7 site.
The Yellow Exhibit itself follows Simon studying LA's Striping crew that pours endless miles of unedible Yellow 5 colored paint on our streets. This is shown with documentary video and art based on the yellow line. It's cute, and a novel concept and if your near the
death fortress
check it out if it's free to the public.
The reason I don't know if it's free is there isn't a website for the California Transportation Museum. Strange, if there's no website and it does exist in some real capacity or it's just a temporary thing Caltrans does from time to time. It lessens the value of writing you were shown at it.
Caltrans District 7 is an amazing eyesore of downtown. If you've been following the site I've written about it multiple times and hearing about this art show angers me again. I don't know why Caltrans corporate needs this much lavish space, when it's just office space. It's a monument to them having our money and to do whatever they Hell they want with it, because LA can't manage it's own streets. It doesn't support the real work crews, it doesn't have some section to supply all the infrastructure of their different vehicles and vast equipment. It's a monument of vanity, with wasted space, like the courtyard area. I don't hear of any events taking place in the courtyard in all the years it's been around. What part of the community is that?
Though it's amazing to seen in person, if you think about it show how naive we are to give money to them and not think about what they really do with it. The make giant, lavish buildings for upper management and can't fill in pot holes fast enough.
While watching one of Simon's video I noticed he was given a huge amount of space to do his work inside of Caltrans. I'm unaware if parts of Caltrans District 7 are just empty and not used, which is a waste of space or that he worked in the so called museum section.
I guess I see the museum as a joke, because there is no effort by Caltrans to show it exists.
Forgettable and undoubtedly not the best Aardman can muster is how I would describe this tale of clay model pirates. I remember seeing the specials on "The Pirates!" and how it spouted the largest clay cast ever in a film. I guess you can throw as much money into the ocean as you want, but it won't make a minor movie better. Peter Lord of Wallace and Gromit fame misses his mark with poor writing, a cast of characters whose names are meant to be forgotten and a very badly made moral message of friends mattering over fame and glory.
