HappyHappy

On Monday Baby M and I, along with some friends, went to LACMA to check out "HappyHappy." It's part of the "Your Bright Future" exhibition which includes works by 12 contemporary artists from South Korea.

Baby M and I arrived at Hancock Park, home to LACMA, the Page Museum and the La Brea Tar pits, around 10am and were pleasantly surprised to find free parking on 6th Street. LACMA doesn't open until noon, but we were able to explore part of the "HappyHappy" project, a chain length fence with brightly colored plastic objects fastened to it. (Trust me, it looks better than it sounds.) We contributed to the piece by tying on one of Baby M's purple sand shovels. Baby M loved that he was able to touch all of the various bowls, cups and bottles, but was very upset to discover that the toy truck was firmly attached and could not be removed no matter how hard he tugged.

The other part of "HappyHappy", long strings of colorful plastic containers that hang from the ceiling near the museum's BP Grand Entrance, did not open until 11:30am when the museum box office opens. Being able to see but not run through the giant curtain was torture for the kids, but at least we were able to play hide and seek in "Urban Light", a grid made up of hundreds of classic lamp posts, while we waited.

"HappyHappy" part 2 was definitely worth the wait. Baby M and his friends loved running through the suspended bowls, cups and funnels. The guards asked us to make sure the kids did not tug on the strings, but other than that they allowed us to exhuberantly enjoy the exhibit. After running around the patio for a bit we used Baby M's NexGen pass to get into the Broad Contemporary Art Museum for free and took a look at the 10 foot tall "Balloon Dog (Blue)" (exactly what it sounds like) , a giant dollhouse and plenty of other fascinating pieces. Another fun day at LACMA.

Boone Children's Gallery

Today Baby M and I went to the Boone Children's Gallery at LACMA. The gallery is a large room with tons of activities for kids and it's free! The current exhibit is called Construct and there are tables for drawing and painting, big easels for painting 4 foot high masterpieces, giant foam building blocks and more small wooden blocks than I have ever seen in once place. At 10 months, Baby M is a little too young for most of the activities although he loved climbing around the giant foam blocks and taking the wooden blocks off the shelf. As more kids arrived, including at least 3 Zoes (who knew Zoe was such a popular name?), the block area started to get a little too dangerous for Baby M so we walked around and looked at the creations by other kids and read a book called Building a House.

While at the gallery I signed Baby M up for NexGen, a LACMA program that offers free general admission to anyone under 17 and one accompanying adult. What a great program! After we finished at the Boone Children's Gallery we browsed the gift shop at the Page Museum (and validated our parking), crawled around on the grass in Hancock park, grabbed some lunch and then headed back into LACMA to check out a few of the galleries. We looked at some Picasso's, a Rothko, and a bunch of Kandinsky's before Baby M started getting fussy and it was time to go home. This was a fun outing and I think we'll do it again soon. I think it would be even more fun for slightly older kids.