MOCA LA

http://www.moca-la.org/index.php













The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum in and near Los Angeles, California. The museum has three locations. the main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles near Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's original space, initially planned only as a "temporary" exhibit space while the main facility was built, was retained and is now known as the Geffen Contemporary, in the Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles. The Pacific Design Center facility is in nearby West Hollywood.
The museum's exhibits consist primarily of American and European contemporary art created since 1940.
In 1979, at a political fund raising event at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, Councilman Joel Wachs, and local philanthropist Marcia Simon Weisman happened to be sitting at the same table. Throughout the evening, Weisman passionately discussed the city’s need for a contemporary art museum. In the following weeks the Mayor’s Museum Advisory Committee was organized. The committee led by William A. Norris set about creating a museum from scratch including locating funding, trustees, directors, curators, a gallery, and most importantly an art collection.
The following year the fledgling Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, was operating out of an office on Boyd Street. The city’s most prominent philanthropists and collectors had been assembled into a Board of Trustees and set a goal of raising $10 million in their first year. A working staff was brought together; Richard Koshalek was appointed chief curator; relationships were made with artists and galleries; and negotiations began to secure artwork and an exhibition space.
Since the museum’s inception, MOCA’s programming has been defined by a multi-disciplinary approach to contemporary art. With cutting-edge exhibitions, and popular evening events MOCA is a place to experience contemporary art.
MOCA Grand Avenue
The MOCA downtown Los Angeles location is home to almost 5,000 artworks created since 1940, including masterpieces by classic contemporary artists, and inspiring new works by emerging and mid-career artists from Southern California and around the world.
In 1986, the celebrated Japanese architect Arata Isozaki completed the downtown location's sandstone building to international critical and public acclaim, marking a dramatic achievement in the contemporary art world and heralding a new cultural era in Los Angeles.
As the Los Angeles Times declared "There isn’t a city in America—not New York, not Chicago, not Houston, not San Francisco—where a more impressive museum collection of contemporary art can be seen."
The Grand Avenue location is used to display pieces from MOCA's substantial permanent collection, especially artists who did much of their work between 1940 and 1980. Included within the permanent collection are works by influential artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Willem de Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Kim Dingle, Sam Durant,Sam Francis, Arshile Gorky, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Franz Kline, Roy Lichtenstein, Agnes Martin, Piet Mondrian, Robert Motherwell, Elizabeth Murray, Claes Oldenburg, Raymond Pettibon, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Julian Schnabel, George Segal, Joel Shapiro, Frank Stella, and Cy Twombly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Museum_of_Contemporary_Art

MCAS Tustin Hanger

The Air Station was established in 1942 as Santa Ana Naval Air Station, a base for airship operations in support of the United States Navy's coastal patrol efforts during World War II. NAS Santa Ana was decommissioned in 1949. In 1951, the facility was reactivated to support the Korean War. It was the country's first air facility developed solely for helicopter operations. By the early 1990s, MCAS Tustin was a major center for Marine Corps helicopter aviation on the Pacific Coast. Its primary purpose was to provide support services and material for the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing and for other units utilizing the base. About 4,500 residents once lived on the base, and the base employed nearly 5,000 military personnel and civilians. In addition to providing military support, MCAS Tustin leased 530 acres to farmers for commercial crop development. For many years, agricultural lands surrounded the facility. However beginning in the 1980s residential and light industrial/manufacturing areas developed adjacent to the station.

In 1991 and again in 1993, under the authority of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990, it was announced that MCAS Tustin would be closed. Operational closure of the MCAS occurred in July 1999. Of the approximate 1600 acres, approximately 1294 acres have been conveyed to the City of Tustin, private developers and public institutions for a combination of residential, commercial, educational, and public recreational and open-space uses. The remaining 300-plus acres will be conveyed to other federal agencies, the City of Tustin and public institutions for the same uses.


from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Corps_Air_Station_Tustin

The Column Revealed

Revealing the white concrete
















Before the acrylic rods are trimmed












Notice the process cast on to the surface... stitching, fabric print, and ink







































The acrylic rods immediately begin to glow.

The column and I

Copyright Nathan Dykstra 2007

Final Process

Yet another test, this one done using white concrete. White Portland cement + white sand + white aggregate = snow white concrete




The Column Pattern showing the placement of the acrylic rods and reinforced stitching.













Sewing the reinforced stitching in the form work.














The sewn form work placed in the temporary structure to support the concrete until it cures.

















The acrylic rods in the form work.

































Tension stings to support the column until the concrete cures.



















Let the mixing begin . . .


















Filling and vibrating the form work.
























































The concrete setting in the form work.




















Copyright Nathan Dykstra 2007

Concrete Ideas

This was a very frustrating, but very beneficial exercise. Although I thought I had thought of everything ahead of time, clearly I had not. . .




I constructed a tapered spandex tube with a galvanized ring at either end. The galvanized ring at the base is meant to be left in place as a third mediating material between the concrete column and the floor; the concrete will bulge over the ring, and slightly obscure it. 4 acrylic dowels bisect the plan of the column at 3" intervals.












The revised acrylic dowel - washer detail.

I changed this detail from the previous experiment by adding a piece of plastic tubing and a secondary washer to allow for the zip ties to be removed even if the concrete bulges a lot.









The acrylic rods bisecting the spandex form work














Salvaging wood from a skid, I constructed a wooden scaffold to support the from work until the concrete set.
















After much cursing. . .


Not at all what I had hoped for. Gravity is a force that is difficult to overcome when working with a liquid contained in a flexible membrane. The spandex stretched more than I had accounted for; the concrete kept flowing downwards and the bottom kept stretching outward.














Some parts were successful though


















Notice the fabric texture





























The DETAIL















What I have learned from this test:

I have switched from a 100% spandex fabric to a 10% spandex microfibre fabric which is less stretchy.

Stitching in the form work reduces the stretch of the material and can be used to add reinforcement to counteract the stress of the liquid concrete.

Massaging the concrete through the form work gets rid of "honeycombing" in the concrete; the breathability of the fabric allows air bubbles to escape.

The fabric is easiest removed 24 hours after pouring when the fabric is still damp.