Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Heat wave

If you’re interested in art being represented in the movies (and we are) then being in LA is like being a pig in muck. Driving past the Bonaventure Hotel in Downtown on the way to the Geffen Contemporary, we spotted an installation of sculptures that looked very familiar. We've tried to find out who made them (no luck so far) but our familiarity with the work was not so much as art as the movies it featured in. The most spectacular was Michael Mann's Heat. It was through these sculptures (they sit in the forecourt of a bank building on First and Flower) that De Niro, Kilmer and Sizemore ran after the disastrous bank heist. It also turns out that the sculptures feature in Fight Club behind a FC member trying to provoke a fight with a passer-by. Mann also used the Alex Colville’s 1967 painting Pacific as a reference in Heat, you can check that out here on OTN Stuff.
Images: Top, as they are today. Middle, Heat. Bottom, Fight Club

COMMENT: A reader tells us the sculpture was made in 1982 is by Michael Heizer and called North, South, East, West. The work is made of burnished stainless steel, the two rectangles stand in for North, a cone for South, an inverted cone for East, and a wedge for West. Thanks M.