Public Art

Since 1982, the sculpture known as "Dance Door" has been situated in the forecourt of the Music Center in downtown Los Angeles. The work itself was created in 1978 and formerly was near the swimming pool at the Beverly Hills home of Frederick Weisman, a noted art collector, who commissioned the work from sculptor Robert Graham. Weisman donated the work to the Music Center in commemoration of the Joffrey Ballet's affiliation with the Music Center Group (The Joffrey Ballet left the Music Center Group in 1991). The work is only one element in the totality of the forecourt, and the various pieces have been added at different times for different reasons so that there is no central plan to the location except to express some artistic integrity in the pieces chosen and in the way they are placed. This is a well-traversed public space, and people interact in different ways with the pieces that make up the public art in this open square.

Robert Graham was born in 1938 in Mexico City, moving at age 10 to San Jose, California. He received his B.A. from San Jose State in 1963 and a degree from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1964. He set to work in the art world and achieved notoriety in pop art circles by making small wax nude figures in plexiglas boxes. In the early 1970s he started casting anatomically accurate and detailed female nudes in bronze, and this distinctively realistic quality can be seen in the figures of the Olympic Gateway and

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as been offering works in the Pavillion for about a decade. The Mark Taper forum is currently the venue for a production company presenting original dramatic works and some touring productions, while the Ahmanson offers larger-scale works and musicals to the Los Angeles audience. Between the Mark Taper Forum and the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion is a large open square which over the years has become the home for public art and public performances. Originally, this was truly an open space, with nothing between the two buildings but sidewalk. In an effort to rejuvenate the area, the Los Angeles Music Center fountain was commissioned for the complex and would become a central artistic element in what has become a public art space. "Dance Door" is now one element in this space, an area which is dominated by the fountain and which also features outdoor tables on one end and cement planters with trees around the fountain. People access this space by coming up the steps from the street below the east side, entering from the automobile turnout at street level on the west side, or coming up by elevator or escalator from the multi-level underground parking garage below the complex. Once on the same level as the theaters, people walk free

Category: Arts - P