Gettys, New-Old and Old-New

Boy, time gets away from you, or from me. Used to be I was in and out of LA every month or two (and come to think of it, I lived there fore two years). Back again this weekend, I realized it must have been in the last millennium.

We went to see the old Getty Museum--"The Gettty Center," formerly known as the new Getty, and the new Getty--"the Villa," formerly the old. I had seen the Villa just once, perhaps a quarter century ago and I remember thinking it a bit of a disappointment—drop-dead beautiful location, but not a lot of stuff on display. I hadn’t seen the Getty Center at all.

We didn’t have time to do either of them justice and I won’t pretend to do so here. Just a few loose thoughts.

On the Getty Center. in the hills by Brentwood: no question, this crowd does understand location—a stunning testimonial to what you can do with the help of God and a ton of money. The architecture is a bit puzzling, though: I defy anyone to remember what this building looks like when they aren’t looking at it. This may be a Good Thing: it may mean merely that the architect so wedded his building to the site that you can’t tell the two apart. I think the experience inside may support this notion. Well: all the way inside, you are in a gallery, just like any other. But the patios and piazzas, the stairwells and breezeways are cheerful, reassuring and pleasant to be in (or at least they were in sunshine and 70 degrees).

The collection—we did no more than a quick trot through the Europeans. And what struck me here is that there are some things not even Getty money can buy. They’ve got some big names: some Rembrandts, a recognizable Masaccio, an untypical Franz Hals. But an awful lot of this stuff from what Hollywood would call B-list celebrities—“Hi! I’m Dorso Dossi! You’ll remember me from such hits as…” No matter how you slice it, Getty has not been able to undercut the great first movers like the Uffizi, the Louvre, even the Met. Seems to me there are two possible inferences here:

• If you really want to get a handle on European Art, you don’t want to spend much time here until you’ve pretty well canvassed the big ones; otherwise you’ll get an eccentric and distorted picture; or
• The whole narrative has to be trashcanned and rewritten.

Of course I lean to the first view, but I am hospitable to the second.

Oh, and did I mention the food? There’s an old rule that a restaurant can give you good food, and cheap and a view, but not all three at the same time. The Getty does give you all three at the same time: lunch for three of us, including two glasses of wine, came in at just over $100 pre-tip, and I wish I could remember the name of that pinot.

As to the Villa in Malibu—the one that disappointed me so many years ago—I don’t whether they’ve changed or I have (well: in fact I know that we both have). But either way, I must say I take it back, or mostly. I’m still more than a little skeptical whether you can ever meaningfully “recreate” an ancient Neaopolitan villa, but the space is a delight to be in, and the collection is first class—not huge, but a fine representative selection of top-quality stuff, fun to look at and potentially interesting to study. Including of course, what may be one of art history’s all time greatest fakes.

Update: a couple of the Friends of Buce point out that it's not just money that finds its limit in the Getty's upgrade search; apparently grand theft doesn't work either.