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Photography

Monday, February 11, 2008 – The Rice Bowl

The surreal can pop up at any time.  In this case it pops up as you're driving east on Wilshire Boulevard toward downtown Los Angeles. It's the finger that, as you sit at the light at Vermont, resolves into a detail of an abstracted rice bowl, as this is Koreatown.

It's the untitled 2007 mural by April Greiman on the northeast corner of Vermont and Wilshire, above the Metro Rail station, painted on two sides of a new and blocky neo-Bauhaus mixed-use complex by the architectural firm Arquitectonica. The complex is a dead, dark gray – the mural is 8,200 square feet of color. Greiman heads the Los Angeles-based design consultancy Made in Space, and she was one of those, in the mid-eighties, responsible for introducing the New Wave design aesthetic to the United States – the International style meets computer graphics. In 1986 she used Macintosh computers to create a noted issue of Design Quarterly, edited by Mildred Friedman and published by the Walker Art Center, entitled "Does it make sense?" Does it matter?  Greiman is a recipient of the American Institute of Graphic Arts Gold Medal for lifetime achievement – so there.

2007 mural by April Greiman on the northeast corner of Vermont and Wilshire, Los Angeles
2007 mural by April Greiman on the northeast corner of Vermont and Wilshire, Los Angeles
2007 mural by April Greiman on the northeast corner of Vermont and Wilshire, Los Angeles
021108_RBMural04
2007 mural by April Greiman on the northeast corner of Vermont and Wilshire, Los Angeles
2007 mural by April Greiman on the northeast corner of Vermont and Wilshire, Los Angeles
2007 mural by April Greiman on the northeast corner of Vermont and Wilshire, Los Angeles
2007 mural by April Greiman on the northeast corner of Vermont and Wilshire, Los Angeles

As a bit of contrast note this frieze, facing the abstract rice bowl, across the street at the Wilshire Galleria, formerly the I. Magnin Department Store – 1939, Myron Hunt and H. C. Chambers – 3240 Wilshire Boulevard. Times change – the stag and the three deer now leap above the Korean Consulate far below.  It's from when the world was more black-and-white.

Wilshire Galleria, formerly the I. Magnin Department Store – 1939 Myron Hunt and H. C. Chambers – 3240 Wilshire Boulevard - deer frieze

The colorful neighborhood –

Viking Korean Restaurant - Koreatown, Los Angeles
Viking Korean Restaurant - Koreatown, Los Angeles
Newstand - Koreatown, Los Angeles
Brick apartment building, southeast corner of Vermont and Wilshire, Los Angeles

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the "fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site.

Technical Note:

Most of these photographs were shot with a Nikon D70 - using lens (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto, or after 5 June 2006, (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor, 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. They were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  Earlier photography was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

[The Rice Bowl]

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik