Culture Monster
All the Arts, All the Time
« Previous Post | Culture Monster Home | Next Post »
MOCA logo goes back to the future [Update]
An e-press release from the Museum of Contemporary Art dropped into my inbox this morning, featuring something I don't recall seeing for a while -- the museum logo created nearly 30 years ago, when MOCA was being launched.
A sort of post-Bauhaus/neo-Minimalist affair, the logo features a blue square for M, a green circle for O, a small letter "c" and a red triangle for A. Red/green/blue are the primary colors of the light spectrum, rather than the pigment primaries of red/yellow/blue. In the 1980s, MOCA's particular choice of primaries may have signaled a contemporary association with the age of light and space and video art rather than the older, Mondrian-and-Modernism-era colors. [Update @ 12:28 pm: A MOCA spokesman says the revived logo, originally designed by Ivan Chermayeff, is a work-in-progress that may undergo additional alterations. Keep an eye out.]
Whatever the case, the press release was announcing details of the first exhibition presented under the auspices of MOCA's incoming director, Jeffrey Deitch. "Dennis Hopper Double Standard" will feature about 200 photographs, paintings, collages and other works made by the actor over the past 60 years, selected by guest curator Julian Schnabel. It opens July 11 at the Geffen Contemporary.
-- Christopher Knight (follow me on Twitter @KnightLAT)
Credit: Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles