Michael McMillen has described Central Meridian (The Garage) as a “walk-in assemblage.” The artist originally created this highly theatrical simulation of a garage for the 1981 LACMA exhibition The Museum as Site: Sixteen Projects. As McMillen described, “Central Meridian evokes the experience of wandering into our neighbor’s garage on a summer evening. An old radio broadcast mixes with the distant sound of crickets. We are twelve years old and filled with curiosity and wonder at the fascinating collection of mid-twentieth- century objects and organized detritus. The owner of the garage is not present but the amalgam of objects conjures a portrait of someone we never see. Questions abound as our eyes scan the walls, cabinets, and every surface of this repository of history.” Like clues in a mystery, the contents of the garage hint at the nature of an imaginary individual whose belongings of a lifetime are stored within.

Wall label, 2021.

• Barron, Stephanie. The Museum as Site:  Sixteen Projects. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1981.

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• Gamblin, Noriko, et. al.  Flintridge Foundation Awards for Visual Artists, 1999/2000.  Pasadena, CA: The Flintridge Foundation, 2000.

• Barron, Stephanie, S. Bernstein and I. S. Fort, with essays by Stephanie Barron, Sherri Bernstein, M. Dear, Howard N. Fox and Richard Rodriguez.  Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000.  Los Angeles:  Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Berkeley:  University of California Press, Berkeley, 2000.

  View this publication in LACMA's Reading Room