- Title
- Central Meridian (The Garage) [Original Components]
- Curatorial Notes
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.
Exhibition wall label, 2021.
- Selected Bibliography
- Gamblin, Noriko, et. al. Flintridge Foundation Awards for Visual Artists, 1999/2000. Pasadena, CA: The Flintridge Foundation, 2000.
Barron, Stephanie. The Museum as Site: Sixteen Projects. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1981.
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.