The Huntington Gets Hip
“Made in L.A.” represents an effort by the Huntington to expand its contemporary art programming and present more artists of color.
Monica Majoli’s installation for the Huntington Art Museum’s “Made in L.A. 2020: a version.” Her series “Study for Blueboy,” named after an early gay magazine, focuses on centerfolds from 1976 to 1979, the halcyon years of gay liberation.Credit.The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens; Joshua White
April 20, 2021Updated 1:49 p.m. ET
SAN MARINO, Calif. The juxtaposition is striking. In one gallery, Thomas Gainsborough’s classic 18th-century oil painting, “The Blue Boy,” gazes out from the ornate walls, having just undergone an extensive restoration. In another gallery, an installation by the Los Angeles artist Monica Majoli explores Blueboy magazine, one of the earliest gay publications in the U.S., through sultry images of scantily dressed young men.
Featured in In the Chilling Shadows of a Biennial Yet to Be Seen
‘Made in L.A. 2020: a version’, slated to open in 2021, exposes the horrors of American life pre-pandemic
Before entering the long-delayed (and now revised) ‘Made in L.A. 2020: a version’, I pitied its poor curators, whose exhibition has been kyboshed by a succession of lockdowns. Originally scheduled to open in June, the biennial – split this year between the Hammer Museum and the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in San Marino – has lain partly dormant, partly unfinished. With (almost) all works installed, museum leaders allowed in a few members of the press, who, they hoped, might grant ‘Made in L.A. 2020’ a little exposure to daylight. (The biennial is currently expected to open to the public next year.)