Boyd, an art lover visiting California the first time in years, reads with increasing concern a two-sided handout titled: The Future at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and waves the news at a museum employee. \u201cWhat\u2019s this? Almost half the galleries are closed and soon the others\u2019ll be shuttered, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tShe smiles and says, \u201cWe\u2019ll be keeping our two newest buildings open, the Resnick Pavilion and the Broad gallery. The rest is going to be demolished and replaced by the Zumthor building that\u2019ll present our art in unique and dynamic ways, and extend over Wilshire Boulevard to provide more creative space there, too.\u201d <\/p>\n
\t\u201cWhen\u2019s it gonna open?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIn five years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI may be dead by then.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI doubt that,\u201d she says. \u201cBesides, today you can have a special experience in the Broad gallery. Portraits by David Hockney are on the third floor and Iranian art on the second.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThanks,\u201d says Boyd, who steps to the exterior escalator lifting him almost high as Hollywood Hills to the north.<\/p>\n
\tIn a vast room partially divided by a display wall in the center, Boyd is overwhelmed by eighty-two people backed by various shades of blue. All sit in the same yellow chair in Hockney\u2019s hillside studio and are displayed on canvases four feet by three.<\/p>\n
\tBoyd studies every figure and most strike him as rigid and inscrutable but several connect. He first approaches conceptual artist John Baldessari. <\/p>\n
\t\u201cYour gray hair and beard and overall appearance remind me of John Huston,\u201d Boyd says.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI\u2019m delighted by the comparison. You remind me of John Q. Public.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThey want to play rough, okay. Boyd marches to Margaret Hockey and stares at the massive nose dominating her face. Glasses and gray hair frame the nose.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cDavid sure didn\u2019t romanticize you, did he?\u201d Boyd says. \u201cI expect you\u2019re his sister.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI couldn\u2019t very well be his wife, could I? I won\u2019t ask if you were one of David\u2019s boyfriends because he\u2019s a man of taste.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI assume you two are estranged, except when he needs you to sit three days for a portrait.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tMargaret Hockney huffs, and Boyd retreats to examine Barry Humphries.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cYou look like a Hollywood guy, lit up by pink pants, lighter pink socks the color of your face, a wide red tie polka-dotted white, a blue jacket, and rumpled hat. A hundred years ago you\u2019d have been a cigar-smoking newspaperman. What do you really do?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI act. I joke. I satirize. And you, sir, let me surmise, sell insurance in Des Moines.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tBoyd doesn\u2019t get too close to Larry Gagosian, who owns more art galleries than anyone, three in London, three in New York, one in Beverly Hills, two in Paris, another in Rome, and Geneva, and Hong Kong, and does lots of Go-Go private deals making millions. Boyd, who\u2019s a little portly, also admires trim and muscular Gagosian for working out when not navigating the world of art. <\/p>\n
\t\u201cYour right eye\u2019s looking straight at me but your left\u2019s aimed a little too far right. Is that you or just how David Hockney saw you those two days?\u201d<\/p>\n
\tBoyd pivots and walks away, wanting to avoid the Gagosian glare given poor Morley Safer of 60 Minutes who\u2019d made disparaging remarks about contemporary art and its price tags and then, like a bloody zebra, tried to interview the lion.<\/p>\n
\tOkay, who\u2019s this kid, Rufus Hale? He\u2019s a handsome blond lad who\u2019s barely pubescent but looks like he belongs in that red tie and white long-sleeve shirt enveloped by a gray vest.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cRufus, what\u2019s in that small lighter-gray notebook?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI periodically sketch the most amusing of visitors,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWould that include me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\tRufus Hale doesn\u2019t reply.<\/p>\n
\tCocky little rich kid who\u2019s never worked a day, Boyd concludes. Now he\u2019s going to talk to a real man, Frank Gehry, renowned architect who designed, among other iconic structures, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris. He\u2019s sitting forward in the yellow chair, his face large and eager.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWhat\u2019s your favorite among those you\u2019ve designed, Frank?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cCan\u2019t talk now. Got to go build things. David, I told you to hurry and finish this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tBoyd edges toward the one he\u2019s been saving for dessert, Chloe McHugh. Out of her short blue dress she pushes long blond legs into black shoes she may take off before she next envelops someone.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cChloe, this place closes in about an hour. Would you like to have dinner? Chloe?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t Peeling off a shoe Chloe fires a fastball and nails Boyd in back of his noggin as he hustles out of the galley. By interior elevator he descends to the second floor where he hopes to find peace among Iranian art combining antiquity with the present. Immediately, he\u2019s attracted to the inkjet prints of Siamak Filizadeh. <\/p>\n
\t\u201cWonderful work,\u201d Boyd says.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThank you,\u201d says a man behind Boyd, who turns, looking confused. \u201cI\u2019m Siamak Filizadeh. May I talk to you about my art?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI\u2019d be honored.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThis one is Execution: he looks like christ hanging from noose waiting to be immortalized by cell phone photos by hijabs this side and eager men on other<\/p>\n
\t\u201cHere we have Harem: strongman chokes white rabbit he caresses with bushy mustache standing in front of elegant building where women pose in windows waiting to serve<\/p>\n
\t\u201cNext is Shah and the Russian Ambassador: they\u2019re not really shah and russian ambassador but that\u2019s a big fish divided so iran gets tiny tail <\/p>\n
\t\u201cLet\u2019s look at Shah and British Ambassador: red coat choke chains shah who\u2019s not happy even in sexy black hose ambassador may lash with whip<\/p>\n
\t\u201cOver here is Rostam II returns at age of 30 having been brought up abroad: being iran\u2019s greatest hero now requires him to carry grenade launcher and knife.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThis is Assassination: poison pistols fell dying leader as angels black and white hover<\/p>\n
\t\u201cUltimately, we have Vigor: bemedaled officer readies gold machinegun for war\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI hope our two countries can work out their differences,\u201d Boyd says.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI\u2019m afraid I\u2019m not optimistic.\u201d<\/p>\n