Windshield Perspective

May 17, 2013 - July 9, 2013

Windshield Perspective focuses on a short yet dense stretch of Beverly Boulevard from Normandie to Virgil. The windshield is both a lens and a shield; a screen which acts much like a magnifying glass to clarify the view and as a scrim to obscure the sight. This drive along Beverly stands for hundreds, if not thousands, of daily journeys through the city’s landscape. The exhibit is about seeing and not seeing.

Typically, our way of seeing from behind the wheel is unconscious. Beverly Boulevard, in its apparent bleakness, is easily dismissed as “nowhere,” falling into the hole in our consciousness put there by the dominant notion that much (if not all) of Los Angeles is not a city at all. Roll up the windows, crank up the sounds, and drive.

But a choreographed drive, recreated within the Museum and accompanied by an immersive sound environment, reveals the very essence of the built city: messy, disorderly, impromptu, and vital. Windshield Perspective will provide a way of seeing and a sight to be seen. The windshield is converted from scrim to lens.

Windshield Perspective is part of Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. This collaboration, initiated by the Getty, brings together several local cultural institutions for a wide-ranging look at the postwar built environment of the city as a whole, from its famous residential architecture to its vast freeway network, revealing the city’s development and ongoing impact in new ways. Major support for Windshield Perspective has been provided by the Getty Foundation.