It’s stood at the top of Los Angeles’ Mount Lee for over 87 years, looking down at the city of angels and unemployed acting coaches below, so who can blame the iconic Hollywood Sign for wanting to stretch its legs and take a little tour of the town that shares its name. As you can see, the letters have broken up into smaller groupings. “WOOL” is enjoying the L.A.’s downtown, “DOLL” has taken up a position almost directly across the valley from its old perch, and “OWL” is sunning itself on the shore—all finally untethered from over three generations of the same, old view. Ok, maybe that’s not exactly the truth.
Yeah, couldn’t fool you—the Hollywood sign still rests in its entirety on its familiar, old stoop. Rather, the cut up “D”s and “L”s have been liberated thanks to an ongoing public art project called “HLYWD” created by visual wizards Jeffrey Inaba and Darien Williams for the upcoming “UNPLANNED” exhibition at L.A.’s Pacific Design Center in conjunction with the experimental architecture non-for-profit SUPERFRONT LA. While a host of artists and architects have taken on the challenge of conceptually or visually rearranging or reformating Los Angeles, none of the excellent submissions really captures the imagination quite like “HLYWD” which manages to simultaneously create new images (and words for that matter) out of a tired, old image, and yet reinvest the original with new personality and life. If you want to delve a little deeper, the exhibition bows at PDC tonight with a gala reception. If you want to visit the ol’ Hollywood Sign in its natural habitat… well… it ain’t going anywhere soon.
UNPLANNED: Research and Experiments at the Urban Scale
March 25 to July 2, 2010
Pacific Design Center
8687 Melrose Avenue
West Hollywood, California, U.S.A.
(310) 289-5223
www.pacificdesigncenter.com
The Hollywood Sign
Mount Lee
Griffith Park
Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
(323) 960-1360
www.hollywoodsign.org
Tagged with: California darien williams Film + Travel hollywood jeffery inaba los angeles movies public art unplanned