Personally I can\u2019t tell you yet what 62 is like. As I write this on Friday, I\u2019m still a youthful 61.<\/p>\n
Monumental art<\/p>\n
Before doing some traveling, I saw exhibitions at two art museums in downtown Los Angeles. The shows had been on my mental list for weeks, awaiting some free time. With free time in hand, I saw them on successive days due to discounts.<\/p>\n
The exhibits couldn\u2019t have been more different.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IDB-L-ALLEN-COL-0315-2.jpg\")
A stack of oversized ceramic plates and a dark cloud composed of tangled phone cords are among the sly artworks by Robert Therrien at The Broad. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin\/SCNG)<\/p>\n
At The Broad is \u201cThis is a Story,\u201d<\/a> a retrospective of sculptures and paintings by Robert Therrien, many of them whimsical. He\u2019s best known for the giant dinette set that\u2019s part of the museum\u2019s permanent collection, a favorite of patrons. It\u2019s so big you can walk under it.<\/p>\n Among the delightful pieces in \u201cThis is a Story\u201d are a person-sized stack of ceramic dinner plates, a \u201ccloset\u201d filled with giant pots and pans and, high on a wall, a dark \u201ccloud\u201d composed of tangled telephone cords.<\/p>\n A new favorite is an oversized card table and folding chairs, all enormous, all functional.\u00a0A docent volunteered to take my photo. I stood under the table, arms raised. It\u2019s like being a small child again, where everything is much bigger than you.<\/p>\n I was there because it was the first Thursday of the month, when admission to The Broad\u2019s ticketed exhibitions is free. The Therrien show (normally $19) is on view through April 5. To get there I took Metrolink to Union Station and the A Line to the Bunker Hill stop.<\/p>\n Following the first Thursday of the month was, inevitably, the first Friday of the month. That\u2019s when admission to the Museum of Contemporary Art\u2019s ticketed exhibitions is likewise free.<\/p>\n I went to the Geffen Contemporary to see \u201cMonuments\u201d (normally $18), taking Metrolink to Union Station and the A Line to the Little Tokyo stop.<\/p>\n \u201cMonuments\u201d is a thought-provoking show about the Confederate memorials installed in public settings in the decades after the Civil War. Many depict pro-slavery military figures on horseback or otherwise exalt White supremacists via heroic poses and benign inscriptions.<\/p>\n While some 200 Confederate memorials have been removed from public view in the past decade, especially if they were defaced or broken during protests, more than 700 remain in place, mostly in the South. History\u2019s losers have rarely had it so good.<\/p>\n Nearly a dozen decommissioned pieces are part of the exhibit.\u00a0Combined with the incisive wall text, they\u2019ll make you think about who we decide to honor in public spaces (in this case, traitors to America) and why (well-funded donor organizations, lazy thinking, racism).<\/p>\n A short film tells us the United States has more monuments to Robert E. Lee than to Ulysses S. Grant, who was not only on the Civil War\u2019s winning side but later was our 18th president.<\/p>\n Further context and reflection comes from new art by Black artists in the same galleries. A shoutout here to filmmaker and multimedia artist Cauleen Smith<\/a>, a Riverside native who now lives in L.A.<\/p>\n \u201cMonuments\u201d is in place through May 3. It\u2019s worth paying to see.<\/p>\n A \u2018Golden\u2019 evening<\/p>\n In Claremont, an event Feb. 28 celebrated the publication of \u201cWriting the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California,\u201d an anthology published by Angel City Press. As co-editor Romeo Guzman is a professor at Claremont Graduate University, the expansive backyard of the university president\u2019s home was the party site.<\/p>\n This happened to be a short walk from the accessory dwelling unit I call home, so it was a treat to attend. I lived closer than anyone present.<\/p>\n Three of the contributors spoke, among them Susan Straight<\/a>, the Riverside writer who wrote the anthology\u2019s foreword.\u00a0She read a passage from her latest novel, \u201cSacrament,\u201d<\/a> involving a funeral procession up San Bernardino\u2019s Arrowhead Avenue to Pioneer Cemetery.<\/p>\n \u201cHow many people here are from San Bernardino?\u201d Straight asked the audience, many of whom were Claremont Colleges students. A bunch of them shouted in affirmation.<\/p>\n To sum up, Riverside and San Bernardino were both represented. And to get this item, I didn\u2019t have to leave my own neighborhood.\u00a0Nice of the IE to come to me for a change!<\/p>\n brIEfly<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IDB-L-ALLEN-COL-0315-3.jpg\")
A monument to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson that stood in Baltimore until 2017 is in the same gallery of the Geffen Contemporary as a modern response. \u201cA Suspension of Hostilities,\u201d by Hank Willis Thomas, highlights the Confederate iconography of the 1980s TV hit \u201cThe Dukes of Hazzard.\u201d (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin\/SCNG)<\/p>\n