Posts Tagged ‘FIRE’

A funny thing happened on my way to see the new Paul Outerbridge photography exhibit at the J. Paul Getty Museum today: there was an enormous fire.

At first it wasn’t enormous.  I was standing in line to board the tram that takes visitors from the parking area to the actual museum (a clumsy mode of transportation, but I’ll get to that later), when I noticed a few people taking pictures of the nearby mountain with their digital cameras and camera-phones.  As my purpose for being there involved reviewing a photographer who got his start in photo-documentation, I looked over to see what they were documenting, and was stunned to see smoke rising up from the trees not a mile away.  Soon the smoke turned into glossy, psychedelic flames; the kind you see in a bad movie villain’s sunglasses.  Still, no one seemed worried.  In fact, a children’s camp on a field trip stood in line with me, all waiting to hop on the same tram that would presumably take us to a safe haven of art and security located in the opposite direction of the fire.

The tram arrived at the parking area without a hitch and shuttled us up and away toward our destination as if nothing bad was happening.  And it was this same feeling of casual circumstance that pervaded the entire atmosphere of the museum when we got there: tour guides leading guests around the exhibits whilst a massive fire raged in the background; camps of children playing ‘Simon Says,’ as if that were enough distraction from the mushroom cloud of smoke rising rapidly toward the sky; people actually sitting and eating food at the café, more involved with their lattes and small-talk than the surreal scene of destruction behind them.

All in all, the fire was basically treated as just another exhibit, albeit a popular one.  A thick crowd of spectators, including myself, utilized the balcony of the café to get a good view of the ensuing disaster.  And it was only when I was standing in front of this massive creation of God/nature that the frail fortress of the Getty, like the circling helicopters above, started to seem tiny and fragile.  The thought occurred to me how easily it could all be destroyed.

Maybe the scariest part of the fire (and also the most beautiful) was the tower of brown smoke that billowed permanently into the blue sky, as if the mountain were constantly exhaling from a toxic cigar.  It was hard, frankly, not to see it as a kind of warning sign and it was directed right at the Getty.  “If I can destroy this,” the sepia-toned cloud seemed to say, “I can destroy you.”

It was about this point in time we were evacuated by the same museum staffers that typically tell you not to bring a drink into an exhibit.  They earned their pay today.  They managed to keep the guests calm, cool, and collected even as the smoke cloud loomed closer and combined with the already hot summer sun.  They handed out complimentary waters and umbrellas while guests watched the tram struggle with repeated technical difficulties.  A man in line behind me checked his iPhone to see if there was any news about the fire.  The first thing that came up was an overhead picture of us.  We were the main story… just as the fire itself was the main exhibit and an extraordinary one at that. 

In other news, the Paul Outerbridge exhibit is on view at the Getty until August 9.  The museum is closed due to the fire until further notice.