I visited the Long Beach Museum of Art this past Saturday, and I did not expect to see the entire museum full of video installations. Unfortunately, I only had my camera phone video which really doesn't do all that well with video, so I can not show you the amazing things that I experienced. I sat in dark rooms and walked past walls full of video screens and enjoyed some very bizarre stuff, but some moving stuff as well. The one that most got to me was a 25 min. video (probably the longest one currently being exhibited) in a small dark room entitled "Kiyoke's Situation". Kiyoke is shown to be struggling with wanting to be an artist and dealing with the voices and faces in her mind of her overly conservative parents who are so steeped in their old fashioned culture and opinions of what 'should' Kiyoke be doing as a traditional Japanese wife and mother, and how she should live her life. A lot of emotional abuse from both parents and husband and how critical they all are of her. She is shown trying to speak her mind and just getting more and more depressed and going crazy until at the end, the viewer see's a bottle explode, and Kiyoke taking her own life. It is a very emotional video, and not for minors. Like all art, video is a very powerful art form when used in creative ways, and out of all that I had seen at the museum, Kiyoke's Situation, 1989, is by far the most moving one there. The whole museum and everything now there can be seen in one to one half hour. It was a beautiful day, and it really is a great location to take in some art and see the ocean and all the activity that goes on there on the weekend. I highly recommend you take your student I.D. and for six dollars, enjoy the scenery. Thursday nights are free.
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