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It has also provided an emotional lifeline. He’d never taken a sick day from art, he said.īarcelona’s admittedly obsessive routine has not only kept him mentally engaged and physically fit, he said, but it has provided him an “out-of-the-house living room,” an escape from the cramped Koreatown apartment he shares with two roommates. On national holidays when museums are closed, he visited public artworks. On Saturdays he made the rounds at “museum quality” galleries on Sundays, he visited the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, a building he considers an artwork unto itself. MOCA on Mondays, the Broad on Tuesdays, the Hammer on Wednesdays, LACMA on Thursdays, the Getty on Fridays. The doors are gonna open in a minute!” Los Angeles’ most devoted museum-goer announced, his sense of urgency transparent.įor eight years the retired architect, who immigrated to Los Angeles from the Philippines in 1969, had been visiting a different art museum, gallery or public art installation every day of the week, rarely, if ever, deviating from his routine. He rushed past a bustling coffee cart, stopping at the Broad Contemporary Art Museum building, where he hovered by its locked doors.īarcelona checked the time on his cellphone, the back of which revealed a virtual portal into his life: layers of colorful museum membership stickers - the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Hammer Museum, LACMA, he belongs to them all.
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In a striped Oxford, jeans and running sneakers, a floral tote slung over his shoulder, Barcelona cut through the crowd playfully snapping selfies at the museum’s “Urban Light” installation. It was a Thursday and Barcelona is always one of the first visitors to step inside on Thursdays. The buildings on LACMA’s campus were about to open, and 80-year-old Ben Barcelona was at the ready. Last July, on a brilliantly sunny morning, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s outdoor plaza was teeming with visitors.