BIRD OF WISDOM - 1969
Bird of Wisdom is a pale grey intaglio sculpture in a vertically oriented cast concrete wall. It depicts a stylized tree form with two owls perched on a top branch that appears to contain other, more ambiguous, animal forms. The owls look directly out at the viewer. The sculpted wall is offset from the structural wall behind it by what appears to be 6-10 inches. The sculpture was made for an interior courtyard that was also occupied by a small fountain and trees. The courtyard was visible from the Hoffman Motors BMW showroom. Tony Sheets assisted Van Sant with this artwork.
In 1970, the Hoffman Motors building was photographed by not one but two renowned architectural photographers, Maynard L. Parker and Julius Shulman.
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12541 Beatrice Street, Los Angeles, CA 90066
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1969
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William P. Ficker
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Cast concrete
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Approx. 20 ft. x 6 ft.
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Unknown
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Max Hoffman/Hoffman Motors Corporation.
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Unknown. The Hoffman Motors Building is currently owned and occupied by Gehry Partners. Meaghan Lloyd, the Chief of Staff and a Partner at Gehry Partners, has stated that Bird of Wisdom is not in the building and, although she does not know if it was present when Gehry Partners purchased the Beatrice Street property, believes it was not. [1]
[1] Author's email correspondence w. Teresa Lenihan, December 11, 2023.
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Julius Schulman, Job 4623: William Ficker, Hoffman Motors (Marina del Rey, Calif.), 1970. © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)
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It was re-modelled by Gehry Studios in 2004 to make creative office space. The building is currently owned by Gehry Partners, LLP.
Hoffman Motors was the North American importer and distributor for BMW. In March 2007, NYT automotive journalist Donald Osborne wrote that proprietor Max Hoffman (1904-1981) was "probably the man who did the most to bring foreign cars to the United States after World War II." He also "appreciated great architecture, commissioning a landmark auto showroom on Park Avenue — and soon after, a home in Rye, N.Y., by Frank Lloyd Wright... [and] was also a collector of Impressionist art."
Although he is best known as the 1970 winner of the America's Cup, William P. Ficker was a respected Newport Beach-based architect of the mid-century modern style who appears to have specialized in auto dealerships. In addition to Hoffman Motors, Ficker designed Dutton Motor Company at the Riverside Auto Center (1958), Clark Brothers Buick, Pomona (1964), Steffy Buick, Anaheim (1964), Rubidoux Motor Company, Riverside (1965), and Helgeson Buick, Riverside (1965), among others.
(Might the aura of fairy-tale illustration that surrounds this work be an oblique nod to German fantasy author E.T.A. Hoffman, he of Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman? While there is no way to tell for sure, this illustrative fantasy look is more apparent in this work than others by Van Sant, which tend to observed representations, especially when the subject is a bird.)
