CBS tours Cedars-Sinai’s unexpected collection of modern art

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Los Angeles has plenty of artistic fare to choose from, but one of the surprising parts of this metropolis is just where the art might be hanging.

On a Sunday morning CBS broadcast, news correspondent Bill Whitaker takes a tour through the 1,000 pieces of modern art on display at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

The hospital is the unexpected home to one of L.A.’s most extensive contemporary art collections featuring work by such notable names as Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol.

“We’re trying to create an environment conducive to healing,” John T. Lange, curator of the collection, tells Whitaker. “So all of the work that’s on the walls is for the patients, for the visitors, for the staff. The idea is to give them a pleasant distraction, to uplift their spirit.”

The report also features doctors and patients discussing the ways artworks can complement the healing process.

Emily Talmantes, who suffers from Addison’s disease, says she finds comfort in photographs of President Kennedy, who suffered from the same illness. “I imagine what he’s thinking, by just his expressions,” she tells Whitaker. “And that completely took me out of all of this for that moment. And that, to me, is a process of healing.”

The full interview airs at 7 a.m. Sunday on “CBS Sunday Morning With Charles Osgood.”

ALSO:

Val Kilmer wants to make his Mark (Twain)

Mexico’s guns-as-art exhibition is heading to the U.S.

Injured stuntman takes legal action against Broadway’s ‘Spider-Man’

-- Jamie Wetherbe