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50 Hilarious Jokes From The Funniest Comedians Ever

50 Hilarious Jokes From The Funniest Comedians Ever

Buzz Feed11 hours ago

'I once walked in on my parents having sex. It was the most embarrassing 30 minutes of my life.'
—Norm Macdonald
'An escalator can never break — it can only become stairs. You should never see 'Escalator temporarily out of order,' just 'Escalator temporarily stairs.''
—Mitch Hedberg
'I hate when women compare men to dogs. Men are not dogs. Dogs are loyal. I've never found any strange panties in my dog's house.'
—Wanda Sykes
'I was going to sail around the globe in the world's smallest ship, but I bottled it.'
—Mark Simmons
"I don't think we're as amazing as our parents are… I'm not going to have any struggles to tell my kids about. What's my story going to be like? 'Ah, son, once, when I was flying from New York to LA, my iPad died!'"
—Aziz Ansari
'A doctor gave his patient six months to live…but he couldn't pay his bill, so he gave him another six months.'
—Henny Youngman
"Asian women, we live forever. And you know why we're such bad drivers? Because we're trying to die. We're like, 'Yeah! Let me see how invincible I really am!''
—Ali Wong
'My girlfriend makes me want to be a better person — so I can get a better girlfriend.'
—Anthony Jeselnik
"I hate weddings...they're needy and arrogant. They go, 'Oh, we're getting married. Do you wanna come and watch us for 12 hours?' 'No. Fuck, no.' Even the invite is arrogant, isn't it? It's like a royal decree. 'You are cordially invited…' It's not a fucking honor. I don't wanna go to your shitty wedding. Know what I mean? And then you go, 'Oh, right, yeah. When is it?' They go, 'Two years' time.' They know you haven't got an excuse for two years' time."
—Ricky Gervais
'My sister was with two men in one night…she could hardly walk after that. Can you imagine? Two dinners? That's a lot of food.'
—Sarah Silverman
'I used to think the brain was the most fascinating part of the body. Then I realized, well…look what's telling me that.'
—Emo Philips
"If it's a penny for your thoughts and you put in your two cents worth, then someone, somewhere is making a penny."
Also: 'I spilled spot remover on my dog, and now he's gone.'—Steven Wright
'I once wore a peekaboo blouse. People would peek and then boo.'
—Phyllis Diller
"I can't listen to any new songs. Because every new song is about how tonight is the night and we only have tonight. That is such 19-year-old horseshit. I want to write songs for people in their 30s called 'Tonight's no good. How about Wednesday? Oh, you're in Dallas Wednesday? Let's not see each other for eight months and it doesn't matter at all.'"
—John Mulaney
'I travel a lot. TSA looks at my name, and suddenly I'm the most interesting man in the world. 'Mr. Mohammed…please step this way.''
—Mo Amer
Said to her boyfriend: 'Do you know how easy it would be for me to cheat on you? Do you know how many holes I have in me? I take this slice of Swiss cheese around the block — it's over for you, dude.'
—Taylor Tomlinson
'Here's all you have to know about men and women: Women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.'
—George Carlin
'You know, some people say life is short and that you could get hit by a bus at any moment and that you have to live each day like it's your last. Bullshit. Life is long. You're probably not gonna get hit by a bus, and you're gonna have to live with the choices you make for the next 50 years.'
—Chris Rock
'The first birthday party you have and the last birthday party you have are actually quite similar. You just kind of sit there. You're the least excited person at the party. You didn't even really realize that there is a party. Both birthday parties' people have to help you blow out the candles. It's also the only two birthday parties where other people have to gather your friends together for you.'
—Jerry Seinfeld
'I want a woman…with original factory settings.'
—Gabriel Iglesias
On accidentally setting himself on fire: 'Fire is inspirational. They should use it in the Olympics, 'cause I did the 100-yard dash in 4.3. You know something I found out? When you're on fire and running down the street, people will get out of your way. Except for one old drunk, he's going, 'Can I get a light? How about it? Just a little off the sleeve. Okay?''
—Richard Pryor
'I was diagnosed as an ugly child at the age of 11 by a caricature artist at a Six Flags, and I didn't know until then. I really didn't, and then he turned that canvas around and my dad was like, 'Oh my God, it's uncanny.' My whole family's like, 'Whoa, Nik, it's you!' 'I'm like, 'Really? Okay, I didn't know I had buck teeth and bushy eyebrows, a Founding Father haircut and a tiny bicycle.' But then I knew.'
—Nikki Glaser
'Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?'
—Robin Williams
"It's amazing how email has changed our lives. You ever get a handwritten letter in the mail today? 'What the? Has someone been kidnapped?'"
—Jim Gaffigan
"I'm paranoid about everything in my life. Even at home on my stationary bike, I've got a rearview mirror."
—Richard Lewis
'I love being married. It's great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.'
—Rita Rudner
'I don't get no respect — when I was born, I was so ugly…the doctor slapped my mother!'
—Rodney Dangerfield
"I am scared of the tuxedo. I'll explain. When you're a white man and you put on a tux, you go from average Joe to James Bond, secret agent. You look cool. When you're a Black man, you go from average Joe to Barack Obama. Presidential. When you're a Latino male, you go from average Jose to waiter."
—Erik Rivera
"The first time I see a jogger smiling, I'll consider it."
—Joan Rivers
'If you smell burning toast, you're either having a stroke…or just overcooking your toast.'
—Bo Burnham
'Throwing acid is wrong...in some people's eyes.'
—Jimmy Carr
'I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark.'
—Dick Gregory
'If you could go anywhere in the world… I said, 'Anywhere?' He said 'Anywhere.' I'm like, 'To the other side of the room. Now please get out of the way of a woman and her dream.''
—Tig Notaro
"So my wife said she read this article in a magazine and she said: 'You know, maybe you're suffering from premature ejaculation.' Yeah, does it look like I'm suffering? Those aren't tears on your belly."
—Robert Schimmel
'All men make mistakes, but married men find out about them sooner.'
—Red Skelton
'I used to play sports. Then I realized you can buy trophies. Now I'm good at everything.'
—Demetri Martin
'I have enough money to last me the rest of my life…unless I buy something.'
—Milton Berle
'I'm in therapy, which is weird because I'm Midwestern. I should be burying this pain in my backyard with a pie.'
—Jackie Kashian
'I just joined a gym. I don't work out there, I just joined it. It's nice to have something to cancel.'
—Todd Barry
'I get into arguments with taxi drivers all the time. I get out of the cab and slam the door, but that's not the way to win an argument with a taxi driver. The way to win is you get out of the cab and leave the door open. Then he has to get out, come around and close the door. While he's doing that, I'm on the other side, opening the other doors. And we just keep going around and around and around. And I got my own Benny Hill situation going on, and I won.'
—Hannibal Buress
On birthdays during his childhood: 'When I was 10 there wasn't trampolines and cartoon characters, I never went to Chuck E. Cheese! My mom said, 'You wanna see a mouse, pull the refrigerator out!'"
—George Lopez
'I was sitting in my apartment playing my favorite apartment game: Find the smell. Luckily, it was me.'
—Dave Attell
'Alcohol: Because no great story ever started with someone eating a salad.'
—Dylan Moran
"If you go to a Black history museum and you got a Black tour guide, you need to go in the morning while he's still in a good mood... You gotta catch him at 9:00 a.m. He just finished that McGriddle. 'How y'all doing? My name is Charles, it's my pleasure to take you on this journey. Look at these exhibits right here. Black history is American history. Come look at the exhibits.' You think that brother gonna be in a good mood at 4:30? He been staring at slavery all day. That dude liable to cuss out everybody. 'Look at this shit! Come look what you done to us! Look what you — get your ass out my museum, motherfucker!' You go to the gift shop, it's just people crying."
—Roy Wood Jr.
"I'm a procrastinator, man. It's really bad. It's a problem, you know? I'm worried eventually my bucket list is just gonna be a bunch of errands I haven't run yet. How sad would that be if my doctor was like, 'You got a few months left to live,' and I'm like, 'Dang, I got to hurry up and frame these photos.'"
—Sheng Wang
'A lot of Americans are suffering from depression younger and younger — our children are seeing the sippy cup as half-empty."
—Maria Bamford
"Asian parents are the last group of people you can ever convince to see a doctor... Nothing can make my mom see a doctor. My mom could have an arrow going right through her pants and she's trying to pull it out like Rambo, right? And you're like, 'Yo, Mom, let's go see a doctor.' And my mom will be like, 'No. They just want to take people's money.''
—Ronny Chieng
"I'm not a big supporter of small businesses. I'm more of a big business kind of guy. I like businesses so big there's another business inside of them, like a Target with a Starbucks in it. But the real reason I don't support small businesses is because I have irritable bowel syndrome…you have to use their bathroom, but these stone-cold killers will look you in the eyes and say no to you even after you say, 'What if I buy one of your stupid candles?''
—Chris Estrada
On relationships with immigrant fathers: 'You'd be like, 'Dad, what's your favorite color?' 'Stanford!' 'What? I want to know more about you.' 'Why do you want to know about me? Get into Stanford!'"
—Hasan Minhaj
'If you can see the handwriting on the wall…you're on the toilet.'
—Redd Foxx

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50 Hilarious Jokes From The Funniest Comedians Ever
50 Hilarious Jokes From The Funniest Comedians Ever

Buzz Feed

time11 hours ago

  • Buzz Feed

50 Hilarious Jokes From The Funniest Comedians Ever

'I once walked in on my parents having sex. It was the most embarrassing 30 minutes of my life.' —Norm Macdonald 'An escalator can never break — it can only become stairs. You should never see 'Escalator temporarily out of order,' just 'Escalator temporarily stairs.'' —Mitch Hedberg 'I hate when women compare men to dogs. Men are not dogs. Dogs are loyal. I've never found any strange panties in my dog's house.' —Wanda Sykes 'I was going to sail around the globe in the world's smallest ship, but I bottled it.' —Mark Simmons "I don't think we're as amazing as our parents are… I'm not going to have any struggles to tell my kids about. What's my story going to be like? 'Ah, son, once, when I was flying from New York to LA, my iPad died!'" —Aziz Ansari 'A doctor gave his patient six months to live…but he couldn't pay his bill, so he gave him another six months.' —Henny Youngman "Asian women, we live forever. And you know why we're such bad drivers? Because we're trying to die. We're like, 'Yeah! Let me see how invincible I really am!'' —Ali Wong 'My girlfriend makes me want to be a better person — so I can get a better girlfriend.' —Anthony Jeselnik "I hate needy and arrogant. They go, 'Oh, we're getting married. Do you wanna come and watch us for 12 hours?' 'No. Fuck, no.' Even the invite is arrogant, isn't it? It's like a royal decree. 'You are cordially invited…' It's not a fucking honor. I don't wanna go to your shitty wedding. Know what I mean? And then you go, 'Oh, right, yeah. When is it?' They go, 'Two years' time.' They know you haven't got an excuse for two years' time." —Ricky Gervais 'My sister was with two men in one night…she could hardly walk after that. Can you imagine? Two dinners? That's a lot of food.' —Sarah Silverman 'I used to think the brain was the most fascinating part of the body. Then I realized, well…look what's telling me that.' —Emo Philips "If it's a penny for your thoughts and you put in your two cents worth, then someone, somewhere is making a penny." Also: 'I spilled spot remover on my dog, and now he's gone.'—Steven Wright 'I once wore a peekaboo blouse. People would peek and then boo.' —Phyllis Diller "I can't listen to any new songs. Because every new song is about how tonight is the night and we only have tonight. That is such 19-year-old horseshit. I want to write songs for people in their 30s called 'Tonight's no good. How about Wednesday? Oh, you're in Dallas Wednesday? Let's not see each other for eight months and it doesn't matter at all.'" —John Mulaney 'I travel a lot. TSA looks at my name, and suddenly I'm the most interesting man in the world. 'Mr. Mohammed…please step this way.'' —Mo Amer Said to her boyfriend: 'Do you know how easy it would be for me to cheat on you? Do you know how many holes I have in me? I take this slice of Swiss cheese around the block — it's over for you, dude.' —Taylor Tomlinson 'Here's all you have to know about men and women: Women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.' —George Carlin 'You know, some people say life is short and that you could get hit by a bus at any moment and that you have to live each day like it's your last. Bullshit. Life is long. You're probably not gonna get hit by a bus, and you're gonna have to live with the choices you make for the next 50 years.' —Chris Rock 'The first birthday party you have and the last birthday party you have are actually quite similar. You just kind of sit there. You're the least excited person at the party. You didn't even really realize that there is a party. Both birthday parties' people have to help you blow out the candles. It's also the only two birthday parties where other people have to gather your friends together for you.' —Jerry Seinfeld 'I want a woman…with original factory settings.' —Gabriel Iglesias On accidentally setting himself on fire: 'Fire is inspirational. They should use it in the Olympics, 'cause I did the 100-yard dash in 4.3. You know something I found out? When you're on fire and running down the street, people will get out of your way. Except for one old drunk, he's going, 'Can I get a light? How about it? Just a little off the sleeve. Okay?'' —Richard Pryor 'I was diagnosed as an ugly child at the age of 11 by a caricature artist at a Six Flags, and I didn't know until then. I really didn't, and then he turned that canvas around and my dad was like, 'Oh my God, it's uncanny.' My whole family's like, 'Whoa, Nik, it's you!' 'I'm like, 'Really? Okay, I didn't know I had buck teeth and bushy eyebrows, a Founding Father haircut and a tiny bicycle.' But then I knew.' —Nikki Glaser 'Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?' —Robin Williams "It's amazing how email has changed our lives. You ever get a handwritten letter in the mail today? 'What the? Has someone been kidnapped?'" —Jim Gaffigan "I'm paranoid about everything in my life. Even at home on my stationary bike, I've got a rearview mirror." —Richard Lewis 'I love being married. It's great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.' —Rita Rudner 'I don't get no respect — when I was born, I was so ugly…the doctor slapped my mother!' —Rodney Dangerfield "I am scared of the tuxedo. I'll explain. When you're a white man and you put on a tux, you go from average Joe to James Bond, secret agent. You look cool. When you're a Black man, you go from average Joe to Barack Obama. Presidential. When you're a Latino male, you go from average Jose to waiter." —Erik Rivera "The first time I see a jogger smiling, I'll consider it." —Joan Rivers 'If you smell burning toast, you're either having a stroke…or just overcooking your toast.' —Bo Burnham 'Throwing acid is some people's eyes.' —Jimmy Carr 'I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark.' —Dick Gregory 'If you could go anywhere in the world… I said, 'Anywhere?' He said 'Anywhere.' I'm like, 'To the other side of the room. Now please get out of the way of a woman and her dream.'' —Tig Notaro "So my wife said she read this article in a magazine and she said: 'You know, maybe you're suffering from premature ejaculation.' Yeah, does it look like I'm suffering? Those aren't tears on your belly." —Robert Schimmel 'All men make mistakes, but married men find out about them sooner.' —Red Skelton 'I used to play sports. Then I realized you can buy trophies. Now I'm good at everything.' —Demetri Martin 'I have enough money to last me the rest of my life…unless I buy something.' —Milton Berle 'I'm in therapy, which is weird because I'm Midwestern. I should be burying this pain in my backyard with a pie.' —Jackie Kashian 'I just joined a gym. I don't work out there, I just joined it. It's nice to have something to cancel.' —Todd Barry 'I get into arguments with taxi drivers all the time. I get out of the cab and slam the door, but that's not the way to win an argument with a taxi driver. The way to win is you get out of the cab and leave the door open. Then he has to get out, come around and close the door. While he's doing that, I'm on the other side, opening the other doors. And we just keep going around and around and around. And I got my own Benny Hill situation going on, and I won.' —Hannibal Buress On birthdays during his childhood: 'When I was 10 there wasn't trampolines and cartoon characters, I never went to Chuck E. Cheese! My mom said, 'You wanna see a mouse, pull the refrigerator out!'" —George Lopez 'I was sitting in my apartment playing my favorite apartment game: Find the smell. Luckily, it was me.' —Dave Attell 'Alcohol: Because no great story ever started with someone eating a salad.' —Dylan Moran "If you go to a Black history museum and you got a Black tour guide, you need to go in the morning while he's still in a good mood... You gotta catch him at 9:00 a.m. He just finished that McGriddle. 'How y'all doing? My name is Charles, it's my pleasure to take you on this journey. Look at these exhibits right here. Black history is American history. Come look at the exhibits.' You think that brother gonna be in a good mood at 4:30? He been staring at slavery all day. That dude liable to cuss out everybody. 'Look at this shit! Come look what you done to us! Look what you — get your ass out my museum, motherfucker!' You go to the gift shop, it's just people crying." —Roy Wood Jr. "I'm a procrastinator, man. It's really bad. It's a problem, you know? I'm worried eventually my bucket list is just gonna be a bunch of errands I haven't run yet. How sad would that be if my doctor was like, 'You got a few months left to live,' and I'm like, 'Dang, I got to hurry up and frame these photos.'" —Sheng Wang 'A lot of Americans are suffering from depression younger and younger — our children are seeing the sippy cup as half-empty." —Maria Bamford "Asian parents are the last group of people you can ever convince to see a doctor... Nothing can make my mom see a doctor. My mom could have an arrow going right through her pants and she's trying to pull it out like Rambo, right? And you're like, 'Yo, Mom, let's go see a doctor.' And my mom will be like, 'No. They just want to take people's money.'' —Ronny Chieng "I'm not a big supporter of small businesses. I'm more of a big business kind of guy. I like businesses so big there's another business inside of them, like a Target with a Starbucks in it. But the real reason I don't support small businesses is because I have irritable bowel syndrome…you have to use their bathroom, but these stone-cold killers will look you in the eyes and say no to you even after you say, 'What if I buy one of your stupid candles?'' —Chris Estrada On relationships with immigrant fathers: 'You'd be like, 'Dad, what's your favorite color?' 'Stanford!' 'What? I want to know more about you.' 'Why do you want to know about me? Get into Stanford!'" —Hasan Minhaj 'If you can see the handwriting on the wall…you're on the toilet.' —Redd Foxx

Can TikTok's ‘Shirtless Race' Become More than a Trend?
Can TikTok's ‘Shirtless Race' Become More than a Trend?

Business of Fashion

timea day ago

  • Business of Fashion

Can TikTok's ‘Shirtless Race' Become More than a Trend?

NEW YORK — For three days in May, 14,000 men and women stormed New York City's Pier 76, just west of Hudson Yards, many of them in various states of athletic undress — not to party, but certainly to sweat. They were there for what outsiders viewing from TikTok call 'the shirtless race,' and what is known to proponents as Hyrox, a strength-and-endurance fitness race that combines an eight kilometre run with eight functional workouts, including a 330-pound sled drag. Some athletes collapse from exhaustion at the finish line. The last 2024–2025 season attracted over 600,000 participants, who competed in over 80 races worldwide. (Courtesy) Yet, Hyrox has built a devoted and growing global following. Fitness influencer Eric Hinman, NFL tight end Darren Waller and actor Patrick Wilson were among those who competed during the New York event, which had a waitlist, according to Hyrox and its Swiss parent company Infront Sports & Media. The first race, held in 2017 in Hamburg, Germany, drew about 650 participants; the last 2024–2025 season attracted over 600,000, who competed in over 80 races worldwide, culminating in the World Championships in Chicago last week. By combining familiar functional movements like rowing and wall balls with running in an open-entry, festival-like marathon atmosphere, Hyrox has become the latest global fitness craze, with almost equal participation by men (52 percent) and women (48). In the past, millions of everyday gym-goers didn't have anything to work towards besides looking good and getting healthy. 'We gave them a definition [and competition] for what they were already doing,' said Moritz 'Mo' Fürste, who, along with Christian Toetzke, co-founded the company in 2017. ADVERTISEMENT Each athlete paid anywhere from $70 to over $200 to participate. While company reps declined to disclose revenue figures, Fürste shared on a Business of Sport podcast earlier this year that the average entry fee is around €130 ($150), putting its annual ticket sales revenue at roughly $90 million. They also generate revenue from event brand sponsors like Redbull, a constellation of 8,000 gyms that pay up to $150 a month to be its affiliates, spectator tickets and partnerships with brands like Puma, which sells co-branded products at the events, its stores and third-party retail partners. 'There's a real loyalty from participants to support the brands that are involved with Hyrox,' said Erin Longin, Puma's vice president of running and training. 'It's really helping us reach more consumers that way.' As the social distancing era fades, athletes are seeking community-driven fitness beyond the walls of traditional gyms. (Courtesy) Hyrox arrives at an opportune moment. As the social distancing era fades, athletes are seeking community-driven fitness beyond the walls of traditional gyms. With its stickiness and built-in social media appeal, Hyrox has the makings of a spectator sport like a marathon or a triathlon. Still, like any sport, it needs to continually find ways to keep its athletes and audiences engaged to avoid becoming another fleeting fad. Off to the Races Hyrox isn't the first strength-and-endurance race out of the blocks. In the 2010s, cultish CrossFit peaked with 415,000 participants in their 2018 Games, and rugged adventure Spartan Race saw 1.3 million participants each year at its height. But most CrossFit Games participants competed in their local affiliate gyms (called 'boxes'), and most Spartan Races were held in far-flung locations without mass-level audiences. During the pandemic, both saw declines in participation. On the surface, Hyrox follows the same formula, but with accessible twists: Athletes can compete in various division such as singles, doubles and relay teams, allowing different ability levels to take part. The format is also simpler. Unlike other races with their involved scoring systems, whoever finishes Hyrox first wins, and the standardized workouts make it a straightforward race for time. 'There is this repetitive combination of things that you have to do, which makes it stickier,' said Fürste. The challenge of completing the race is a draw, allowing participants to not only compete against one another but their own personal records. 'The endorphins you get from doing something that hard are insanely rewarding, and that sense of accomplishment is worth chasing and repeating,' added Heber Cannon, a fitness filmmaker. Hyrox also stages its events in some of the world's biggest media markets in some of the most picturesque locations — New York's Pier 76, Paris' Grand Palais and Singapore's Marina Bay Sands — where everyday athletes and professionals compete in front of packed crowds and seas of iPhones recording their every move. Fürste said the organic growth in participation coincided with the organic growth on social media too. In the past twenty months, views on Hyrox-related terms have surged 654 percent on TikTok, according to a cultural analytics firm. In the month following its first major co-branded product collection with Puma in January, Puma x Hyrox mentions generated $537,000 in media impact value, said data analytics firm Launchmetrics. ADVERTISEMENT And products from the Puma x Hyrox collection sold out within hours of the New York event opening its doors. 'We almost can't figure out the right stock levels to have at these events, because each event just keeps outdoing the last,' said Longin. Tribe Check Behind the social media hype, Hyrox's growth is driven by its 8,000 (and growing) partner gyms, which Fürste called 'the backbone of its ever-expanding global community.' He explained how Hyrox has, in some ways, solved problems for the crowded traditional gym industry, where many businesses compete for fickle consumers solely based on price and convenience. 'It's very difficult for a gym, usually, to create a strong community,' he said. Most are built for solo experiences and feel outdated in a moment where people are craving more social fitness activities, as evidenced by the rise of running clubs and climbing gyms. Even sportswear giants like Nike are noting the behavioural shift — the US company has begun to open Nike Studios, group fitness gyms designed to foster community workouts, starting with a Southern California location in 2023. Competitors run at Hyrox. (Courtesy) After the social distancing era, Magida noticed that people wanted to be connected with each other more than ever. When he launched a Hyrox program in his gym in 2021, 'it revitalised the community, and people were talking to each other, and there was culture forming because people were training with purpose,' said Magida. 'There were more high-fives and hugs than ever before.' Within two years of being a Hyrox partner, he saw a 40 percent increase in his business. Ruben Belliard, who runs The Training Lab in New York City — one of the most competitive markets for gyms — saw his membership jump up to 15 percent in the first year after partnering with Hyrox. In his 17 years in the fitness business, he's seen plenty of fitness trends come and go. 'The next evolution is going to be hybrid training like Hyrox,' he said. 'People want to be able to run fast and be strong at the same time, where, typically, in the past, it was one or the other.' For the upcoming season, which starts next month, many races — in Singapore, Sydney, London — have already sold out, often in minutes of being announced. 'I think it's still in that building phase, building awareness, building participation,' said Longin, noting the previous season's awareness wasn't as widespread. Now the company is preparing to scale further to keep up with growing demand by planning to add more cities and race days. 'The next evolution is going to be hybrid training like Hyrox,' Ruben Belliard said. (Courtesy) But long-term staying power is far from guaranteed. 'It's been proven that people will always train for marathons. People will always train for those types of things,' added Vennare. 'But Hyrox needs to make sure to keep its brand and the competition exciting and fun so that people don't get sick of it.'

The new LACMA is sleek, splotchy, powerful, jarring, monotonous, appealing and absurd
The new LACMA is sleek, splotchy, powerful, jarring, monotonous, appealing and absurd

Los Angeles Times

timea day ago

  • Los Angeles Times

The new LACMA is sleek, splotchy, powerful, jarring, monotonous, appealing and absurd

Ever since Brutalist architecture emerged in the 1950s, the style has been polarizing. Concrete might be gray, but public response rarely enters into gray areas. The buildings' raw, unfinished concrete forms, typically simple, are loved or hated. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is nearing completion of its own new Brutalist building, designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, 82, to house the permanent collection of paintings, sculptures and other works of art. For three days and one evening, beginning July 3, museum members will get a sneak peek at the empty interior spaces of the David Geffen Galleries. The fully finished project, with art installed, doesn't open until April 2026. Concrete is not eco-friendly, either in production or in results like heat magnification, and some celebrated architects with a social justice bent refuse to use it. But its visual power is undeniable — a strength of the huge Zumthor design. His poured-in-place concrete gobbles 347,500 square feet, including 110,000 square feet in 90 exhibition galleries and corridors lofted 30 feet above ground atop seven massive piers, crossing Wilshire Boulevard. Some of my favorite art museum buildings are Brutalist in design, like Marcel Breuer's fortress-like former Whitney in New York (1966), and Louis Kahn's refined classicism at the Kimbell in Fort Worth (1972). Brad Cloepfil's Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, which may be the best new American museum built for art in the last 15 years, uses concrete brilliantly to illuminate Still's rugged painting motifs. Zumthor's Geffen doesn't come close. I've written a lot about the long-aborning LACMA project over the last dozen years, focused on the design's negative impact on the museum program, but that's now baked in. (The museum pegs the building cost at $720 million, but sources have told me the entire project cost is closer to $835 million.) L.A.'s encyclopedic museum, with a global permanent collection simply installed geographically as straightforward chronology, is dead, and the Geffen Galleries prevent it from ever coming back. Changing theme shows drawn from the collection, curatorially driven, are the new agenda. Having theme galleries is like banishing the alphabet that organizes the encyclopedia on your shelf. Chronology and geography are not some imperialistic scheme dominating global art. They just make finding things in a sprawling encyclopedic art collection easy for visitors. Good luck with that now. I've pretty much avoided consideration of the building's aesthetics. The exception was a 2013 column responding to 'The Presence of the Past,' a somewhat clumsy exhibition of Zumthor's still-evolving design conception, which has changed greatly in the final form. Reviewing purpose-built architecture is a fool's errand when you can't experience the purpose — impossible for another 10 months, when the art-installed Geffen opens. A press event Thursday allowed entry into the gallery spaces, however, so a few things are now obvious. One is that museum galleries are theatrical spaces — there's a reason they're called shows — and chances are you've never seen so much concrete in one place. Sometimes it's sleek and appealing, sometimes splotchy and cracked. (Surface mottling could soften over time.) But across floors, walls and ceilings of 90 bunker-like rooms and long, meandering corridors, the limitless concrete is monotonous. Grieg's 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' meets Beckett's theater of the absurd. Another is that views from the floor-to-ceiling windows that surround the building will offer lovely, interesting city vistas — welcome relief from the monotony. (Curtains will be installed around the perimeter.) A third is that the light, some entering horizontally from the side windows and a couple thin clerestory slots, but much of it from fixed vertical ceiling cans, is going to be a problem. Those windows are also one of the biggest design losses in the value-engineering, undertaken to control ballooning costs. (Adjusted for inflation, the original Whitney Museum's construction cost per square foot was about $633, Kimbell's was about $469, and LACMA clocks in at $1,400, according to its website. Brutalist, indeed.) The floor plate was originally planned to follow the organic curves of the ceiling plate, with continuous, hugely expensive curved-glass windows linking the two. Now the floor plan is largely rectilinear. The glass panels had to be flat, so the composition is a bit more dynamic. But the roofline overlaps can be jarring. At one end the hovering curved roof looks like a pizza too big for the box below. Also daunting: Art will be hung on all that concrete by drilling holes in the walls and pounding in anchors. Moving the art will be cumbersome, requiring concrete patching. The entire process is labor-intensive and expensive. Zumthor is the sixth architect to have had a whack at LACMA, following earlier efforts by William L. Pereira, Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, Bruce Goff, Rem Koolhaas, and Renzo Piano. Koolhaas never got beyond the proposal stage, although his marvelous idea pioneered the teardown-then-build-a-pavilion-on-stilts plan now coming to very different fruition. Only Goff produced a notable building, with a novel Japanese Pavilion that conceptually turned inside out the spiral Guggenheim Museum by his mentor, Frank Lloyd Wright. (Happily, the Japanese Pavilion can now be seen from the street.) The rest were mostly meh, salted with an occasional ugh. Zumthor and LACMA Director Michael Govan pronounce the new Geffen building to be 'a concrete sculpture,' which is why it's being shown empty now. The cringey claim is grandiose, and it makes one wonder why being architecture is not enough. If it's true, it's the only monumental sculpture I know that has a couple of restaurants, an auditorium and a store. Apparently, an artistic hierarchy exists, with sculpture ranked above architecture. That's odd, because we've also been repeatedly told that LACMA built the place to undermine such conceits. Museum officials are still banging away on the absurd claim that a single-story building for art, banishing distinctions between 'upstairs/downstairs,' confers an egalitarian marker on what global cultures produce. Hierarchy, however, is not a matter of physicality or direction, but of conceptual status. Rosa Parks was riding on a single-level bus, not a double-decker, and she knew exactly what her mighty refusal to sit in the back meant. LACMA should be half as savvy. Climb the 60-plus steps up to the Geffen Galleries, or take an elevator, and when you arrive some art will be out front and some out back. Surely, we won't regard that front/back difference as anti-egalitarian. Will the Geffen Galleries be successful? My crystal ball is broken, but I see no reason why it won't be a popular attraction. And that is clearly the museum's priority. An urban environment with a talented architect's unusual art museum design tagged by a monumental topiary sculpture on the main drag — that's a description of Frank Gehry's incomparable Guggenheim Bilbao, the great 1997 museum in Basque northern Spain, where Jeff Koons' marvelous floral 'Puppy' sculpture holds court out front. (Every palace needs topiary, a leafy green power emblem of culture's control over nature; Koons' 40-foot-tall West Highland white dog makes for an especially cuddly symbol of guardianship.) Now the description fits LACMA too. The museum just announced the acquisition of Koons' floral behemoth, 'Split-Rocker,' a rather bland hobby horse topiary that merges a toy dinosaur's head with the hobby horse's head. LACMA is next door to the La Brea Tar Pits & Museum, and the kiddie dino, a natural history plaything, forces a shotgun wedding with a degraded example of art history's triumphant motif of a man on a horse. Govan worked on Bilbao before coming to L.A., and the formula there is being repeated here. L.A.'s eye-grabbing building won't be as great nor its Instagram-ready topiary be nearly as good as the Bilbao ensemble, but when does lightning strike twice? As museums, Bilbao and LACMA couldn't be more different. One has a small, mostly mediocre permanent collection of contemporary art, while the other has a large, often excellent permanent collection of global art from all eras. The so-called Bilbao Effect sent cultural tourism, then already on the rise, skyrocketing. With the David Geffen Galleries, LACMA has put its very expensive eggs in that tourism basket. It might take some time to work. The U.S. is the world's largest travel and tourism sector, but it's the only one forecast by the World Travel & Tourism Council to see international visitor decline in 2025 — and probably beyond. Between erratic pandemic recovery and an abusive federal government hostile to foreigners, worries are growing in L.A. about the imminent soccer World Cup and the Olympics. It's also surprising that the museum is now bleeding critical senior staff, just as LACMA's lengthy transformation from a civic art museum into a tourist destination trembles on the verge of completion. Previously unreported, chief operating officer Diana Vesga is already gone, deputy director for curatorial and exhibitions J. Fiona Ragheb recently left, and chief financial officer Mark Mitchell departs next week. Those are three top-tier institutional positions. Let's hope they don't know something we also don't know.

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