The friendship of cowboy singers
The arts “get to us” in so many different ways. There may be something about the turbulence of the past week, a time of saber-rattling, that has particularly touch our nation at the passing away of a gentle spirit named Glen Campbell. Here in Los Angeles, the Autry Museum of the American West issued a ...
Female artists of film animation honored @ AMPAS
Aug
2
2017
From the earliest pioneers of hand-rendered animated films, to the advent of digital technology, women have been at the forefront of the animation medium. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will celebrate the women who have been at the forefront of film animation Mindy Johnson, author of Ink & Paint: The Women of ...
Fascinating: Tino Sehgal mid-August @ LACMA
Highlights of the intriguing menu of performance happenings that comprise the European Union-sponsored “Getting to Know European Dance” are two outings by conceptual dance artist Tino Sehgal. Both are being staged at LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in mid August. Born in London in 1976, the Berlin-based Sehgal constructs situations that challenge ...
Photographer Carinthia West rolls with the Stones in Malibu 1
Jul
13
2017
Carinthia West’s intimate photographs of Mick Jagger, Helen Mirren, Anjelica Huston, David Bowie and Ron Wood among others languished for years in boxes in an attic and she never dreamed of exhibiting these personal memories. Many of these photographs taken between 1975 and 1985, center around Malibu, where an eclectic group of friends would gather ...
Hungarian-born Laguna Beach painter Joseph Kleitsch @ PMCA
Jul
7
2017
The career of Joseph Kleitsch (1882–1931) comprises early work as a portraitist in his native Hungary and in Chicago and spans to his impressionist landscapes painted in California during his later years. Kleitsch continued to paint figurative works after his move to California in 1920 and was considered the premiere portrait painter in the ...
Bravura triple opening at Hauser & Wirth July 1
In a theatrical, nearly madcap, gesture, international art gallery Hauser & Wirth is throwing a big art party to simultaneously launch three shows: Takesada Matsutani, Paul McCarthy: WS Spinoffs, Wood Statues, Brown Rothkos and Monika Sosnowska. The open-to-the-public event will take place on the holiday weekend, July 1, on the campus of the private gallery’s ...
Weird scenes inside the goldmine: L.A.’s 1967 rock venues 1
Jun
21
2017
by kirk silsbee
editor’s note: Harvey Kubernik’s new coffeetable tome, 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love (Sterling), is a both a scholarly examination and a sensuous immersion into the pivotal year in 1960s youth culture through a mosaic of voices. Kirk Silsbee’s sidebars from his essay in the book, excerpted and condensed here, ...
Hocus-pocus, here comes the circus!
Just to prove that Washington D.C. does not have the lock on staging circuses, we’ve got a really cool one coming our way in Los Angeles. It’s a revival, by The Bob Baker Marionette Theater, of The Circus, a Bob Baker original production that has not been seen in nearly 40 years. The Circus, originally ...
Chatting with Michael Govan about ‘Moholy-Nagy: Future Present’
May
28
2017
It was nice watching the at-home manner in which LACMA CEO Michael Govan toured the cascading galleries of “Moholy-Nagy: Future Present” during the impressive show’s opening week in February. The highly recommended exhibition of 250 works by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, a visual master much known for photography and filmmaking, will close on June 18. Sure, the ...
California dreamin’ gone haywire
May
5
2017
“I’m definitely playing with the juxtaposition of art and garbage,” says artist Jeff Gillette of his upcoming exhibit at Gregorio Escalante gallery. “As a pessimist observing what’s happening in the world right now, I’m posing questions, ‘What is any of this worth?’ and ‘How do we choose what and how we ascribe worth to things?’ ...