‘Moonlit Modern’ photography captures eerie Palm Springs 1
It’s fun perusing night-owl photographer Tom Blachford‘s portraits of classic Palm Springs mid-century residential architecture. The cheerful pancake-flat homes when portrayed (normally) under a full splash of desert sun by moonbeam ray take on a somewhat cold and menacing aspect. Blachford, 27, not only injects a youthful spin in his “Moonlit Modern” series, but the ...
Michael Hayden neon sculpture to pop once more on Pershing Square 1
Generators of the Cylinder , 1982, Michael Hayden. 270′ x 11′, Cylinders: 4′ x 4′ x 2′, Infrared sensors, holographically etched polycarbonate, stainless steel panels and neon lights Michael Hayden’s iconic light sculpture, “Generators of the Cylinder,” an ultra-bright neon rainbow, will be re-lit for the first time in nearly a decade during a special ...
Classical music meets Burmese art courtesy of Jacaranda
A beautiful fundraiser had an unusual focus when Jacaranda, the decade-old Los Angeles contemporary classical music series, hosted an exquisite program of chamber music in a super-cool private home on a recent autumnal Sunday. Rarely viewed works of contemporary Burmese art lent visual, cultural, even political, impact to the event. Jacaranda board chairman Thomas Aujero ...
High culture at the movies, courtesy of Laemmle Theatres
At the other end of the civilization spectrum from AFI Fest’s recent pepper-spray incident (ironic, isn’t it, that fisticuffs broke out at a screening of a new bio-pic about British painter William Turner), is the marvelous roll-out, now in its third month, of Laemmle Theatre’s “Culture Vulture Mondays.” The series is just one way that ...
Queen Liz gorgeously garbed in ‘Hollywood Costume’
The pinnacle (for this viewer), tour-de-force display of the Motion Picture Academy’s “Hollywood Costume,” now on view at LACMA’s May Company building, comes about mid-way through the multi-room exhibition and stretches across a long platform. “A Royal Romance” features a sumptuous swathe of historic Hollywood costumes that have dressed movie characters of British nobility — ...
Ted VanCleave’s tough photographic vision of Los Angeles 2
I deeply respond to photographer Ted VanCleave’s recent “Concrete Porn ~ Buildings & Bridges” series, a visual homage to that most unyielding of building mediums, concrete. “My love of concrete architecture began when I visited the Pantheon in Rome. I was in awe of the beautiful, massive concrete dome which is still the world’s largest ...
MoMA to bring Chakiris, arts·meme for talks, screenings Oct 26-27 4
A wonderful celebration of Los Angeles cultural history soon kicks off the Museum of Modern Art’s 12th annual “To Save and Project” film preservation festival. Three events, each related directly or indirectly to Hollywood dance history, will highlight the Festival’s opening weekend. The first, Sunday October 26, 2014, is an interview with dancer-actor George Chakiris ...
Direct from Havana! Irene Rodriguez Spanish dance @ MOLAA
I would travel great distances to see authentic African, Indonesian and certainly, Cuban dancers; that’s the way I roll nowadays. I’m a relative latecomer, but an avid one, to authentic ethnic dance. An unusual dance offering this weekend in an equally unusual venue: Havana-based Compañia Irene Rodriguez will perform Spanish dance at Long Beach’s Museum ...
Welcome Beatles 1964 fifty years later @ Levitt Pavilion
Celebrate 50 years of the Beatles in the U.S. this weekend at Levitt Los Angeles with a unique Beatles retrospective featuring the Omega String Quartet, the same outstanding group that brought the largest show in the history of Levitt — the Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon Retrospective last summer, 2013. A psychedelic ...
The jazz strata of Ave Pildas 1
If you receive photographer Ave Pildas’s weekly e-blasts, you know the prolific nature of his work. His street snaps can be quirky, straightforward, unpredictable, ironic, reverent, whimsical, iconic, or just plain fun. He has an eye for the beautiful and the surreal but the transmissions often time to current events or seasonal observances. They show ...