Junkyard objects, beautified by Clare Graham, at J.F. Chen
Jun
24
2013
An exceptional installation now on display in the generous exhibition space of J.F. Chen, the influential furniture-as-art dealer located on Highland Avenue. Veteran Los Angeles artist Clare Graham, who shrink-wraps plush teddy bears then bundles them into towering totems, and whose fetishistic snap-top sculptures assume the aspect of medieval armor, is featured in the show. ...
Hollywood archeology: Digging DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments”
arts·meme friend Mary Mallory alerts us to a new exhibition featuring prime California archeology: the recovery and reconstruction of a huge prop piece from Cecil B. DeMille’s silent movie classic “The Ten Commandments” (1923). A humongous face of an Egyptian sphinx-statue was recovered from the Central California sand dunes where DeMille directed his first (silent ...
Beach ballet 1
The Hollywood Negro Ballet troupe formed by choreographer Joseph Rickard practice on Laguna Beach, California. In 1956, Flemyng invited the Los Angeles-based First Negro Classical Ballet (also known very briefly as the Hollywood Negro Ballet) and its director, Joseph Rickard, to join forces with the New York company. Rickard was of English German background and ...
Party on, arts·meme people!
It was an arts lovers Saturday night on LaBrea Avenue. A throng of party people clustered ’round a new exhibition, Francisco Zuniga: A Centenial Tribute, to appreciate the great Mexican artist and to celebrate five years of arts blogging on arts·meme. The party was hosted by Jack Rutberg Fine Arts. View the photos here. Like ...
Francisco Zuniga at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts – opens June 1
We’re very excited to get into the mix at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts Saturday night. The highly respected gallery on La Brea Avenue just north of Beverly Boulevard is hosting an evening that’s all about love of the arts. The main event is the opening of a centennial tribute to Mexican sculptor and painter Francisco ...
MOCA’s Jeffrey Deitch reflects on Boston violence
Apr
25
2013
We enjoyed briefly chatting with MOCA‘s Jeffrey Deitch at a press preview of the colorful Urs Fischer installation in the museum’s main building on Bunker Hill. The exhibit extends at a second MOCA facility, the Temporary Contemporary in Little Tokyo. The colorful scene is from the whimsical yet melancholic installation at MOCA by Swiss born ...
Dancers, meet the museum world. Museums: consider dance.
This weekend, the Hammer Museum presents Dancing with the Art World, a two-day symposium that convenes artists, choreographers, curators, and historians to reflect on the interface between dance and art, consider its historical precedents, and debate its effects on artistic and institutional practice. Dance has long intersected meaningfully with the visual arts. But in recent ...
Preeminent dance movie posters @ Barnsdall
We’re super looking forward to touring through a wonderful installation of dance movies posters now on display at Barnsdall Gallery Theater. We already saw it once, but it’s so fabulous that repeat viewings are called for. Twenty distinct pieces in varying sizes and rarity comprise GOTTA DANCE!, the majority dating from the golden age of ...
The new Academy Museum gets a launch party at LACMA
We had a ball cruising the room at the inaugural celebration for the future home of The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on Thursday, April 11, 2013 at the historic Wilshire May Company Building in Los Angeles. Many film and arts-world leaders and celebs were in attendance. Slideshow here: photos: Todd Wawrychuk / ©A.M.P.A.S., Richard ...
Review: Quirky master-photog Bert Stern captured in doc 1
It doesn’t matter that “Bert Stern: Original Madman” falls short in depicting the hectic life and work of the go-go photographer of the sixties. The documentary, a first major effort by Shannah Laumeister, is unevenly told, biased toward the actress-turned-director’s own personal relationship with Stern, and values cheap story elements over artful ones. Yet the ...