Art director Gene Allen among guild members in “Landscapes” exhibition
In a wonderful example of a great truth of Los Angeles — that many fine artists have always made a commercial living by working in the film industry, the Art Directors Guild announces its second art exhibition of 2015, “Landscapes.” A featured artwork, among 60 by a host of nearly 30 artists, comes from esteemed ...
Library of Congress ABT exhibit to roost at Disney Hall
In this photo dated 1938, dancer John Kriza stars in choreographer Eugene Loring’s characteristically American ballet about the notorious outlaw, Billy the Kid. Loring created the work for George Balanchine’s Ballet Caravan to a score by Aaron Copland. American Ballet Theatre first performed the work in its Chicago season in November 1940. [Loring’s significant southern ...
Stones still rolling @ Taschen’s
Feb
6
2015
Great to learn that It’s Just a Shot Away: The Rolling Stones in Photographs, the fantastic, spacious, high-quality exhibit of superlative Rolling Stones portraiture is still on tap. You cannot miss Taschen’s cool Beverly Boulevard gallery — it’s the hot white-and-pink building. Thru February 28. (b&w) Masks, Toronto, Anton Corbijn, The Rolling Stones, 1994(color) Jumpin’ ...
‘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 ...