Plethora of arts offerings @ Jack Rutberg Fine Arts

Ideas & Opinion · Music · Visual arts
Tonight, concurrent to the new gallery exhibition of Spanish artist Jordi Alcaraz, a celebrated Israeli poet, Amir Or, will read from his poems. The evening event is sponsored by the USC Initiative for Israeli Arts & Humanities, Ruth Weisberg, Director.  Born in Tel Aviv, Amir Or has published seven books of poetry and has been ...

Cheech, sans Chong, pairs with painter John Valadez

Visual arts
From our friends at the  Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College an invitation to join an afternoon of activity surrounding its current exhibition Santa Ana Condition: John Valadez (through December 7, 2013). A foremost collector of Chicano art, Cheech Marin, will be present in support of the Valadez show. .  1 pm book signing: Valadez ...

Best of the West: Sam Francis retrospective @ Pasadena Museum

Visual arts
The exhibition celebrates internationally acclaimed California abstract painter Sam Francis (1923–1994). A highly coherent survey approach to his career has been organized by curators Peter Selz and Debra Burchett-Lere around key periods of the artist’s ouevre, starting from early works made in the Bay Area in the 1940s, and leading through works made in the ...

Anti-Defamation League auction to combat hate with art

Ideas & Opinion · Visual arts
More than forty Los Angeles artists have volunteered time and their best thinking to produce works of art inspired by the Anti-Defamation League’s centennial theme, Imagine a World Without Hate. The powerful art will be exhibited and auctioned at ArtWorks ADL:  Justice, Advocacy & Art on September 17. The ticketed event is open to those ...

Opening Fridita’s closet

Visual arts
I loved learning about the opening of the closet of Frida Kahlo at Casa Azul, the great Mexican painter’s home in Mexico City. Fridita died six months, to the day, before I was born! So I (like to) think, well, wish that a little of her transferred over to me. Like this? Read more: In ...

The temerity of Tamara, at Golden Legend Gallery 1

Dance · Visual arts
We recently heard from arts·meme friend, Gordon Hollis, proprietor of Golden Legend Gallery in Beverly Hills who alerted us to a unique print in a rare book he is handling.  Svetlov, Valerien. Thamar Karsavina. London: Beaumont, 1922. First edition. No. 16 of 120 copies, specially signed by Karsavina, with hand-tinted illustrations, and specially bound in ...

Kung fu collateral still kicking @ AMPAS

Film · Visual arts
In 2011, producer and screenwriter Stephen Chin donated his collection of more than 800 kung fu film posters and related materials to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. An exhibition featuring selections from Chin’s exceptional poster collection hangs now through in the lobby of the Academy’s Wilshire Boulevard headquarters. If you are cruising ...

Junkyard objects, beautified by Clare Graham, at J.F. Chen

Visual arts
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”

Film · Visual arts
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

Dance · Visual arts
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 ...