Our town and its city dwellers, by David Hockney @ LACMA 2
Apr
24
2018
Friend of arts·meme, the arts publicist Caroline Graham, poses with her portrait painted by her long-time friend, the British-born artist David Hockney. Caroline’s likeness occupies a prominent corner of “82 Portraits and 1 Still Life,” the new Hockney exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). In the photo, Graham wears the elegant ...
Mike & movie mavens amass for LACMA poster exhibition 3
Among the mavens who came out to celebrate “The Art of the Movie Poster: HIghlights from the Mike Kaplan Collection,” newly opened at LACMA, were several prominent ones cheering on their friend, Kaplan (at left). At right, the estimable Malcolm McDowell, whose association and friendship with Kaplan has Stanley Kubrick at its heart. (As a ...
LACMA ‘Found in Translation’ documents Mexi-Cali design dialogue 1
From Sacramento to San Diego, California’s Mexican and Spanish underpinnings are as historic as they are pervasive. We often take those connections for granted, but LACMA’s exhibition “Found in Translation: Design in California and Mexico, 1915-1985” offers a fascinating view of the influence and confluence between the two cultures in the 20th Century. It’s part ...
Pond·ering sixty years of art history
Sep
19
2017
Sixty years, more or less one generation, brought us from Monet to Almaraz. To my eye, two works aligned in hot harmony. Above, the majestic vision of Los Angeles painter Carlos Almaraz, in his reconstituted four-panel Echo Park Lake (1982) — now on rare display at LACMA, as part of Pacific Standard Time LA/LA. (Our ...
Parks & wrecks: Carlos Almaraz @ LACMA
The ‘Los Four’ exhibition at Los Angeles County Art Museum in 1974 put the local art establishment on notice that a thriving scene was taking place in East Los Angeles and elsewhere in the Southland. The Chicano art renaissance was represented by four artists — Carlos Almaraz, Beto de la Rocha, Frank Romero and Gilbert ...
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 ...
Get to know European dance, courtesy of the EU Delegation to the U.S.
A fascinating trio of works of avant-garde German choreography and performance is being presented around town, soon, sponsored by the Getting To Know Europe program, awarded by the Delegation of the European Union to the United States and hosted by the Goethe Institut of Los Angeles, and its savvy director Fareed Majari. This virtual mini festival ...
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 ...
Review: Toba Khedoori, detailed draftswoman, at LACMA
If you love drawing, please run, don’t walk, to see LACMA’s exhibition of Toba Khedoori’s work through March 19. It covers two decades of the Los Angeles artist’s practice with 25 stunning works. Usually drawings would be dwarfed by the voluminous spaces of the BCAM building, but Khedoori’s manage to occupy the space beautifully. That ...
Print pioneers of Los Angeles: Gemini G.E.L. 1
It’s no surprise anymore when an American artist of any discipline or media turns out prints. Painter, sculptor, installation specialist, conceptualist, land mover—all find something in their trick bags that will fit on a piece of paper with a high-rag content. It wasn’t always so. None of the Abstract Expressionist vilde chayas who dominated 1950s ...