Pasadena

When most people think of portraiture, images of aristocracy adorned in their finest medieval robes atop a crackling grand fireplace in some remote European castle probably come to mind.  When I mention that I focused on 18th-19th Century portraiture in college, people look as if they’re about to fall asleep before I can finish the sentence.  But this past Saturday, I attended a lecture at Pasadena’s Norton Simon Museum presented by John Klein, Associate Professor from Washington University in St. Louis, that reminded me of the magnetism and presence of portraits. In his lecture, “Matisse, Picasso and Beyond: How Portraiture Survived Modernism,” he examined the means by which the art of human representation prevailed through an era defined by its antipathy to historical convention.  Through the study of modernist masters like Picasso, Matisse and Giacometti, Klein arrives at a universal truth: human beings will always and forever be obsessed with themselves, others, and how others perceive them.

“Damn Portraits!” began Professor Klein, quoting Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres—an abrupt and honest exclamation that served as a perfect prelude to the difficult battle that portraiture was doomed to fight once the modern age descended on a timeless artistic tradition.  Ingres, like many artists of his time, despised portraiture.

He often complained that the overwhelming number of commissions from high society kept him from focusing on “more important” subject matter.  In the 19th Century, it seemed as if the only demographic that had an affinity for portraiture was the social elite.  When the 20th Century began, many creative figures decried the art form’s declining relevance.  Portraiture posed a series of difficult questions for the artist: How does one capture the complexity of human identity? How can an inner quality be expressed outwardly?  How can a still representation do justice to a personality trait that is defined by its movement? Modernism, says Klein, provided the platform that was so desperately needed: a movement that joined portraiture with the abstraction of the avant-garde.

Through an array of examples, Klein revealed how artists like Picasso and Matisse were uninterested with the centrality of the sitter, which historically would have been fundamental.  In works like Girl with Green Eyes (1908), Matisse blended his sitters into a decorative pattern where no single component of the painting could dominate.  Picasso’s Gertrude Stein (1906), on the other hand, showcases both the artist and the sitter, serving as a visual statement of the height and legitimacy of both Stein’s and Picasso’s careers. Klein taught the audience that through the execution of her face, as was common with many of Picasso’s portraits, the artist imposed a mask-like quality that hardly resembled Stein’s genuine appearance. The primitivization of her face is a symbolic and telling mark of the beginning of an important aesthetic shift.

After the First World War, artists became increasingly cynical of humanistic values, and rapid advances in photographic technology threatened representational portraiture.  Expressive abstraction began to take hold, providing the artist with infinite ways to communicate power, status and legitimacy—and the line between art and vulgarity became harder to define.  Marcus Harvey’s Myra (1995) is an example of how modern portraiture could become a PR dream come true. Harvey’s portrait of Myra Hindley, a woman convicted of murdering multiple innocent child victims, is comprised of tiny flesh colored hands, hands meant to represent those of the children that she murdered.

Portraiture’s many levels of expression, as in Myra, have the potential for endless symbolism and emotion.  I could feel the tension in the lecture hall when Myra came on screen, and I could see that the man next to me was trying to conceal his goose bumps.

Professor Klein’s lecture was most certainly a personal highlight of my many years of studying and appreciating portraiture. Regardless of one’s knowledge of art, he was able to communicate his subject with admirable passion and vigor.  Professor Klein carried the double-barreled theme of portraiture and its modernist survival from the turn of the 20th Century through the fall of Saddam Hussein. It was quite frankly one of the most fun Saturdays I’ve had in a while, and I don’t think I was alone.  The jam-packed lecture hall’s enthusiastic applause was proof enough that nobody was falling asleep before Klein could finish his sentences.

-By Brittany Krasner

The Norton Simon’s calendar of educational lectures will certainly expand your art related intellectual repertoire.  For more information on upcoming lectures, please visit their website.

From George Washington on the Delaware, to Huck Finn on the Mississippi, to Katrina on the Gulf, rivers make up an integral part of the geographical, historical, cultural, political, and artistic landscape of the America we know.  And Los Angeles is no exception.  Yes it’s true that for the good part of the year, the L.A. River remains hopelessly barren, and provides a better bike path to Long Beach than it does a waterway.  But if you’ve ever actually step foot into that mighty concrete divider of our city, then you’d know it’s every bit as organic and symbolic as any other great river.  Whether it’s the plastic bag trees, the graffiti-worn banks, or the garbage disposal current, one would be hard-pressed to not find the same beauty that Mark Twain once described in his memoir, Life on the Mississippi, as “…a wonderful book…which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it had uttered them with a voice.”

On show until July 3^rd at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, the collective exhibition entitled The Ulysses Guide to the Los Angeles River (UGLAR for short) also uses the metaphor of a book, only this one screams its secrets.  Consisting of a wide range of contemporary, LA-based artists, this unique assortment of paintings, sculptures, photographs, and illustrations all converge like tributaries into one central theme: the Los Angeles River.

One oil painting called “Confluence” by Tyson Dolan portrays the intersection of two concrete canals, meeting and opening into the space of the viewer.  The colors are muted, almost foggy, and with the installed background sounds of dripping water and distant train bells echoing throughout the room, one gets the distinct feeling of being alone and drifting through Dolan’s industrial river-basin.

Another piece, up-and-comer Rob Sato’s “Land Admiral Lefebvre’s Fleet Makes Sail”, takes a more surreal, maximalist route.  This multi-medium, ‘Where’s Waldo’ mash-up depicts an elaborate, farcical, eighteenth-century showdown between the Blue-Coats and the Reds on the battlefield of the Los Angeles River.  There’s of course no water for the huge wooden ships, so the implied Admiral Lefebvre sails upon his own ocean, with hundreds of tiny minions carrying the actual waves themselves.  Not to be ignored in this spectacle are Sato’s frequent dips into brash absurdity: slave-like giants, a monstrous fish-man-beast riding a whale like an Avatar pterodactyl, and if you look hard enough, a modern car wreck upon the bridge over the river.

The biggest work on show, however, is a mural completed by all the contributing artists.  It’s title is “The River Experiment,” and it speaks to the theme of the collection, which is one of evolution, or perhaps more accurately, mutation.  Because The Ulysses Guide to the Los Angeles River – to complete Mark Twain’s quote – “[is] not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day.”

The Ulysses Guide to the Los Angeles River runs until July 3^rd at the Pasadena Museum of California Art.  For more information, please visit pmcaonline.org, or call (626) 568-3665.

“Waiting for Godot” was an instant success when it debuted at the Théatre de Babylone in Paris in January 1953. It ran for 400 performances and received critical praise from such writers as Tennessee Williams, Jean Anouilh, Thornton Wilder and William Saroyan. Greeted with jeers and boo’s from some audience members at its London and American premieres – and many times since – it has, nevertheless, enjoyed countless productions and rabid fans around the world for nearly 60 years. Arguably the most famous example of Theatre of the Absurd, a form of drama in which traditional plot, characters and action are discarded, “Godot” creates a surreal theatrical experience.

As Didi and Gogo remain stuck in a devastated landscape awaiting the arrival of a mysterious man who – spoiler alert – never arrives, “Waiting for Godot’’ takes on unexpected immediacy and poignancy in the wake of the earthquake that devastated Haiti last week. As we watch two men waiting interminably for either rescue or death, who can escape the mental overlay of tragic live-feed videos from Port-au-Prince, seared permanently on our collective visual cortex?

A Noise Within reprises for the third consecutive year its critically applauded production of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting For Godot.” Running now through Sunday, January 24, the play features a uniformly excellent ensemble cast including Mark Bramhall (Lucky), Robertson Dean (Vladimir), Mitch Edmonds (Pozzo), Owen Sholar (Boy) and Joel Swetow (Estragon).

Director Andrew Traister describes his production as “a straightforward reading of the play. It is simply about two men waiting, but there was a definite desire to make these real men, with real problems, in a real relationship.” He also notes that the special challenge of directing an absurdist play is “understanding what the absurdity is and clearly defining it for the audience so they know what they are laughing at. There are no added extraneous bits that confuse the meaning of the play.”

This production contains no startling revelations, possibly because after decades of erudite debate, and thousands of directors fiddling with the “meaning’ of the text, there are no revelations to be had. ANW’s stark and unembellished telling allows the audience to respond authentically, unguided by the bludgeon of ‘inspiration.’ What it all may mean remains up to the viewer. Didi and Gogo cling to the flickering faith that Godot will come. Godot will bring answers. Godot will bring meaning. Godot will bring happiness. But help does not arrive. Not today. And, in the ruins of failed Socialism, robbed of will and volition, “there is nothing to be done.” So that is what they do: nothing.

“Waiting for Godot” may well be the ultimate 20th century statement on existential futility, penned as it was in the wake of the atom bomb. But it’s also a superbly well-crafted piece, which precisely matches form to content to historic period, while holding the mirror to its audience. As Kenneth Tynan wrote of Beckett’s doomed misfortunates after the infamous London premiere in 1955: “Were we not in the theater, we should, like them, be clowning and quarreling, aimlessly bickering and aimlessly making up — all, as one of them says, ‘to give the impression that we exist.’ ”

- By Penny Orloff

Angelenos have through January 24 to experience this theatrical event.  To purchase tickets or for a full season brochure, call 818-240-0910 x1 or visit their website.

Rembrandt van Rijn, also known as Rembrandt or Remmy as we prefer, was one of the first artists who went by their first name only.  And he is going head-to-head with a fine challenger this winter in LA – himself.  Both the Norton Simon and Getty Museum are presenting complementary (we like to think dueling) exhibitions featuring the work of the Dutch master painter and etcher.  Both shows further what we know about this artist, his work, and relationships with those close to him as well as his students.

The Norton Simon’s exhibition, The Familiar Face: Portrait Prints by Rembrandt, consists of 15 etchings by the master from the museum’s extensive collection of his work and shows the artist’s softer side.  As a majority of the portrait prints do not note the name and public role of the sitter much like commissioned works, it is thought that these etchings portray people close to the artist, whether friends, family, or contemporaries.  There are several self-portraits included as well and juxtapose a young, confident 30-year-old Rembrandt alongside his wife with a work made twelve years later of him in a shadowy interior.

The Getty Museum’s show, Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils: Telling the Difference, depicts the legend of Rembrandt through the artistic technique and style he taught his students.  It takes a trained eye to tell the two apart.  After all, it took decades of research to reveal and clarify the work of Rembrandt from the work of those who studied from him, such as Govert Flinck, Ferdinand Bol, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Carel Fabritius, and Nicolaes Maes, who often depicted the same models, objects, and places as Rembrandt.  To make matters more difficult, drawings typically were not signed by Rembrandt, unlike paintings and prints. Test your eyes to see if you can pick out the Rembrandts!

To Rembrandt at the Norton Simon or to Rembrandt at the Getty, that is the question.  Why not do both?

At the Getty Museum, Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils closes February 28, 2010.  Click here for more info.  At the Norton Simon, The Familiar Face: Portrait Prints by Rembrandt closes March 22, 2010.  Click here for more info.

Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait with Saskia, 1636
Dutch, 1606-1669
Etching, State I
plate: 4-1/8 x 3-11/16 in. (10.5 x 9.4 cm); sheet: 4-1/4 x 3-3/4 in. (10.8 x 9.5 cm)
Norton Simon Art Foundation
M.1977.32.027.G
© 2009 Norton Simon Art Foundation

In art history, there are only a few things you can count on.  We argue and debate everything from dating ancient Greek statues to the definition of post-modernism.  But the Norton Simon Museum shows that there is one thing you can count on: portraiture.

To accompany the installation of Jean-Augustine-Dominique Ingres’s Comtesse d’Haussonville, the Norton Simon Museum presents Gaze: Portraiture after Ingres.  Curated by Leah Lehmbeck, the exhibition contains close to 150 paintings, sculpture, and photographs from their collection.

The concept is simple, but the execution is quite rich and a great excuse for the Norton Simon to bring out great works from their inventory.  Starting from portraits that were directly influenced by Ingres in the early to mid-19th century, we see this genre develop from those academic, commissioned paintings of Ingres’s era to Impressionist and Post-Impressionist work to the portraits of 20th century masters and eventually pure abstraction.

The exhibition succeeds using portraiture as a case study of not only the development of this genre, but also it delineates both the apparent and subtle stylistic changes in art of the past two hundred years.  It includes such artists as Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, Amedeo Modigiliani, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Andy Warhol among others.

Portraiture.  When light installations and performance art fail you, it’s one thing you can count on.

Gaze: Portraiture after Ingres at the Norton Simon Museum closes April 5th, 2010.  Click here for more info.

Image: Pablo Picasso, Woman with a Book, 1932;

The Norton Simon Foundation;

© 2008 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

A lot of things come to mind when thinking about Los Angeles: traffic, great weather, and your lunchtime taco truck.  Yet beneath the glamour of Hollywood and the spider web of freeways lies a rich but all-too-often overlooked history.  Between the 1920s and 1940s, American culture underwent a renaissance that may have originated on the streets of Harlem, but spread like wildfire across the urban landscape.  While the streets just north of Central Park were reaping the wealth of this cultural revolution, a parallel movement arose at the intersection of Washington Blvd. and Central Ave., just south of downtown Los Angeles.

Central Avenue and Beyond: The Harlem Renaissance in Los Angeles, an exhibition at the Huntington Library, commemorates the contributions of African Americans to our city during this dynamic era.  A common misconception of the Harlem Renaissance is that it began and ended with jazz.  As impactful as this new form of music was and is, it’sone of the many artistic, literary, and political achievements within this wave of change.

The exhibition displays a collection of photographs, musical scores, movie posters, letters, event programs, and videos from the period, and is complimented by information on lesser-known African-American milestones like Ballet Americana, an all-black ballet ensemble. A striking photo of Bernice Harrison, known as the first African-American prima ballerina, is unexpected and warmly welcomed.

Literary highlights include a signed letter from W.E.B. Dubois to Samuel Browne, a famous Angeleno teacher, musician and composer.  Directly across the room is an essay by the original jazz poet Langston Hughes.  In “Wallace Thurman Makes Money From Writing” (c. 1934), Hughes observes that African-American writers trying to make a living had to be humorous if they dared to write about black issues,  “since the Negro problem taken seriously is considered a risky thing in America.” While at the Huntington, be sure to explore the museum’s impressive collection of 18th and 19th century British, French and American art, and the breathtaking botanical gardens.

If you are hungry for more, LA’s diverse array of jazz clubs will undoubtedly satisfy. Catalina Bar & Grill, Hollywood’s celebrated supper club, hosts many of today’s best live jazz musicians.  The Culver Club in Culver City offers an impressive lineup of world-renowned entertainers and stiff drinks.   For those of you close to where it all began, 2nd Street Jazz in downtown LA integrates the best of Harlem with local Latin flavor.  Wherever the music takes you, find comfort in knowing that jazz today, as ever, is completely and utterly prohibition-proof.

-by Brittany Krasner

For more information on this exhibition or The Huntington Library & Botanical Gardens, visit www.huntington.org.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (French, 1780–1867), Comtesse d’Haussonville, dated 1845; Oil on canvas, 51 ⅞ x 36 ¼ inches (131.8 x 92); The Frick Collection, New York. Photo; Michael Bodycomb

School portraits.  You either loved ‘em or hated ‘em.  Mostly you love them now because they are a time-stamp of the then-you.  My silly senior photo was complete with red lipstick and black, thick bangs à la Louise Brooks.  Call it cliché or call it high school; once you discard those glasses, braces, and bad skin, portraits are a signifier of not only you, but also the world around you.  And who would have thought flannel shirts would have ever made their way back into school portraits nearly twenty years after Nirvana hit the airwaves…

The Norton Simon and The Frick Collection have a portrait they are dying to share with you.  And might I say, it’s not one of those awkward portraits of teenage yesteryear.  Instead, it’s a jewel of their collection– the Comtesse d’ Haussonville painted by none other than Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.

The portrait of Louise-Albertine de Broglie, Comtesse d’Haussonville, depicts the young woman in her fashionable blue robe de petit diner standing before a fireplace and mirror.  Ingres’s treatment of  both her face and dress are expert as well as the way he manipulated the light and colors.

The face of the sitter, 27-year-old Princess de Broglie, is softly molded with a smooth, creamy complexion.  Eyes gaze contemplatively and calmly towards the viewer showing that she is “confident, thoughtful, and refined.” She was the daughter of the Duc de Broglie and the wife of Comte d’ Haussonville.

Her pose, an S-curve, harks back to ancient sculptures of deities and to canonical women’s portrait poses of the 19th century.  Her left hand cradled underneath her chin and her right arm resting across her waist forms an X-shape that invites the viewer to continue the compositional line downwards to admire the gorgeous and finely detailed drapery of her frock.  Her silk dress by itself is stunning with a multitude of delicate ruffles near the arms and pleats of the skirt.

The painting’s light comes from an unknown source.  It brushes down the Comtesse’s face, arms, and across her dress to form drapery of a caliber suited to ancient sculptors.  The cool light makes her golden jewelry glisten.

Furthermore, the colors are divine.  The entire painting is made up of a multitude of blues, from the rich, royal blue of the fireplace cover, the creamy color of her dress, to the dash of turquoise in her Cleopatra-style jewelry.  A shock of red hits the canvas in the form of a ribbon tied into her hair.

The furniture behind the Comtesse appears compressed and unusually positioned, although very luxurious.  Opera glasses and calling cards set upon the fireplace as well as  thrown away shawl on the chair next to her signals the beginning or, most likely, the end of an evening at the opera.

It is a sneak peek into the grandeur of Ingres – a master of painting.  Unlike your school photographer, Ingres is known for anatomical impossibilities that create a stronger composition and aesthetic value.  No Photoshop to be seen, try to spot the things that your school photographer could never do.

Ingres’s Comtesse d’Haussonville will close January 25, 2010.  For more information about the exhibition, please click here.

When it comes to recognizing classical music, we know you’re a pro.  You don’t even have to be in the same room when a British Airways commercial comes on to pinpoint their constant use of the “Flower Duet” from Lakmé.  We’d be the first to admit, however, that it can be difficult to catch every live performance of all the musical masterpieces in your listening repertoire– when LA Opera, the LA Phil, and the LA Chamber Orchestra are all on the same night as Top Chef, it leaves you in a very difficult position.  Having never heard Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony performed live, for example, is an unfortunate consequence that comes with living in a world of so many options.  It is also a musical crime.  However, LA Chamber Orchestra is here to help.

Their “Discover” concert series continues this Saturday, November 7 at 8pm with “Discover Beethoven’s 5th” at the Ambassador Auditorium.  The well-known, powerful, majestic symphony will be played in full during the second half of the concert after what could be considered the world’s shortest and most intense lesson on Beethoven and his music.  Perhaps we shouldn’t call it a lesson so much as a bonus – the first half of the concert will include excerpts from the Fifth alongside a number of Beethoven’s other symphonies, solo piano works, and our personal favorite – bits of his “Moonlight” and “Pathetique” sonatas.  Hearing all of these works performed live under the direction of Jeffrey Kahane will prove a truly grand experience… made all the better by the fact that Fine Arts LA has got some tickets to spare that we’re itching to give away to our faithful, music-loving readers!  Welcome to our latest Extra! Extra! raffle…

Some Extra! Extra! details you’ll want to keep in mind: by entering into this raffle, you’re automatically entered to win the next three we’ve got going on.  All we need is your first name, last name, and email address and voila – you’ll be blown away.

(Click here if you’d rather not risk it and want to buy your own tickets.)

There’s something fascinating about life at the turn of the 19th century, isn’t there? It was a time when so much innovation arose across the board in the arts, industry, and technology.  It also was a time when there was a great deal of respect for the finer things in life – a newly built Myron Hunt-designed mansion on a 600-acre ranch in San Marino, for example, was appreciated and nurtured.  Henry Huntington and his wife Arabella knew just what to do with the wall space and lavish gardens before them in the early 1900s and now in this century, we’ve come to know and love their former home as Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens.

There were issues one would have wanted to avoid at the turn of the century – cholera, for example.  The joie de vivre, however, was enviable.  If there was ever a concert that could give you a taste of Mr. and Mrs. Huntington’s elegant lives, it would be tomorrow evening.  Camerata Pacifica presents “Music for Solo Piano and Piano Four Hands” at the Huntington Library at 8pm.  With a program that includes Debussy’s Marche Ecossaise, Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words, and Schubert’s Fantasie in F Minor, among others, you can imagine that you’d been invited by Arabella Huntington herself for an intimate piano concert in one of her grand halls.  You’ll sit among a serious collection of rare books and an art collection that includes works by John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, and Edward Hopper – just keep in mind, they didn’t wear jeans or Converse back then.

If tomorrow is too soon or San Marino is too far, Camerata Pacifica will perform the same concert at Zipper Hall downtown on Thursday evening, also at 8pm.

Camerata Pacifica’s “Music for Solo Piano and Piano Four Hands” will be performed tomorrow, Tuesday, October 20 at the Huntington Library at 8pm and on Thursday, October 22 at Zipper Hall at 8pm.  For more information, please call (805) 884-8410 or click here.

When was the last time someone could truly say they did something for seventy years?  Unless you’re seventy or over and we’re talking about brushing teeth, there’s not a lot of fascinating things people continue to do for that long.  Think about all that you could accomplish in a particular field if you’d been at it for seventy years.   We’d need to think of some word to describe you – more than an expert, just less than a god.

Wayne Thiebaud produced so many works in his seventy years of painting, that the Pasadena Museum of California Art has opened an exhibit of over one hundred and twenty pieces – and there are still some left over! Known widely for his colorful paintings of mouthwatering sweets, Thiebaud and his work inspires more than just cravings.  With succulent watermelons, beach bunnies, dripping paint buckets, and pies that look like they’ve just come from the oven, his paintings don’t shy away from the tangible, delicious, and truly Californian pleasures in life.  His love for California and all the varied landscapes you discover throughout the state is obvious considering his works that focus on beach scenes, the San Francisco skyline, and the natural environs of Northern California.

On now through January 31, 2010, Wayne Thiebaud: 70 Years of Painting is a sight to behold – the collection spans all of the pieces mentioned above and plenty more.   So feast your eyes on his delectable and colorful world.  Just make sure you know where the nearest café or bakery is – then it will be a feast for all your senses.

Wayne Thiebaud: 70 Years of Painting is open now through January 31, 2010 at the Pasadena Museum of California Art.  For more information, please call (626) 568-3665 or click here.