Posts Tagged ‘Getty Museum’

Plato’s allegory of the cave started a long-standing trend.  When he suggested that perhaps what we see isn’t the real thing, but is instead a reflection of the real thing, he opened up a philosophical can of worms.  To this day, philosophers and the high school students that study them wonder aloud how we can be sure that we are seeing the truth in front of us everyday.

Errol Morris and Ricky Jay are the latest to take on this conundrum in a lecture (a free one) at the Getty Museum on Thursday evening at 7pm.  They’ll have an in depth conversation about perception, deception, and why we believe what we see.  Morris, a filmmaker most widely known for his work on The Fog of War, Standard Operating Procedure, and The Thin Blue Line, has seen the world through a wide array of eyes.  He also writes a blog for the New York Times that covers the world of arts and how we see it by looking deeper into truth, lies, and why people see what they see.  Accompanying him on Thursday, Ricky Jay is an author, scholar, and art collector who has consulted on and appeared in a number of film, television and Broadway appearances.  His new one-man show will actually make its way to the Geffen later this year.

Who better than theorizing filmmakers to lecture Los Angeles on what we see, whether or not it’s real, and how to tell the difference?  This is the kind of information that could give you a step up– to tell illusions from reality would give you a real edge in the heart of the illusionary city of angels.

Errol Morris and Ricky Jay will be speaking at the Getty Museum on Thursday, October 8 at 7pm. The event is free, but since reservations are required it has come to our attention that the event is sold out! Having said that, stand-by visitors are welcome and will be seated in an adjacent auditorium for a live broadcast of the lecture. Please click here for more information.

There’s a problem sweeping the nation.  To solve it, arts organizations and start-ups are thinking outside the box.  The problem boils down to the question: where have all the young people gone? Well, they’ve (or we’ve) started preferring hip-hop to Bach and graffiti to Picasso.  And while there’s nothing wrong with the cultural shift, it does create an issue for all those classical performers and painters holding onto older fine arts techniques. 

Lately, audiences have been comprised more of the hearing-aid set than the stiletto set, which is unfortunate for a number of reasons.  To be clear, the unfortunate side of this has nothing to do with the older patrons who frequent performances and museums.  They’re the lifers who, if asked, could tell you anything you need to know about Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 5.  On the other hand, when young people decide against attending something, it says little in the way of longevity for those arts. 

In the interest of showing the youth how important, interesting, and relevant classical art forms are, opera houses, ballet companies, and museums have all created young patron groups.  Members of these groups are capped at a certain age and have benefits unlike those for more traditional memberships from a less expensive annual fee to more exciting parties.  At this point, New York has been the pioneer city for these kinds of youth groups – the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, the Guggenheim, and pretty much every other top organization in New York have all become popular spots for the kids to party. 

Around the country, youth groups have put together parties to be reckoned with inside the walls of some of the country’s oldest, most beautiful buildings.  The annual fees agree with the disposable incomes of our country’s young professionals and the parties have started to include well-known DJs, they’ve upped the catering, and have adopted eccentric themes.  From Young Patrons Circle at the Houston Grand Opera to Young Patrons of the Portland Art Museum, the trend hasn’t yet gained the same kind of popularity in Los Angeles, but we have faith.  MOCA has their Contemporaries, LACMA throws parties for their youth group MUSE, and then there’s GenArt.  With a tagline that reads “access to emerging talent,” their mission is to recognize the talent (classical or not) coming from the young. 

Thinking further outside the box, there are new movements popping up like the Fourth Wall, who currently work exclusively with the Geffen Playhouse.  Then the Getty introduced summer concerts to their lineup presenting bands from across the country for free.  As organizations continue to try new ways of relating to us kids, we find more and more reason to love what we do here at Fine Arts LA.  We mentioned recently how proud we are of organizations that have shown their creative use of technology to connect to audiences and with youth groups, we’re even more proud of how they’ve learned to interact with us in person.  Our babies are growing up! 

On Monday mornings, it’s appropriate to turn on Elvis Costello’s “Welcome to the Working Week” to rock yourself out of bed as needed.  Or, if you have a proverbial case of the Mondays, The Mamas and The Papas’, “Monday, Monday,” might work a tad better, but that is not a guarantee.  Monday, Monday, you just can’t trust that day.

On Tuesdays, it is a little easier to wake up.  Some (and I am not naming any names) prefer to pour themselves a cup of ambition after they tumble out of bed to the wise words of Dolly Parton.  We love it and we won’t tell anyone.

Getting up for the grind any day of the week is hard. You’ve got to pay the bills somehow.  And if you have a voyeuristic tendency (and we assume you do), you can turn back the clock to see dozens from Paris, London, and New York in the early ‘50s welcome the working week in Irving Penn’s exhibition, Small Trades.

Penn photographed trades people in their uniforms (or lack of) alongside the tools of their occupation in the Small Trades series.  Each person is photographed in front of a neutral backdrop in style that forms the large body of images taken over decades.  This exhibition will feature photographs handpicked by Penn that the museum acquired last year, including 155 gelatin silver prints and 97 platinum/palladium prints.

You can whistle, workin’ 9 to 5, what a way to make a living, on your way there.  That is, if you can get the time off.

Irving Penn’s exhibition Small Trades is currently on display at the J. Paul Getty Museum.  Click here for more information.

Photo: Irving Penn, Seamstress Fitter, London, 1950; Credit: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

A funny thing happened on my way to see the new Paul Outerbridge photography exhibit at the J. Paul Getty Museum today: there was an enormous fire.

At first it wasn’t enormous.  I was standing in line to board the tram that takes visitors from the parking area to the actual museum (a clumsy mode of transportation, but I’ll get to that later), when I noticed a few people taking pictures of the nearby mountain with their digital cameras and camera-phones.  As my purpose for being there involved reviewing a photographer who got his start in photo-documentation, I looked over to see what they were documenting, and was stunned to see smoke rising up from the trees not a mile away.  Soon the smoke turned into glossy, psychedelic flames; the kind you see in a bad movie villain’s sunglasses.  Still, no one seemed worried.  In fact, a children’s camp on a field trip stood in line with me, all waiting to hop on the same tram that would presumably take us to a safe haven of art and security located in the opposite direction of the fire.

The tram arrived at the parking area without a hitch and shuttled us up and away toward our destination as if nothing bad was happening.  And it was this same feeling of casual circumstance that pervaded the entire atmosphere of the museum when we got there: tour guides leading guests around the exhibits whilst a massive fire raged in the background; camps of children playing ‘Simon Says,’ as if that were enough distraction from the mushroom cloud of smoke rising rapidly toward the sky; people actually sitting and eating food at the café, more involved with their lattes and small-talk than the surreal scene of destruction behind them.

All in all, the fire was basically treated as just another exhibit, albeit a popular one.  A thick crowd of spectators, including myself, utilized the balcony of the café to get a good view of the ensuing disaster.  And it was only when I was standing in front of this massive creation of God/nature that the frail fortress of the Getty, like the circling helicopters above, started to seem tiny and fragile.  The thought occurred to me how easily it could all be destroyed.

Maybe the scariest part of the fire (and also the most beautiful) was the tower of brown smoke that billowed permanently into the blue sky, as if the mountain were constantly exhaling from a toxic cigar.  It was hard, frankly, not to see it as a kind of warning sign and it was directed right at the Getty.  “If I can destroy this,” the sepia-toned cloud seemed to say, “I can destroy you.”

It was about this point in time we were evacuated by the same museum staffers that typically tell you not to bring a drink into an exhibit.  They earned their pay today.  They managed to keep the guests calm, cool, and collected even as the smoke cloud loomed closer and combined with the already hot summer sun.  They handed out complimentary waters and umbrellas while guests watched the tram struggle with repeated technical difficulties.  A man in line behind me checked his iPhone to see if there was any news about the fire.  The first thing that came up was an overhead picture of us.  We were the main story… just as the fire itself was the main exhibit and an extraordinary one at that. 

In other news, the Paul Outerbridge exhibit is on view at the Getty until August 9.  The museum is closed due to the fire until further notice.  

They say diamonds are forever, but at this point I am starting to believe it’sbronze that is forever.  Take a stroll through the galleries of the Getty Museum’s newest exhibition, Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution, and you will be a believer.  Oh, you will see the light.

Cast in Bronze was co-organized by our very own Getty Museum (represent!), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Musee du Louvre, Paris.  This show has enough street cred to start its own record company/lifestyle clothing line/cologne due to these three institutions’ collaboration and over thirty years of research by the French Bronze Study Group.

Cast in Bronze showcases a comprehensive collection of French bronze sculpture created from the Renaissance until the end of the monarchy during the French Revolution in 1792. You’ll see a lot of classical allegories, portraits, and horses, but you’ll also appreciate the high amount of skill necessary to make bronze statues seem alive. Let me tell you, it is really hard to make lifelike hair…and drapery…and hands… you get the picture.  Both large, monumental statues and smaller, more domestically orientated bronze works were the pride of the nation and stylistically became the standard for most European countries.

And in case you were looking to make a bronze statue of a loved one or even yourself, be sure to check out an accompanying exhibition Foundry to Finish: The Making of a Bronze Sculpture – a show featuring step-by-step models of the lost-wax method and radiographs (score!). 

Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution is on view at the Getty Museum until September 27, 2009.  For more information, please call (310) 440-7300 or click here. 

Image: Winter, Philippe Bertrand, late 1600s – early 1700s, bronze, ~19″ high.  The Royal Collection — Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

What has the 405 done for you lately? Aside from getting to remind the driver in front of you, with perhaps some force, that the gas is on the right and allowing you to take the time to listen to the entire contents of your iPod in one sitting, the 405 isn’t really our friend.  Until now. 

Starting this Saturday night at the Getty (that museum you inch by on your daily commute) is a series of free concerts called Saturdays off the 405.  The lineup includes this Saturday’s performance by Brooklyn-based Chairlift, next month’s Mas Exitos, August’s performance by The Dodos and many other performances.  The Getty-tinis on offer aren’t free, but the music and the time spent hanging at the Getty (from 6-9pm) are!

For more information, please visit their website.  

You probably already know it, but here is a reminder: the Getty Museum in Brentwood and the Getty Villa in Malibu are always free!  Be prepared to pay for parking, which runs $10 per car. Pack as many people in your car as you can and bring your lunch.  You know how to get down with your bad selves, especially with a little pocket change to spare…  Don’t forget, you do need to make reservations beforehand if you decide to head up to the Villa!