SoCal Minds

Net wonders: voyeur video, extreme and inspiring photos...

From Caltech, the Annenberg Space for Photography, the Getty & UCI

Gosh, some days there's just no getting around what the Internet can do, and, while these aren't exactly the highest marvels of the medium, it's worth checking out online wonders such as: from the folks in LaCanada-Flintridge, how about the 'curiosity cam,' a cyber video voyeur's dream glimpse into construction of the next Mars Rover? Course, also gotta hand it to the folks in Century City for the, as planned, hugely entertaining online video presentations on the photographers involved in the recently opened 'Extreme Exposure' photo exhibit. The final shots on display, of course, are artistic and technical marvels. But as experiences go, the backstory videos with the shooters rates up there, too.  If photography's the thing, by the way, it's worth checking out a blog post from the folks in that ginormous institution up on that Westside hill, as they offer a curator's choice of available documentaries 'inspired' by great photojournalism. And speaking of idiosyncratic takes on the world, try out the intellectual skew from a physics prof and sci fi writer in Irvine who finds much to mine about the zeitgeist in decades of predictions about the future recorded in the pages of Popular Science.

SoCal has fashionable displays all stitched up

From UCI, the Getty & LACMA

The fascination with how fine we all look all the time -- uh, huh, we are good looking, aren't we -- can so dominate life in Southern California that it might seem like gilding the lily to devote any more attention to fashion, its appointments and details. Fugghedaboutit. This is, after all, Hollywood, where, as the folks in Irvine note in a new exhibit, style and dress rule. It's amply illustrated with costumes from the drama department collections (such as a lavishly ruffled gown worn by Joan Crawford in the 1932 fashion-shaping film 'Letty Lynton) as well as books, magazines, photos, videos, posters and other materials that show how Hollywood from the 1930s foward became nothing less than a giant cultural force. The show in the school 's Langson Library launches tonight and runs until April 2011. And for those who wish to grasp better how details like drapery can make and break not only the wearer but, indeed, a sweeping artistic scene, well the terrific blog from the folks at the monument up on that Westside hill offer a diverting post. Fashion and the fashionable of Europe, of course, are just part of what's on display in what the cognoscenti are calling a fabulous new art space in Mid-City; might be a good reason to go and catch up on the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Pavilion.

In Irvine, fall exhibit focuses on film, fashion

An artistic explanation of why drapery matters

Catch up on new art space, details of hundreds of years of European finery

 

Cool stuff to take in on a sizzling autumn weekend

From Art Center College of Design, UCLA, the Huntington, Getty, Japanese American National Museum, CalArts

Phew, it's Harvest Moon festival time and officially autumn but suddenly a blast of summer-like heat sweeps the area. Must be a signal to get out and about to take in all the cool stuff going on. Like a green business conference, co-sponsored by the art-design folks from Pasadena. Or how about an indoor viewing on the Westside of performances that, heretofore, have been staged by 'Superclogger' for L.A. commuters stuck in traffic jams. Or perhaps it's the weekend to get to San Marino to go deep on the history of science  as part of the robust season of public lectures and conferences. The freedom to move around and to enjoy life isn't something to be taken for granted, after all, as a gathering in Little Tokyo will remind, as folks there will discuss, analyze and recall the Japanese American internment, particularly the Heart Mountain, Wyo., camp in a weekend conference. They'll also recall the bizarre events that overtook a hapa (mixed race) flyer during World War II, when he was busted in rank and sent off to be with Nisei fighters in the famed 442d. And, by the way, the venue downtown also will host a 'Frame by Frame' animation showcase by alums from Valencia. And, lastly, for a cool contemporary thought or two about scoring an ancient classic, here's composer Bonfire Madigan talking about her work on 'Elektra.'  

Tales of addictive nicotine, 'If' for kids and a Trojan spy

From Caltech, the Getty & USC

Here's bully to the folks in Pasadena on at least two scores -- chiefly, for their dogged labors, as always, to decipher the mysteries of how nicotine works in the body, why it is so darn addictive and how the solution of its biochemical secrets might prove useful in treating disease. The intriguing science yarn wouldn't unfold so well for lay readers were it not for the school's struggle to keep alive long-form journalism, which, in plusher times, it publicized and displayed in smart, slick paper-and-ink products that it disseminated to a select, lucky audience. The magazine products disappeared with budget cutting, though they do survive and in some ways have become more accessible in a sometimes balky online format, where, for example, the story unfolds recently of frog eggs, muscle tissue, chemistry and biology and how all these tie into the study of nicotine.

More than a huff and puff about why nicotine proves so enticing

Click here to get to online editions of 'Engineering & Science'

And while we're toasting publications, here's a small salute to what could be termed an institutional classic -- a kids' book that the folks in the ginormous research institution and museum on the hill say is their No. 1 best-seller over the years with the young. 'If,' surrealist painter Sarah Perry's distinctive take on the world, has taken off with young people since its first publication 15 years ago, this even though the grown-ups who actually plunk down the moolah for the colorful work confess that they just don't get it at all. OK, mom and pops, doesn't matter. The young 'uns will get great jollies from idiosyncratic ideas, such as what 'If mice were hair...' (as glimpsed at left). Just keep buying the vivid illustrations in a book that, so far, has sold 100,000 copies.

Vivid, provocative and colorful, 'If' at 15 is a kids' best-selling favorite

So just who was Ignacy Samuel Witczak? Sure, he earned his Trojan B.A., cum laude, in 1942 and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa on campus. In 1943, he had earned his M.A. in political science and shortly thereafter he became a part-time instructor in Exposition Park. Did we mention that his real last name was Litvin, and according to an astronautics prof who stumbled on his curious life story, he was a Soviet spy of some importance. What damage did Witczak or Litvin do during the 1940s before he disappeared from a local beach in 1945, only to turn up later, and, in the story now patched together as formerly secret files become public, back in the Soviet Union where his one-time masters mistreated him?

An honors student who turned out to be real-life, Soviet 'Trojan Horse'

L.A. revises, revisits ill-fated legacy with David Siqueiros

From the Getty, the Autry and MOLAA

The pain-staking claw-back of the shameful Los Angeles legacy of a member of Los Tres Grande has taken another step forward this week, even as the works of the famed revolutionary artist David Siqueiros get an ample local spotlight. Siqueiros, who had been ejected from Mexico for his rebellious activity there, arrived in Los Angeles to teach at the Chouinard art school and to labor on three pictures for exhibition locally. He also was commissioned by local civic leaders to create an Olvera Street mural of the sort that would bring he, Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco international acclaim as founders of a modern Mexican art movement. But Siqueiros' 'America Tropical,' with its depiction of a crucified Mexican Indian, an American eagle and two revolutionary soldiers, inflamed already red-hot sentiments in L.A. about race, immigration and activism; the work, with its artistic advances in technique, was ordered painted over, eventually whitewashed and forgotten until the rise of the Chicano movement in the 1960s. The folks from the Westside powerhouse on the hill have put up millions and their world-renowned conservators' skill to work with the city of Los Angeles, which is also investing millions, to let the public see the process and the repaired Siqueiros, with a step in that effort marked this week in civic ceremonies. Meantime, the folks in Griffith Park and in Long Beach will open major exhibitions dedicated to Siqueiros, America Tropical and his talents, too, as a landscape painter. As blog postings from the park note, the artist holds an iconic role for Latinos in the city, inspiring an activist collector with a running show in Eagle Rock and inspiring a civil rights community figure to consider not only Siqueiros' creative capacity but also his life as a force for social reform.

Photos: Siqueiros, l, in 1971 by Luis Garza; assistant Robert Bredecio in front of 'America Tropical' before whitewashing

The difficult task of conserving, as opposed to restoring, a shunned mural masterwork

In Long Beach, a weekend opening for exhibit of muralist's formidable landscapes

In Griffith Park, an exhibit to focus on 'censorship defied' by a Los Tres member in L.A.

How an Eagle Rock gallery owner, collector 'keeps faith' in a giant of Mexican art

Legal activist links art, censorship, repression and drive for social justice

For other Latino muralists, scandal of neglect, decay can pose challenges, too

What happens after those enormous global calamities?

From the Getty

He's a master of disasters, an expert who has dug deep into one of the major calamities of the ancient world and he offers some sly, unsettling or maybe reassuring views for those of us who dwell in the City of Angels, where, wags jest, there are four true seasons -- of earthquakes, wildfires, mud slides and human rampage. Still, as Alexander MacGillivary's archeological career underscores, there's an upside to everything, including the enormous volcanic eruption in 1500 B.C. on what now is the modern Greek isle of Santorini. It has offered a life's scholarship on the long-extinct civilization on and around Thera, which, he says research shows, was destroyed by a cataclysm so extensive it caused a global winter for years, with increased darkness and rain and even a shift in global plant life. The eruption devastated the Minoans, though they staggered through a few generations before their civilization collapsed. He has looked at other catastrophic epochs and notes that after the worst that they can dish out disappears, amazing periods of human innovation and accomplishment also occur.

Archeologist, an expert on calamitous eruption on Thera, offers contrarian ideas on apocalyptic events 

Friday light, looking toward a weekend with lots to offer

From Pacific Asia Museum, the Japanese American National Museum, the Getty & the Autry

Whoa, this remarkable cool, comfortable SoCal summer can't last forever, can it? While SoCal Minds will enjoy the clime with a Friday lite posting, take it, too, as a sign for one and all to get out and keep moving around town to take in an array of mind-extending stuff, including:

• In Pasadena, the highly cultivated eye of curator Kalim Winata turns from books on what's made in India and China to how popular culture emerged in 'China Modern,' an exploration and exhibit that opens Friday. Traveling from the late Qing through Shanghai and all about the People's Republic, the show offers a graphic look at how the historic figures like Mao and modern southern beauties get mashed-up to popularize everything from politics to pomades.

How popular culture gets designed in 'China Modern'

• In Little Tokyo, it will be a busy weekend as the museum moves nearer to marking its 25th anniversary, partly by inviting some key players on Saturday to recall how an iconic exhibit got put together. The remembrances of the volunteers who recovered the intern barracks from the desolation and decay of their Heart Mountain, Wyo., site, then will be followed on Sunday by a paid-event that celebrates a century of good eating in the neighborhood, with a tour and tasting of noteworthy eateries.

Click here and scroll down, through for this weekend's events

• It may be aptly provocative in titular fashion. And certainly with the esteemed scholar involved it won't be a case of headline silliness. But the audience for the free Sunday talk up on the hill simply will have to decide if this question gets answered: Why did Italian artists draw? Go explore how the simple presence paper propelled the profound Renaissance revolution in art in the hands of titans such as Michaelangelo, Mantegna, DaVinci and Titian; space is limited, reservations are required. That's a 1518 Pontormo study shown on the right, by the way.

Click here to learn more about, rsvp for talk on 'Why Italian Artists Drew'

• In Griffith Park, courtesy of the folks at Bank of America, this will be a free museum weekend and a perfect chance finally to catch up Sunday afternoon with Laura Skandera Trombley, who not only serves as president of Pitzer College but also is one of the preeminent scholars on the legendary Mark Twain. She has appeared all across the region talking about her new book and its revelations about Samuel Clements' 'Other Woman.' Lots of attention to the famed western storyteller on this, the centennial of his death, including the much anticipated, upcoming release of the autobiography whose publication he barred until long after he was gone.

Click here for more info on Mark Twain lecture

For the 4th, exhibits, concerts, reading lists, feasting

From CalArts, Zocalo, UCI, the Getty, UCLA & Cal State Fullerton

Hope a safe, sane and fun Fourth weekend's on tap for one and all. With a legal holiday for many, the three-day weekend will allow for lots of intellectual exploring, feasting, reading and taking in stuff around the town. If anyone is left out there reading this, for example:

• The folks from Valencia, even with their ultra-cool downtown L.A. toe-hold at REDCAT, will be invading the city with L.A. Record 100, an array of concerts and events -- including many throughout the holiday weekend to benefit the community arts partnership program, as well as with 'Box Scheme,' the 2010 MFA graduates' exhibit that will take over space in multiple galleries in the old Chinatown.

• If graphics and fabrics grab certain artistic fancies for some people, they may be making their way to Fullerton for 'Love Me, Tees Me,' a summer showcase of T-shirt art, including some silk-screening demos today (7-3).

• Since the 4th marks the true start of Southern California summer, when, perhaps, the gloom lifts most everywhere, including on the Westside and the coast, well, it must be time to get out those beach reading lists, including one from the downtown literary and public affairs crowd or maybe try this batch from some literary minded folks in Irvine.

• Of course, what's a long holiday without lots of eating. Consider feasting as the Aztecs once did, or maybe while fretting about the cruelty of the eats or perhaps there will be moments to consider that meal's olfactory significance, as occurs if someone simply mentions the word 'curry.'

• And hate to be a serious-minded, gloomy gus. But this is supposed to be a time to consider freedom, independence, democracy and the kind of government we the people accept. As in, don't think there's any escape from the state budget crisis. The partisan, paralyzing divide in Sacramento and across the Golden State has left us all in societal penury. Meaning? Well, among other effects will be a two-week, cost-saving shutdown of a Westside public museum.

Hop to nifty read on taciturn painter whose art speaks loudly

From the Getty

Edward Hopper was a taciturn guy. When awarded a gold medal by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the iconic American painter's reply? 'Thanks.' Asked by an interviewer as to the inspirations of his dark landscapes like 'Nighthawks,' (shown at right) he said: 'I suppose it's just me.' Just eight people attended the artist's funeral. In keeping with his legendary talents, let's not bloviate further: Read the nifty blog post on how a scholar in residence at the institution on the hill managed to make a movie profiling tight-lipped Ed.

Cinematic portrait find profound eloquence in Edward Hopper's silences 

New initiative offers K-12 teachers, kids online arts resources

 rom the Getty

Imagine Beijing-based contemporary artist Xu Bing asking your kid to participate in picture writing, communicating visually without words. Or think about Los Angeles artist Mark Bradford, (shown at right) a social mapping expert, suggesting students plot out their school lunch room These are among the free, online arts activities available for K-12 teachers to use in their classrooms as part of a new cultural initiative.  Bradford, a MacArthur 'genius' fellow, organized 'Open Studio' to embrace contemporary ideas and society in the museum's educational programs. Participating artists include Kerry James Marshall, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Jon Cattapan, Catherine Opie, Graciela Iturbide, Kara Walker, Michael Joo and Carrie Mae Weems. 

MacArthur 'genius' fellow leads push to bring art, culture into classrooms

Click here to get to 'Open Studio'