SoCal Minds

Getty museum leadership program moves east

From Claremont Graduate University

A program housed at the Getty Center on the Westside for a decade soon will move east to Claremont under a three-year, $2.2 million grant that will let the leaders of tomorow's major museums earn academic credit while learning how better to manage the complexities of their crucial cultural institutions. The new Getty Museum Leadership Institute will open in January, though participants in the 2010 program next summer will work at the Brentwood center. The 25-year-old program, which began in New York and once was affiliated with UC Berkeley, counts more than 1,000 senior-level museum professionals, board members, academics, philanthropists and public officials as alums of its efforts to support and improve the governance, management and operations of top institutions around the world.

$2.2 million grant will move Getty Museum Leadership Institute to Claremont

Academic credit key to shift from Brentwood, KPCC reports

It's an LA week: chimps, gorillas, oil, deception

From USC, Cal State Fullerton, Zocalo & the Getty

Chimpanzees. Gorillas. Oil. Deception. No, those aren't the elements for a Marx brothers comedy. They are among topics that will be taken up by smart minds this week:

In Exhibition Park, legendary primatologist Jane Goodall on Tuesday will talk about her half century of work to study, understand and protect endangered species, particularly chimpanzees in Africa. At the afternoon event, she also will sign and sell merchandise and her book, "Hope for Animals and Their World: How Endangered Species Are Being Rescued from the Brink," written with Thayne Maynard and Gail Hudson. Proceeds from the book and merchandise sales benefit Goodall's institute, which builds on her efforts to save threatened species, protect endangered environments and help people around the globe. Her program is free and open to the public but reservations are required.

Protecting primates, people with humanitarian Jane Goodall 

Click here for more information on the Jane Goodall Institute

In Fullerton, Ian Redmond, a tropical field biologist and conservationist, will discuss on Tuesday afternoon, why saving gorillas isn't just about preserving a species but instead protecting the planet. Actions to reduce global warming will benefit mankind and the earth and should be undertaken immediately -- and not just to protect large primates and other animals that need endangered, valuable tropical forest habitats, Redmond and others say, citing the role of gorillas, in particular, to serve as sentinels or indicators of environmental well-being and to rally activists. This lecture is free and open to the public.

Saving gorillas and the planet with biologist Ian Redmond

 In West Los Angeles, author Peter Maas, in a program Wednesday night, will take on all the troubling global consequences of our difficult relationship with oil. He'll talk about the problems that stem from Americans' gas guzzling, as well as the woes that have afflicted oil-rich nations such as Nigeria, Venezuela and Angola. Maas writes for the New York Times Magazine and has just put a new book, "Crude World." This session at the Skirball is free and open to the public but reservations are required.

Understanding the global 'Curse of Oil' with author Peter Maas

In West Los Angeles, famed filmmaker Errol Morris and Ricky Jay, an author, actor, scholar and sleight-of-hand-artist, on Thursday night will tackle the complex issues of reality and illusion, masterpieces and forgeries and art and perception. Morris (whose works include Standard Operating Procedure, The Fog of War and The Thin Blue Line) and Jay have delved into the topic of art and what we really know of ourselves in a New York Times blog. Their discussion is free and open to the public but reservations are required.

Probing reality, illusion, art, perception with filmmaker Errol Morris, author Ricky Jay

How an LA Workshop Drew Galaxy of Art Stars

From the Getty

It's a name-dropper's delight, now an iconic institution of modern art in LA that has worked for more than 40 years with the likes of David Hockney, Jasper Johns, John Baldessari, Ellsworth Kelly, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Edward Kienholz, Nancy Reddin Kienholz, Ed Ruscha and Richard Serra. But if Gemini G.E.L. (Graphics Editions Limited) isn't immediately familar, here's a chance to learn more about it at a May 27 panel -- with promised appearances by artists Baldessari and Serra and Sidney Felsen and Stanley Grinstein, cofounders of the artist's workshop and publisher of limited edition prints and sculptures. Admission free, reservations required and they can be made online by clicking link below. 

Photo: Daniel Buren at Gemini / Copyright 2001 by Sidney B. Felsen

Exploring the Work of Pathbreaking LA Art Workshop
Gemini G.E. L. Catalogue Raisonne by the National Gallery of Art

Southern California Shows Off Its Rembrandts

From the Getty et al & Pacific Asia Museum

As more institutions boost their online displays of their collections, the viewable treasures get more amazing by the day. Just how many of the region's most significant institutions got online and what they learned in the process is part of "LA Art Online," a Getty initiative and study available in cyberspace. Ditto, a multi-museum project that has pulled together the works of Rembrandt in Southern California, which, despite its late-start, has the third-largest such assemblage in the U.S. [behind NY and DC] Through the powers of online, fans of the Dutch master have been able for a bit now to click around his works from the Getty, LACMA, the Norton Simon, the Hammer and San Diego's Timken museum. And if arts of Asia appeal, instead, there are multiple presentations of note featuring another museum [see links on the right-rail of its home page]. 

Rembrandt self-portrait from the Norton Simon Museum

Rembrandt in Southern California

LA Art Online -- a Getty Initiative

Click Here to See Asian Art Exhibits

A More Plastic Future for Valuable Art

From the Getty

Who knew? From all the rubbish on the beach, believe most of us thought that plastics were indestructible, the Dustin Hoffman, "Graduate" way to go because they had a limitless future. So, go figure: For artistic and conservation concern, plastics do degrade, get damaged and even disappear into a powder. They crack, warp and ooze. And for more than a quarter century, those worried about preserving and protecting art works with plastics in them have fretted about exactly what to do. New research, in a project called POPART (the acronym has its own clever etymology), aim to tackle this woe.

Getty Tackles Preservation of Plastic

Hunt's on for LA's Unheard of Historic Gems

From the Getty

With 85 percent of Los Angeles unmapped much less surveyed for buildings and neighborhoods that might be deemed historic, the Getty Conservation Institute and the city of Los Angeles' Office of Historic Resources soon will launch a new push to preserve important parts of the metropolis. They'll start with an April 4 forum, hosted by Larry Mantle of KPCC's "Air Talk," at the Central Library as part of the Aloud programs. Participants will be asked to reveal what they know about at least one historic gem in the city -- a building, area or neighborhood -- and information will be gathered for three years in the SurveyLA initiative.

A Day Highlighting a Push to Preserve Historic LA