This Weekend at LACMA: Bruce Nauman Artwork on View, Free Lectures and Concerts, and More

November 18, 2011

Earlier this year you may have read about LACMA's acquisition of Bruce Nauman’s For Beginners (all the combinations of the thumb and fingers), a large-scale two-channel video depicting the artist’s hands following verbal instructions. That artwork is now on view, in the first level of BCAM.


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Bruce Nauman, For Beginners (all the combinations of the thumb and fingers), 2010, image courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York, © 2011 Bruce Nauman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

As usual there is plenty more to see on campus than can be enumerated here, but it’s worth noting that Asco: Elite of the Obscure has only two more weeks left in its run, so if you haven’t seen it yet, now’s the time. (Note: the Asco Mural Tour tomorrow is sold out). Asco is just across the way from Glenn Ligon: AMERICA, while over in the nearby Resnick Pavilion you’ll find California Design and the recently opened Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World, among other exhibitions on view now. We also have a number of smaller installations on view—one of which, Washi Tales: The Paper Art of Ibe Kyoko, is also closing at the end of this month.

In terms of programs and events this weekend, we’ve got a handful of free concerts and lectures on offer. On the music front, the Bruce Eskovitz Jazz Orchestra performs during Jazz at LACMA tonight, while the Capitol Ensemble will perform works by Mendelssohn and Schubert in the Bing Theater on Sunday.

As for lectures: on Saturday afternoon in the Bing Theater, Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith discuss their new biography, Van Gogh: The Life, followed by a book signing. On Sunday, scholar Pierre Briant discusses the fascinating life of Darius III, the last king of the Achaemenid Empire (aka the Persion Empire, c. 550–330 BC), who battled Alexander the Great and the Macedonian invasion.


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Vincent Van Gogh, The Postman Joseph Roulin, George Gard De Sylva Collection

Heads up for families this weekend! This Sunday will be our last Andell Family Sunday before the holiday break, returning on January 8.

Finally, we wanted to congratulate Chef Kris Morningstar and Ray’s for making appearances on a handful of lists touting the best restaurants of 2011—namely in LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and Esquire magazine. In celebration of that latter notice, Kris is getting together with a few other L.A. chefs who made Esquire’s list—Steve Samson and Zach Pollack of Sotto and John Rivera Sedlar of Playa. For three consecutive Mondays, all four chefs will cook together at each other’s restaurants, creating a one-of-a-kind six-course meal. The first instance of this collaboration will happen at Ray’s this Monday, November 21—so get your reservations in (323 857 6180).

Scott Tennent