Exhibitions, lectures, concerts, films… we’ve got a little of everything this weekend. On the exhibition front, there are seven different special exhibitions on view right now, starting with Olmec, Fashioning Fashion, and Eye for the Sensual in the new Resnick Pavilion. In the Ahmanson Building you’ll find In the Service of the Buddha: Tibetan Furniture from the Hayward Family Collection and EATLACMA. Harvest time is approaching for the artist-created gardens of EATLACMA, so keep on the lookout as you walk around campus. Finally, there’s Catherine Opie: Figure and Landscape and Manly Pursuits: The Sporting Images of Thomas Eakins, both of which close next week.
Thomas Eakins, Wrestlers, 1899.
Saturday would be an ideal day to take in Eakins, as we’re also holding a special symposium, “The Body Imagined: Sports & Art in American Culture, Then & Now.” Tad Beck, the artist behind the Palimpsest exhibition embedded within Manly Pursuits, will be on hand, along with Los Angeles Times sports journalist Mike Bresnahan; Jennifer Doyle, professor at UC Riverside; and Amy Werbel, professor at St. Michael’s College, all discussing the role of sports and art in the evolving cultural attitudes toward the human body. The lecture is free and starts at 1 pm.
Muhammad Aza, Portrait of Nasir ud din Haidar, c. 1830. India, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow. Oil on canvas 36-1/4 x 28-3/8 in. (92.1 x 72.1 cm). Collection Drs. Aziz and Deanna Khan. Photo courtesy Drs. Aziz and Deanna Khan.
Sunday sees another lecture, also free: “Lucknow through the Lens of Bollywood.” The lively presentation of film clips from Hindi and Bollywood directors from the 1960s to the present will also include a live tabla performance. This will be a good primer for our upcoming exhibition, India’s Fabled City: The Art of Courtly Lucknow, opening in December.
If music is your game, we’ve got two free concerts. Tonight (Friday), the Ernie Watts Quartet plays Jazz at LACMA. Watts is a two-time Grammy winner and has played with plenty of greats over the last forty years, from Cannonball Adderly to Frank Zappa. Sunday, we continue our Sundays Live series with another concert be performers from the New England Conservatory, in celebration of Robert Schumann’s bicentennial.
This weekend also kicks off our latest film series, a 20th Anniversary Tribute to the Film Foundation. The series will run every weekend for the rest of the month and features a diverse slate of films—all of which have been restored and preserved by the Film Foundation. Tonight sees a noir double feature with The Big Combo and They Made Me a Fugitive. Saturday, the foreign masterpiece Pather Panchali will be followed by the dance classic The Red Shoes. Here’s a trailer for the latter:
Stretching into next week, we should note that Monday is a holiday—we’ll be open (but not free, as we are for other holiday Mondays). But Tuesday we will be free, as we are on the second Tuesday of every month If you’re free you should come down, maybe catch The Swan, with Grace Kelly and Alec Guinness, during the Tuesday Matinee—just two bucks!