Quick—take a look out your window. Isn’t it beautiful outside? Don’t you want to be outside? Doesn’t a nice (free) outdoor concert sound perfect tonight? Well you’re in luck: the new season of Jazz at LACMA starts tonight and will run every Friday through the end of summer. Just to make Jazz at LACMA that much more fun, don’t forget we now have Ray’s and Stark Bar right there, so you can enjoy dinner or an after-work drink while the father/son duo of John and Gerald Clayton let loose on stage. For more on the Claytons, check out John Clayton or Gerald Clayton’s websites for music and video samples.
In addition to the special exhibitions on view now—David Smith, Vija Celmins, Elizabeth Taylor in Iran, and Human Nature—we also have two smaller shows opening this weekend.
To whet your appetite for Tim Burton, opening May 29, we’re giving you Burton Selects: From LACMA’s Collection, on view in the Ahmanson Building starting Saturday. We invited Burton to comb through our entire encyclopedic collection and guest curate a “Burton-esque” exhibition. The result mid-sixteenth-century Mannerists, ghostly Japanese prints, skeletons from Mexico, and plenty of German Expressionists, among others.
Otto Dix, Illusion Act, 1922, the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, © Otto Dix Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG BILD-KUNST, Bonn
Just upstairs from Burton Selects, in the South and Southeast Asian Galleries, is The Way of the Elders: The Buddha in Modern Theravada Traditions. The historic Buddha, Shakyamuni (c. fifth century BC) is depicted in all manner of manuscripts, textiles, and monastery walls in the Theravada school of Buddhism (practiced in Sri Lanka and much of Southeast Asia). This installation of permanent collection works looks at a number of such depictions.
Buddha Shakyamuni, (detail) Burma (Myanmar), Mandalay, 20th century, gift of Gerald Stockton and S. Louis Gaines
Sunday, bring your kids for Egyptian-themed art-making activities during our free Andell Family Sunday (12:30–3:30 pm). Later in the evening, check out the Chamber Ensembles from the Colburn School for our weekly free Sundays Live concert series.
Scott Tennent