Visit the museum on Friday night and enjoy the first screening from a new film series, Academy @ LACMA. Presented by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the series launches with a double feature of Down by Law and Stranger than Paradise from director Jim Jarmusch, a seminal figure in American independent cinema. On Saturday see two additional works by Jarmusch: the 1996 “acid western” Dead Man, starring Johnny Depp, and Mystery Train, another blend of high and low comedy and sadness and high jinks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_64Qv0jV_PY

For more weekend fun, on Saturday families are invited to visit our satellite gallery at Charles White Elementary near MacArthur Park for an open house of Kaz Oshiro: Chasing Ghosts, taking place from noon to 4:30 pm with art-making activities for children. Back on campus check out the free talk at 2 pm with Harvard University professor of humanities, art history, and architecture Yukio Lippit, exploring the remarkable artistry of Itō Jakuchū (Japan, 1716–1800) in The Art of the Future: Itō Jakuchū’s Colorful Realm.

At the Hacienda Heights Art+Film Lab, located at Steinmetz Park, visitors can take advantage of a free filmmaking workshop on Saturday at noon or contribute their personal story to the Oral History project on Sunday at 12:30 pm. If you’ve not been out to see the lab yet, this weekend is a great time to go. In the Bing Theater at LACMA, check out the UCLA Philharmonia at 6 pm on Sunday for this week’s presentation of Sundays Live.

Frederick Hammersley, Around a round, 1959, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, bequest of Fannie and Alan Leslie, © Frederick Hammersley Foundation

Finally, around our galleries, join any of the free daily tours of our temporary exhibitions and permanent collection, like a 50-minute walkthrough of See the Light—Photography, Perception, Cognition: The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection on Saturday at noon. On Sunday, take part in a pleasant 15-minute look at Henri Matisse’s La Gerbe at 1:30 pm. Continuing your stroll around the six building campus, and you’ll also encounter Four Abstract Classicists, David Hockney: The Jugglers, and The Color of Life: Japanese Paintings from the Price Collection. Who’s in?

Roberto Ayala