Installation photo of the exhibition Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (June 7, 2015–January 3, 2016), © Noah Purifoy Foundation

Holiday at LACMA

December 25, 2015
Katie Antonsson, USC Annenberg Journalism Fellow

LACMA is closed on Christmas Day, but we're open through the weekend. Explore the galleries and exhibitions—both new and soon-to-close—through tours taking place all weekend. Start Saturday off with a tour of Frank Gehry at 11 am. Frank Gehry is a comprehensive retrospective of the architect's work to date, complete with sketches, models, and final photographs of the finished buildings and houses. Spanning early Gehry Partners works from the 1960s all the way up to future projects, this exhibition offers an in-depth examination of one of architecture's most innovative minds.

Sunday morning, join the weekend tour of New Objectivity: Modern German Art in the Weimar Republic, 19191933 at 11 am before the show closes on January 18. New Objectivity explores the interwar period of German art, rife with unsettling images and frank portraits of German life. In a rejection of Expressionism, German artists opted for a new form of realism, Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), that explored a more critical eye of German society. Showcasing five different themes covering 180 works by more than 50 artists, New Objectivity mixes different mediums from photography to painting to bring together a full visual narrative.

Finish up Sunday afternoon with a tour of Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada at 2 pm. A founding director of the Watts Towers Art Center, Purifoy's work is distinctly Californian, his work mostly centered in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree. After nearly eleven years of public policy work in the wake of his 66 Signs of Neon, a traveling group show interpreting the Watts riots, Purifoy moved his practice to the Mojave desert, taking junked materials and transforming them into large-scale works. Noah Purifoy closes on January 3, so be sure to see it while you can!

New to the LACMA campus is Senses of Time: Video and Film-Based Works of Africa. Come explore six separate works by five artists, all examining the relationship between humankind and time. The pieces are a wondrous display of the natural tensions of time and ritual, time and the mechanical, and time and the body. The show is currently running on the third floor of the Hammer building.

We also have extended holiday hours! From December 26 to January 3, LACMA will be open from 9am–8pm, so come for the tours and enjoy the museum.