As mentioned earlier in the week on Unframed, tonight is a fantastic event on the influence of cinema on Asco, including a discussion of their No Movies and a screening of French New Wave director Agnes Varda's 1981 documentary Mur Murs, about murals is Los Angeles and featuring Asco.
If you haven't yet experienced some of the many Pacific Standard Time exhibitions at LACMA or nearby, this is a great weekend to do it. We and our Hollywood/Wilshire neighbors are holding a "focus weekend," with events happening here and elsewhere, including free admission at some institutions (check this pdf for details).
Saturday focuses on architecture and design, with events at exhibitions at the A+D Museum and Craft and Folk Art Museum (both across the street from LACMA), as well as the Fowler Museum, Hammer Museum, LACE, and MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House. The big event at LACMA, in conjunction with California Design, 1935-1960 and as mentioned yesterday, is an all-day program in the Bing: The Legacy of the California Design Exhibitions, which looks at the series of California Design exhibitions held at the Pasadena Art Museum in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
Installation view of California Design, 1930-165: "Living in a Modern Way". oreground: Wallace "Wally" M. Byam, Clipper, 1936, Auburn Trailer Collection
Sunday hones in on artists in L.A. who engaged with social and political causes. Here at LACMA that includes Edward Kienholz's Five Car Stud as well as Asco: Elite of the Obscure and Mural Remix: Sandra de la Loza. Sandra de la Loza herself will be here on Sunday for a free talk in the Bing Theater. She'll be joined by Louie Perez of Los Lobos and Tomas Carrasco of the political satire group Chicano Secret Service for a discussion of Chicanos and the counter-culture. Other events happening nearby on this day include a a curator- and artist-led talk at the Fowler Museum for their Mapping Another L.A.: The Chicano Art Movement, a discussion about Watts Towers at the Hammer Museum, and a screening at LACE documenting performance art in L.A. in the 1970s.
Sandra de la Loza and Joseph Santarromana, Action Portraits (installation view), 2011, © Sandra de la Loza, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA
Of course it's not all about Pacific Standard Time at LACMA. We also have many other exhibitions on view, including the just-opened Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World, Glenn Ligon: AMERICA, and Monet/Lichtenstein: Rouen Cathedrals. On Sunday we also offer our free Andell Family Sunday activities—the perfect time to bring the kids.
Installation view of Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World
As usual, the weekend is bookended with free concerts: tonight, the Ark Sano Trio performs during Jazz at LACMA, while on Sunday the trio of Movses Pogossian (violin), Michele Zukovsky (clarinet), and Antoinette Perry (piano) perform works by Beethoven, Messiaen, and Bartok during Sundays Live.
Scott Tennent