Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic

Recognized as one of the greatest pioneers of abstract modern sculpture, American artist Alexander Calder's (1898-1976) large-scale iconic works have become landmarks in cities around the world. One of these sculptures is the Three Quintains (Hello Girls), a large scale outdoor fountain at Los Angeles County Museum of Art Director's Roundtable Garden in the east side of campus, commissioned for the opening of LACMA's Hancock Park campus in 1964.

In cooperation with Calder Foundation, New York, soon opening at LACMA is Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic, the first Calder Los Angeles exhibit, spanning over forty years of the artist's career. Organized in chronological order, the exhibit displays approximately fifty abstract sculptures of some of Calder’s most notorious works including mobiles, stabiles, and maquettes (or models) for larger outdoor works.

An introduction by Alexander Calder's grandson and Calder Foundation President, Sandy Rower, points to the details in the work’s inspiration of three-dimensional abstractions of nature, the universe, and weightlessness.

Dating from the time Calder spent in Paris are the early wire sculptures (1926-1933) in which several parts form one coherent work, including Croisiere (1931), Object of Red Ball (1931), and Small Feathers (1931), notes Lauren Bergman, Assistant Curator of Modern Art at LACMA.

Calder's early iconic work consisted
predominantly of 'mobiles', a term coined by Marcel Duchamp in 1931, where parts of hanging kinetic sculptures are stirred and reshaped by air currents while emitting sounds from connecting metals. Providing great presence is Calder's Eucalyptus (1940), as well as Constellation Mobile (1943), and La Demoiselle (1939).

Calder's work then gradually evolved towards more muscular, thick steel, 'stabiles' sculptures, a term coined by Jean Arp in 1932, consisting of stationary abstract sculptures often blended with mobiles, such as the iconic Laocoön (1947) from Eli and Edythe Broad collection, and Red Disk (1947), a sculpture that is balanced with no mount to hold it down.

Among Calder's latest works (displayed at LACMA) are the monumental size, La Grande Vitesse (intermediate maquette, 1969), Three Segments (1973), and Angulaire (1975).

Also on view are several Calder's public sculptures' maquettes with accompanying images for comparison, including Teodelapio (1962) in Spoleto, Italy, Trois Pics (1966) in Montreal, Canada, Les Aretes de Poisson (1965) in Kadagawa, Japan, and Southern Cross (1969) in Villeneuve d'Ascq, France.

Organized by LACMA's Senior Curator of Modern Art, Stephanie Barron, and designed by Frank O. Gehry's Partners, related art pieces are juxtaposed, enhancing both intimate and panoramic views, while providing a multidimensional context and feel to the sculptures' surrounding space and motion.

The exhibit runs from November 24, 2013, to July 27, 2014, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Resnick Pavilion, located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. For more information call (323) 857-6000 or visit http://www.lacma.org/

Calder and Abstraction is organized in collaboration with the Calder Foundation, New York. After its presentation in Los Angeles, the exhibition travels to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA (September 6, 2014-January 4, 2015).

Under the Mexican Sky: Gabriel Figueroa - Art and Film

Celebrating the life and works of Award-winning Mexican cinematographer, Gabriel Figueroa (1907-1997), is the latest exhibit at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), co-presented with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 

Curated by Alfonso Morales, Curator of Televisa Foundation, the exhibit spans Figueroa's prolific 50-year career.

It is thematically organized and features approximately 300 pieces including film, paintings, photographs, prints, drawings, posters, as well as archival documents.
Acknowledged for his unique visual style and iconic work, Figueroa constructed a distinctive Mexican identity and cultural history, through a unique cinematic style using low camera angles, deep focus photography, and visual dialectics (light and dark). 

Gabriel Figueroa worked with renowned directors such as John Ford, John Huston, and Luis Buñuel, on over 200 films, including Maria Candelaria (1943) for which he won a prize for cinematography at the Cannes Film Festival; Macario (1960), the first Mexican film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Film in a Foreign Language; The Night of the Iguana (1964), which earned an Academy Award nomination for best cinematography; Two Mules for Sister Sara (1969); Kelly's Heroes (1969); and Under the Volcano (1983).

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After being nominated an active member of The Academy in 1968; Gabriel Figueroa became president of the Academia Mexicana de Ciencias Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de México in 1972; and then received a lifetime achievement award from the American 

Society of Cinematographers in 1995.

Aiming to increase accessibility of cinematic arts to the masses, Figueroa's imagery often portrayed the workers, the poor, women, indios and campesinos, accentuating Mexican folk forms, roots and people adversities. Figueroa's most original contribution lies in the repeated use of oblique visuals. 

By photographing rectangular objects at an angle to the picture's plane, two visible and two vanishing points created visual tension. Filling the two vanishing points were clouded heavens or 'Figueroa's sky' which, along with his filming technique created a curvilinear imagery moving the viewer's eyes along that curving line, with circles and ovals often accentuating the effects.
As cinematic arts evolved so did Figueroa's work, moving from light and shadow towards color with comedic and melodramatic themes.


The exhibit also showcases one of LACMA's most famous painting, Diego Rivera's Flower Day (Día de Flores) (1925), lithographs by Leopoldo Méndez, and work by contemporary artists, such as Rodrigo Garcia, Melanie Smith and Rafael Ortega, Gonzalo Lebrija, and Juan Capistran and Mario Ybarra Jr., which reflect on Figueroa's influence, artistic contribution, and global legacy.
The exhibit runs from September 22, 2013, to February 2, 2014, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Art of the Americas Building, Level 2, located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. For more information call (323) 857-6000 or visit http://www.lacma.org/

Prisoners

In his most ambitious feature to date, Oscar® nominated director Denis Villeneuve (Incendius, 2010) breaks ground with this tense, vigilante, psychological thriller. He follows two fathers in a small Pennsylvania town searching for their missing daughters, six year-old Anna Dover (Erin Gerasimovich), and seven-year old Joy Birch (Kyla-Drew Simmons).

An unsettling tone gradually permeates throughout the feature as the growing complexity surrounding the case either physically or emotionally imprisons the multidimensional characters. Moral conflicts arise when the fathers take matters in their own hands and differing crime solving approaches emerge.

The feature boasts an exceptional all star cast, with Viola Davis (The Help, Doubt), Maria Bello (A History of Violence, The Cooler), Terrence Howard (Hustle & Flow), Melissa Leo (The Fighter) and Paul Dano as Alex Jones. However, Jake Gyllenhaal as Detective Loki, and Hugh Jackman as Keller Dover, deliver their best career performances.

With Aaron Guzikowski's strong script, and Oscar® nominated Roger A. Deakins’ striking visuals, the feature never loses its momentum taking the viewer on an emotional, engaging, and thought provoking journey. 

Shaping Power: Luba Masterworks from the Royal Museum for Central Africa

Inaugurating the first permanent African Art Gallery at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) are masterworks of Luba, one of the most influential kingdoms in pre-colonial Central Africa history.

Curated by LACMA's Consulting Curator for African Art, and Professor of World Arts and Culture at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Dr. Mary Nooter Roberts, the exhibit features rare sculptures seldom seen in the U.S., and for the first time in Los Angeles.

On display are Luba rulers' regalia and emblems such as the caryatid thrones, scepters, an anthropomorphic bowstand, a ceremonial ax, water pipes and a royal cup symbolizing the king’s authority, and integral in shaping Luba kingdom’s powers and expansion.

Luba transmitted the kingship rules and regulations and chiefdoms’ history, through the Lukasa Memory Board (from a Southern California private collection). Made of wood, metal, and colored beads, Lukasa's visually complex configurations can be decoded, and its use was often accompanied by recitations, dances, and songs.

Thematically organized, the exhibit provides a glimpse into the complex gendering of authority in Luba culture. The art reflects a deliberate ambiguity of gender, especially during enthronement rites, stemming from the belief that only the body of a woman is strong enough to hold a spirit as powerful as the king. As magnets for the spirits and protectors of the kingship, females were considered important in upholding the seat of power.

As a mark of cultural identity and beauty, women were portrayed with elaborate hairstyles, as well as bearing complex, raised, body scarification patterns, which accumulated over time and read as text, telling the woman's life story.

In addition, intricately carved wooden anthropomorphic headrests, viewed as conduits of dreams, functioned as cooling pillows as well as protected hair styles.

One of the exhibit highlights is the iconic Male Mask, thought to represent the founding hero of Luba, on loan for the first time by the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium. Made of carved wood, it portrays a serene man with a bird perched between buffalo horns, noted curator Nooter Roberts, a symbol of great restraint and discretion.

Additional agents of empowerment on display include works used for healing and protection as well as objects of divination and transformation. 

Animal horns or head cavities filled with herbal medicine and other healing substances empowered the figures to deflect malevolent forces, increase personal strength, and promote the community.

Power figures of the spirit world, pairs of male and female Nkisi, have their heads directed backwards, signaling that spirits are all seeing, in all directions.

Luba's aesthetics and royal precepts influenced the art of surrounding regions. Here, one of the most famous pieces is the Bowl-Bearing Figure showing an elderly woman with an elongated face, holding a bowl. As a powerful divination figure she possesses the ability to bring transformation and healing. 

Depicting twin guardian spirits with long, clutching legs and beautiful faces, is the one of a kind, Kiteya Royal Bowl with a lid, the only displayed object not made by a single piece of wood.

In addition, commemorative works displayed here are sculptures of a Hermaphrodite Figure and Buffalo Mask.

Complementing the pre-colonial art is the contemporary installation by Luba artist Aimé Mpane, Congo, Shadow of the Shadow (2005), representing a strong male figure made of 4,652 matchsticks, casting a shadow on the wall. The installation, borrowed from the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, expresses the paradox of human strength, fragility, as well as a spirit of courage and resilience.

A five-minute video produced by Agnes Stauber, provides a further glimpse into Luba royal practices and include archival portraits of chiefs and artists.

This exhibit reverberates Luba masterworks' elegance and beauty, a legacy to this artistic tradition.

The exhibit runs through January 5, 2014, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Hammer Building, Level 3, located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. For more information call (323) 857-6000 or visit http://www.lacma.org/

The Conjuring

Rather than implementing the CGI norm in the horror/thriller genre, director James Wan's (Saw, Insidious) latest feature, with script by twin brothers Chad and Carey Hayes, effectively uses classic, low budget techniques to create unexpected, gore free, edge of the seat jolts.

Set in 1970 Rhode Island the feature is taken from the most disturbing case in the Warrens files where Carolyn (Lili Taylor ) and Roger Perron (Ron Livingston) move into their new house in the countryside with their five daughters. Soon strange, unexplained phenomena occur with increasing intensity, leading them to seek help from the renowned, husband and wife paranormal specialists, demonologist Ed (Patrick Wilson) and clairvoyant Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga).

Superb performances are delivered by the talented cast. In particular, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga form a good team, in their compassionate and believable portrayal, while Lili Taylor excels in her most challenging role as Carolyn Perron.

DP John Leonetti's clever use of handheld cameras add to the unsettling undertones and, along with Kirk Morri's smart editing and Joseph Bishara's intense score, build the chilling mood, delivering a good scary ride.

Pacific Rim

Known for approaching simple premises with complex creativity in design and style, Oscar^® nominated, director Guillermo Del Toro's latest sci-fi blockbuster resurrects the classic kaiju monster feature.

The script by Travis Beacham and Del Toro, based on Beacham's story, features 250 feet high Kaiju monsters emerging from the Pacific coastline, causing massive destruction and taking many lives. Humanity's last hope for survival are the Jaegers, massive robots controlled by two pilots whose minds are synched through a neural bridge, enabling them to share memories and experiences.

Portraying the characters, is an international cast. Idris Elca plays the role of the no-nonsense marshal Stacker Pentecost, the driving force behind the multinational Jaeger program, overseeing lead Jaeger co-pilots, hero Raleigh Beckett (Charlie Hunnam) and Mako Mori (Oscar^® nominee Rinko Kikuchi). Providing the well interspersed comic relief are Charlie Day as the eccentric scientist Dr. Newton Geiszler and Burn Gorman as his lead technician Herman Gottlieb. Stealing the show is Hannibal Chau as Ron Perlman, a flashy and shady black market Kaijus part vendor.

Top notch special effects with spectacular audio and visual fight sequences mark this feature, most effectively visualized in IMAX 3D. Captivating are the richly detailed CGI water scenes of engaging sea battles during swirling storms and water torrents.

The epic showdown delivers in the action front and will please genre aficionados with contagious enthusiasm.

James Turrell: A Retrospective

Art experienced through the senses is the theme of the latest exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The first major exhibition in the U.S. in nearly thirty years, James Turrell: A Retrospective, spans 50 years of the light and space artist's entire career, from the mid 60's to the present. Exploring human perception, the artworks include early light projections, holograms, as well as selections from his work in progress in the high desert of Arizona, the Roden Crater.

Los Angeles native Turrell, who celebrated his 70th birthday this past June, uses light as a sculptural tool, narrowing the differentiation between the imaginary and the visual in a sensory vacuum, where viewer perception becomes part of the work.

Approximately 50 art pieces, many of which built on site, are shown in 33,000 square feet of LACMA's two campus venues, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) and the Resnick Pavilion.

BCAM focuses on Turrell's early works in which geometric light is projected into a darkened space, as with the iconic Afrum (1966) where a white cube appears to float in the room's corner. Also featured are Shallow Space, a large room challenging the viewer's depth perception, and Cross Corner Projection in which light is projected to suggest weight and mass. 

Magnatron, an entrance in the shape of an old TV screen, is followed by three full scale installations: the Key Lime, where the illusion of tangible walls are created through light and architecture, the Wide Glass, a temporal element to Turrell's light-based installation, and St. Elmo's Breath, a construction appearing to be a flat surface when in actuality it is light emitted from a bottomless cavity in the wall.

Featured at the Resnick Pavilion is Turrell's most expansive installation of Roden Crater works consisting of models, mixed-media drawings, photographs, holograms, and other documents from the 1980s to the present.
Three immersive light installations occupy the remainder of Resnick. Plunging the spectator in intense lights of changing color, is the 5,000 square foot Ganzfeld exhibit, designed to eliminate the viewer's depth perception. Dark Matters is a 10 minute immersion in a dark room with a minimally perceivable trace of light. 

In Perceptual Cell, a 12 minutes light immersion in a spherical chamber with a sliding bed, gives the impression of lying in space and experiencing, in Turrell's words, “behind the eyes seeing”. 

Perceptual Cell can accommodate only one person at a time, or three per hour, and therefore requires advance reservation at www.lacma.org/Turrell or by phone at 323-857-6010, or onsite at LACMA's Ticket Office. Perceptual Cell is sold out until August.

Turrell's experiential art can be appreciated without a docent or program, and requires slow viewing for full enjoyment.

LACMA recommends 90 minutes to see the exhibit, however, due to limited capacity, be prepared to experience waiting periods.

The retrospective at LACMA is complemented by the concurrent James Turrell exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York. Additional Turrell exhibitions on view this year include the Academy of Art Museum, Easton and Villa Panza, Varese, Italy.

The exhibit runs through April 6, 2014, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) level 2, and Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion, located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. For more information call (323) 857-6000 or visit www.lacma.org

Following its run at LACMA, James Turrell: A Retrospective travels to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem (June 1-October 18, 2014) and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra (December 2014-April 2015)

The Presence of the Past: Peter Zumthor Reconsiders LACMA

Six years in the making, The Presence of the Past: Peter Zumthor Reconsiders LACMA, is a preliminary design for LACMA's extensive, $650 million campus transformation by the 2009 Pritzker Laureate and 2013 Royal Gold Medal recipient, Swiss architect Peter Zumthor.

Best known for his functional, site specific atmospheric spaces, choice of material, and mastery of light, Zumthor's model is a 360 degrees, glass wall transparent museum.

The glass structure enables art to be viewed into the museum from the street level and out. Galleries will overlook some of Los Angeles' key landmarks including Hollywood Hills, Hancock Park, the La Brea Tar Pits, Chris Burden’s Urban Lights and Renzo Piano’s buildings, namely BCAM and Resnick Pavilion. A panoramic view of one of Los Angeles’ most spectacular icons of Howard Ball’s woolly mammoth cement sculpture situated in the black tar lake on the campus would also be visible.

The exhibit's centerpiece, nicknamed the Black Flower for its resemblance to a floating water lily, is a unique, curvilinear, raised structure with a 30-foot, 6 ton concrete design model, fabricated on site. Powered by a solar panel roof, this efficient structure is designed to generate more power than it uses. There will be sunken rooms, 30-35 feet tall ceilings, and roughly 200,000 square feet of exhibition space, an increase by 70,000 square feet, while retaining its original footprint.

As his first structure outside of central Europe, Zumthor re-invents the encyclopedic museum notion while instilling insight, meaning and function to the project. Its multiple entrances and absence of a grand staircase places all art pods on the same plane, therefore eliminating traditional art hierarchies.

The new building will allow direct pedestrian access to LACMA’s park grounds, to Hancock Park and to the nearby future Purple Line stop, providing a cultural and social place as well as a sense of community.

Commissioned by LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director, Michael Govan, Zumthor's over 700 feet long conceptual structure will replace the 1965 William Pereira campus (the Ahmanson, Hammer and Bing wings), as well as the 1986 addition of the Art of the Americas by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates.

Govan, noted that the current building agglomeration is difficult to navigate, and will soon need considerable upgrades and restoration which would cost just as much to renovate, without the addition of exhibit space.

Fundraising and the demolition of the Pereira buildings famously depicted in Ed Ruscha’s the Los Angeles County Museum on Fire (1965-1968), are among the challenges presented by this new project, pending approval by LACMA’s Board of Trustees and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

LACMA's more recent remaining structures such as the two Renzo Piano designs of Resnick Pavilion (2010), and Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) (2008), as well as Bruce Goff’s Pavilion for Japanese Art (1988) and the former May Co building will remain.

Presence of the Past contains approximately 116 items on view, such as late Pleistocene ice age fossils, film, photographs, drawings, architectural models and plans, some of which have not been on public view in several decades, if ever. Debuting is scientific illustrator John L. Ridgway's evocative watercolors of paleontological specimens which have only been illustrated in books to date. Also included is scientific illustrator Charles R Knight's renown fifty-foot mural of the La Brea Tar Pits that has been in storage for several years at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Through its historical, financial, and political evolution, this thought-provoking and revealing exhibit well links LACMA to its past and future.

Co-curated by LACMA 's director Michael Govan, the exhibit is part of the Getty sponsored initiative Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in LA museum exhibits and events currently held in Los Angeles.

The exhibit runs through September 15, 2013, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion, located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. For more information call (323) 857-6000 or visit www.lacma.org

The Blue Umbrella

Written and directed by Saschka Unseld, produced by Marc Greenberg, with a score by Jon Brion, is the latest Pixar six-minute short, The Blue Umbrella, about a blue and a red umbrella who, on a rainy day, fall in love.

Shown in theaters prior to Monsters University, The Blue Umbrella is a pure joy to watch. 

Well paced and with remarkable detail, the short features creative techniques of global illumination (GI) and camera capture, rendering stunning detailed visuals that captivate and immerse.

Monsters University

Witty, funny, and vibrant is this latest Pixar release by director Dan Scanlon, a prequel nearly twelve years after Monsters Inc.

Set in Metropolis, the feature opens with young, one-eyed Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) dreaming of becoming one day a professional Scarer. Now enrolled at the prestigious Monsters University's Scare Program, Mike is determined and studious. Only the best Scarers move on to the Scare Floor where terrified human children's screams serve to power Metropolis. Mike plans, however, are derailed when he crosses paths with the furry, laid-back Sulley James Sullivan (John Goodman), whose father is a legendary Scarer, and with the chilling Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren).

The feature is enhanced by superb voice talent and vibrant visuals. Pixar adopted global illumination (GI) lighting to create a rich environment with realistic effects. Using captivating cutting edge detailed animation, nearly 500 colorful characters were created, averaging more than 25 characters per shot, more than a double the number in previous Pixar films. 

Among the featured characters are Midwestern sales monster Don Carlton (Joel Murray) who is back to school to learn new career skills, the blob-like dweeb Scott 'Squishy' Squibbles (Pete Sohn), the rainbow shaped Art (Charlie Day), the two-headed, two-eyed creature Terri and Terry Perry (Sean P. Hayes and Dave Foley) who can't stop squabbling and Professor Knight (Alfred Molina).

Themes of friendship, teamwork, and setting realistic expectations prevail in this funny and engaging animation, keeping the family glued to the screen.

Preceding the movie is a clever 6-minute computer animated short, The Blue Umbrella, featuring new techniques in photorealistic imagery. Directed by Saschka Unseld, it tells the story of a blue and red umbrella who, on a rainy day, fall in love. The street mailbox and signs come to life to help bring the two together, leaving the viewer with a smile.