Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear, 1715-2015

With the strongest European and American menswear collection in the western United States, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is presenting the evolving nature of men's fashion from 1715 to 2015.

Drawn mostly by LACMA's permanent collection, the 200 featured items illuminate connections between history and culture in high fashion.

Debuting highlights are several rare surviving ensembles from the collection including fashions worn by men from different socio-economic levels during the French Revolution, such as an aristocrat's at home robe (banyan) and a revolutionary's sans-culottes pants and carmagnole jacket. An authentic 1940s zoot suit, that took over a decade to locate, is also on display.

The survey re-examines the frequent association between fashion and femininity in five themes: Revolution/Evolution, East/West, Uniformity, Body Consciousness, and The Splendid Man.

In the Revolution/Evolution section, anti-authoritarian currents surrounding the French Revolution, new styles, textiles and colors with exaggerated shapes and dramatic accessories were used to express political sentiment such as the English Macaroni of the 1770, and the French Incroyable of the 1790s.

Similarly, 200 years later, the punk movement embraced bricolage and do-it yourself personalization. Men's elegant clothing was also redefined from the Romantic Dandies of the early 1900, to the bespoke of the 1900s, to the power suits of the 1980s, and the form fitting suits of the early 2000s.

The East/West  section reflects cultural exchanges between the East and the West in the 17^th and 18^th centuries that led to banyans inspired by kimonos from Japan or the Middle Eastern caftan. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, clothing designs from India, China, and Japan were re-interpreted for Western Fashions. 
 
During the mid-20^th century immigrants transferred their indigenous styles to their adopted countries. For instance, Japanese settlers in Hawaii repurposed traditional kimonos and imported printed silks to create shirts now called Aloha or Hawaiian shirts.

Featured in the Uniformity section are military and working uniforms of the late and 18^th through the 21^st centuries inspired motifs, protective outerwear and camouflage seen in fashion today.

Body Consciousness covers the evolution of historically men's clothing devices such as stockings with padded calves, waist-clinching underpants, and body shaping tailored jackets or corsets to achieve an ideal male silhouette. 

The growing acceptance of exposed skin can be traced through the evolution of swimwear from the 1900 bathing suit that covered the entire body, to the 1935 Jantzen swimsuit with a detachable top, to Rudi Gernreich's 1974 thong swimsuit, only to revert back to a 2008 full-body competition swimsuit made by Speedo in collaboration with designer Rei Kawakubo.

The Splendid Man section 

considers how superfluities that were once commonplace in men's dress, such as sparkling paste (glass) stones and sequined embellishments, animal furs, floral patterns and vividly colored textiles, are resurrected and reinterpreted in contemporary clothes.

The exhibit runs from April 10, 2016, through August 21, 2016, at BCAM, Level 2, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. For more information call (323) 857-6000 or visit http://www.lacma.org/

Agnes Martin

 As one of the few prominent female artists of the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as a pioneer of abstract expressionism, Agnes Martin (1912-2004) focused on the emotive and expressive power of art, revealing beauty, innocence and happiness.

Martin's retrospective is presented by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the only West Coast venue in the United States, and the first and most comprehensive of the artist's work since 1992. 


The exhibit traces Martin's half century career from the 1950s biomorphic abstraction to the 1960s groundbreaking, six-foot-square grids of striped canvas that became her hallmark. 

Her distinctive artwork shows influences of Cubism and is often inspired by desert landscapes, Native American textiles, and her familiarity of South Asian philosophy.

Featured are nearly 100 objects including oil and acrylic paintings, multimedia pieces, watercolors and drawings, a print portfolio, and two sculptural works.

The landmark show begun in 2015 at the Tate Modern in London and then traveled to the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen Museum Düsseldorf.

After LACMA the exhibit will conclude at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, in 2017.

The exhibit runs from April 24, 2016, through September 11, 2016, at BCAM, Level 3, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. For more information call (323) 857-6000 or visit http://www.lacma.org/

Marguerite

French writer-director Xavier Giannoli's latest comedy-drama is inspired by the life of Florence Foster Jenkins, an American socialite and out of tune amateur opera singer.

Set in the 1920's France, Marguerite Dumont is passionate about music and opera. She sings wholeheartedly to her close circle of friends at her fundraising recitals. Clueless about her lack of vocal talent, she elicits a lot of whispers and laughter, but nobody informs her about her shortcomings. When a journalist decides to write an article on Marguerite's latest recital, she is encouraged into training for a performance in front of a public audience.

The feature is marked by strong performances. Standing out in the lead character role is Catherine Frot as the naïve and confident Marguerite. Other good performances include André Marcon, as Marguerite's cheating husband Georges Dumont, Denis Mpunga as Marguerite's loyal butler Madelbos, and Michel Fau as the eccentric music teacher Atos Pezzini. 


Delivering an air of authenticity are the beautiful, period costumes by Pierre Jean Larroque, set designs by Martin Kurel and Flemish DP Glynn Speeckaert.

This well balanced dramedy, through Giannoli's direction, brings out the social satire and Marguerite's humanity.

Zootopia

In this latest Disney animated feature, Jared Bush's and Phil Johnston's cohesive, immersive and engaging screenplay is a hilarious, film noir thriller with scenes reminiscent of The Godfather, Chinatown, LA Confidential and Zuber.

Through eye popping detailed visuals and terrific voice cast, the feature take us to Zootopia, a big metropolis where all animals, prey and predator, live in harmony.

Growing up in her parent's carrot country-farm, an adorable rabbit Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) dreamed of becoming the first rabbit cop ever.

Notwithstanding the adversity, Judy graduated first at the Police Academy and is hired by the Zootopia Police Station.

However, rather than police work, water buffalo Police Chief Bogo (Idris Elba) assigns Judy to parking meter duties and Judy decides to become the best at it.

When 14 mammals mysteriously disappear in Zootopia, Chief Bogo reluctantly gives Judy 48 hours to crack the case. Judy therefore teams up with the sly, con-man fox, Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman).

With well developed characters and a good message, directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore deliver a witty and entertaining family friendly feature.

Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium

A large scale retrospective examines the work and career of one of the most influential American photographers of the 20th century, Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989). 

It is presented in a landmark collaboration between Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and J. Paul Getty Museum who in 2011 jointly acquired art and archival material from The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.

Over 300 works are displayed between the two museums such as portraiture, the nude, still life, rarely seen correspondence, books and other ephemera, including those from the artist's archive held by the Getty Research Institute.

The exhibit at LACMA (March 20-July 31, 2016) focuses on Mapplethorpe's working methods, sources, and creative processes – the experimental and performative aspects of his work. The J. Paul Getty Museum exhibit (March 15-July 31, 2016) focuses on Mapplethorpe's disciplines studio practice, figure studies, and legacy. 


 

The artwork reveals the rich and broad context, the obsessive attention to detail, the statuesque poses, and sophisticated lighting that brought Mapplethorpe to fame.

His refined style challenges the viewers, explains curator and head of the Wallis Annenberg Photography department, Britt Salvesen, "to consider his portraits, flowers, and sexually explicit images as equal expressions of a personal vision. His drive to capture the perfect moment is the core of the art."

The exhibit at LACMA transitions through five thematic sections.
The first gallery reflects the 1970s and 1980s urban gay culture, depicting himself and his models openly declaring their sexuality through clothing, body adornment and gesture.

Then follows Mapplethorpe's work created in the late 1960s and early 1970s designing jewelry and temporary assemblages using items of clothing.

He was inspired by Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg, and experimented with collages and constructions, often incorporating Catholic iconography and appropriated imagery from homosexual periodicals.

In the third gallery Mapplethorpe's Polaroid photographs reveal his observational acuity and his ability to be in the moment. Included are Mapplethorpe's self-portraits as he was open about being a participant in the scenarios he depicted.

The next gallery focuses on Mapplethorpe's involvement with the leather and bondage community, his appropriation of pornographic source material, and his exploration of the African-American male nudes.
 

The fifth gallery presents work from the mid-1980s, when Mapplethorpe was running a successful studio and producing many commissioned portraits. Among his favorite subjects were the artists, musicians, and other performers he first encountered in the downtown art scene in the 70's.   

Mapplethorpe commented that photography was "the perfect medium for the 70s and 80s, when everything was fast. If I were to make something that took two weeks to do, I'd lose my enthusiasm. It would become an act of labor and the love would be gone." 

Highlights of the exhibition include his 1980 self-portrait as a smoking

leatherman, the 1967 portraits of his friend Patti Smith and, starting in 1979, the photographs of Lisa Lyon, the first woman to win the International Federation of Body Builders female competition. 
 

The Getty's exhibition features the full range of Mapplethorpe's photographs, including his best known images, alongside work that has been seldom exhibited. Key themes include those of his long-time benefactor and lover Samuel J. Wagstaff Jr., poet musician Patti Smith, and fashion designer Carolina Herrera, among others. It also includes a number of intimate self portraits and Mapplethorpe's controversial X portfolios, 13 photographs depicting the gay s&m community.

After being diagnosed with AIDS in 1986, Mapplethorpe continued to work more ardently, and in 1988 founded the Robert Mapplethorpe

Foundation. A 1988 self portrait shows Mapplethorpe's face revealing signs of illness, his hand gripping a skull-topped cane, a symbol of his impending death. The simple composition and brutal honesty combine to make this photograph one of his most visually and psychologically powerful images.

The Getty and LACMA will be the exhibition's sole U.S. venues. The exhibition will be combined and toured as one for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal, Canada (August 29, 2016 to January 22, 2017), the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia (October 28, 2017 to February 4, 2018) and another international venue.

The exhibit runs from March 15 through July 31, 2016, at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Getty Center. 1200 Getty Center Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90049, and from March 20 through July 31, 2016, at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036. For more information call (323) 857-6000 or visit http://www.lacma.org/ or www.getty.edu

Hello, My Name is Doris

Showcasing her well known natural sweetness, comedic talents and dramatic flair, is two time Oscar winner Sally Field who delivers a convincing performance in this character-based comedy.

Doris Miller (Sally Field), 60-something, works many years in the same office. She dedicated her life to the care of her recently deceased mother with whom she lived in a cluttered Staten Island home. When John Fremont (Max Greenfield), the half of her age hunk, joins the office, Doris is thrown out of her comfort zone. 

After attending a motivational seminar, she is empowered by the well known speaker (Peter Gallagher) to take control of her life and catch the eye of John. 

What ensues are laugh out loud, uplifting and touching moments. The comedy overshadows the drama in this well casted feature, masterfully directed by Michael Showalter, who co-wrote the screenplay with Laura Terruso based on a short film by Terruso 'Doris and The Intern'.

Hello, My Name is Doris, delivers hilarious, heartfelt moments and is engaging from start to end. A must see.