Starting tonight, Film Independent brings us “French Film Fridays” throughout July. The series kicks off with two classics: Godard’s Contempt and Truffaut’s Mississippi Mermaid. Essential viewings for your film education!
On the other side of campus this evening, saxophonist Rickey Woodard, who has played with Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and more, brings his sextet to LACMA for our free jazz concert.
That’s the first of three free concerts this weekend. Saturday afternoon, take a stroll through Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass and then keep strolling right into Hancock Park for Latin Sounds—this weekend featuring twelve-piece salsa big band Orquesta Tabaco y Ron, starting at 5pm. Then, on Sunday, see Trio Latitude 41 perform compositions by Schubert and Tchaikovsky in the Bing Theater during Sundays Live.
As usual, Sunday also sees our weekly free family activities, Andell Family Sundays—this month inspired by Levitated Mass.
Michael Heizer, Levitated Mass, conceived 1969, realized 2012, made possible by gifts to Transformation: The LACMA Campaign from Jane and Terry Semel, Bobby Kotick, Carole Bayer Sager and Bob Daly, Beth and Joshua Friedman, Steve Tisch Family Foundation, Elaine Wynn, Linda, Bobby, and Brian Daly, Richard Merkin, MD, and the Mohn Family Foundation, and is dedicated by LACMA to the memory of Nancy Daly. Transportation made possible by Hanjin Shipping Co., © Michael Heizer
Inside the galleries, a few exhibitions and smaller installations are entering their closing weeks. The beautiful Korean painting, Buddha Seokgamoni Preaching to the Assembly on Vulture Peak, which we spent the better part of last year restoring in the Korean galleries, will be coming off view on July 15. Also closing that day is the small but wonderful Russian Avant-Garde, on view in the modern galleries in the Ahmanson Building.
Aleksander Rodchenko, Constructivists and Poets, 1924, Ralph M. Parsons Fund
Inspired by the Russian Avant-Garde show and the architecture of LACMA's plaza, artists Will Pappenheimer and John Craig Freeman created a special project called Project-o-Rator. The project, which is location-based and can only be experienced at LACMA, transforms the in-between spaces of the museum's campus using augmented reality. If you have an Android or iPhone with you while at the museum this weekend, visit the Project-o-Rator site or use the QR code below to install the free Layar Augmented Reality Browser, which will launch the project. If you have an iPad, download Layar and search for "LACMA". Once you've done this, viewing the museum campus through your camera will reveal an augmented reality layer that introduces 3-D virtual objects on your screen. Find out more.
More shows are closing before the end of the month, including Whistler’s Etchings, Japanese Paintings: Paths to Enlightenment, and The Way of the Elders. Finally, Daido Moriyama’s gritty photographs of Japan will come down at the end of the month, so time is running out.
Daido Moriyama, Untitled, c. 1975, Ralph M. Parsons Fund, © Daido Moriyama
Scott Tennent