This weekend, provoke thought and find inspiration at LACMA. Consider The Presence of the Past: Peter Zumthor Reconsiders LACMA, which reaches its final day on view this Sunday in the Resnick Pavilion. Swiss architect Peter Zumthor contemplates and reweighs the purpose and use of the encyclopedic museum. The exhibition finds context in the history of the site and studies the possibility of a more permeable and organic structure as represented in exceptionally large models.
For further insight and understanding into this topic, join us on Sunday at 2 pm, when Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne leads a discussion on American architecture of the last half-century and its connection to the surrounding environment. Earlier in the week on Unframed, Hawthorne previewed his talk. Away, a ray, array: Architecture, Museums, and Nature, 1965 to the Present is free to all and reservations are not required.
Installation view, The Presence of the Past: Peter Zumthor Reconsiders LACMA
Exercise your creative might at the debut of the Altadena Art + Film Lab in Charles White Park, the third site for the mobile LACMA9 Art + Film Lab. For five weekends, we invite the entire mountainside community to this free space of artistic exploration. Throughout its run, participants will be able to learn about filmmaking in hands-on workshops, share and record personal experiences in oral history drop-ins, and enjoy weekly outdoor film screenings. The event kicks off with Friday’s opening-night celebration at the lab, which includes a sneak peek at the Art + Film Lab, live music by jazz quartet Louis Van Taylor band, food, and a screening of the witty and hopeful Le Havre at 8 pm. The Altadena Art + Film Lab is open through October 13.
A man awaits the start of a film at San Bernardino Art + Film Lab. Photo by Duncan Cheng
On campus, Andell Family Sundays prompts children and parents to design their own textile art à la Pinaree Sanpitak: Hanging by a Thread, on Sunday beginning at 12:30 pm. And, in the galleries, be sure to ruminate the African figures and emblems from Shaping Power: Luba Masterworks from the Royal Museum for Central Africa; ponder portraits from Talk of the Town: Portraits by Edward Steichen from the Hollander Collection; and, if you haven’t already, question perception itself in James Turrell: A Retrospective. Ticket for this exhibition are available, but reservations in advance are highly recommended.
Bowl-Bearing Figure, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Luba-Henba Peoples, 19th Century, Wood (Ricinodendron rautanenii), Royal Museum for Central Africa, RG 14358 (Collected between 1981 and 1912, gift of A.H. Bure), Photo R. Asselberghs, RMCA Tervuren ©
Lastly, Jazz at LACMA presents the stimulating blues and uptown bebop of the Michael Session Sextet on Friday at 6 pm in front of Urban Light. Saxophonist Session and crew pay tribute to famed pianist Horace Tapscott and Nate Morgan and will be accompanied onstage by vocalist and flutist Maia for select pieces. On Sunday at 6 pm, Sundays Live features Salastina Music Society performing works by Handel and Cavaterra, among others. Concerts are free and open to the public. How brilliant!
Roberto Ayala