Each week teams across the museum work in tandem to bring an invigorating schedule of programming. From our film department, the exhibition film series Luis Buñuel and Gabriel Figueroa: A Surreal Alliance comes to a dramatic conclusion in the Bing Theater. Highlighting the collaborative efforts of two of cinema’s most inspired creators, Friday’s double feature includes the moving Nazarín at 7:30 pm, followed by the improbably Southern gothic La Joven (The Young One) at 9:10 pm. Then, on Saturday, see Él, a film imbued with paranoia and dark humor, at 5 pm for free. Following at 7:30 pm, we close out the series with shadowy cinematography and surrealist currents in the back-to-back showing of The Exterminating Angel and Simon of the Desert. For more from Figueroa and his contemporaries, make sure to tour the exhibition Under the Mexican Sky: Gabriel Figueroa—Art and Film, now on view.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG6U0IvJue4
Our team of educators and public programmers have in store a buffet of enlightened events. On Saturday LACMA hosts a symposium around the recently acquired Apotheosis by social-realist painter Ben Shahn. The event, Art and Radical Politics: Ben Shahn and the Tom Mooney Affair, begins at 10 am and continues into the afternoon with four separate speakers. Simultaneously, at 1 pm, performance artist Liz Glynn returns to LACMA in the third of her five-part series, [de]-lusions of Grandeur, A Performance Project by Liz Glynn. In this cycle, Glynn considers and interprets two works by Richard Serra that are part of the collection. Finally, on Sunday at 2 pm Shaping Power: Luba Masterworks from the Royal Museum for Central Africa curator Mary (Polly) Nooter Roberts sits down with Congolese artist Aimé Mpane to discuss her installation, Congo: Shadow of the Shadow, which is part of the exhibition. Aimé Mpane: Artist in Conversation, as well as the other events, are free and require no reservations.
Aimè Mpane, Congo, Shadow of the Shadow, 2005, photo © 2013 Museum Associates/LACMA
Of course, our music division is always up to something at the end of the work week. This time Jazz at LACMA welcomes the Ted Howe Trio for an exuberant Evening of Duke Ellington. The delightful and critically acclaimed composition of pianist and composer Ted Howe has even been an inspiration for the well-respected Ruth Mitchell Dance Theater in Atlanta. On the same note, Sunday Live features a performance by the American Youth Symphony, a group of young and talented musicians only years away from redefining classical music for their generation. Moreover, renowned music director and former LA Phil concertmaster Alexander Treger leads the ensemble.
Gregory Crewdson, Untitled, 1991, Photo L.A. Fund, © Gregory Crewdson, courtesy of the artist and Gagosian Gallery
And, for your weekly dose of culture, wander through our galleries. In the Pavilion for Japanese Art, be provoked and challenged by Kitasono Katue: Surrealist Poet. Another must-see exhibition is the wildly popular James Turrell: A Retrospective, which explores light and perspective. It does sell out almost daily, so be sure to reserve tickets in advance. Also attracting much discussion is Little Boxes: Photography and the Suburbs, an exhibition that documents and comments upon the supposed monotony and uniformity of the suburbs. And for a royal conclusion to your weekend visit to LACMA, stop by Princely Traditions and Colonial Pursuits in India for a complex and fascinating visual history of colonial India. Isn’t it nice when everything comes together?
Roberto Ayala and Oxana Ermolova