James Turrell, Afrum (White), 1966, Cross Corner Projection, LACMA, partial gift of Marc and Andrea Glimcher in honor of the appointment of Michael Govan as CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director and purchased with funds provided by David Bohnett and Tom Gregory through the 2008 Collectors Committee, © James Turrell, photo © 2013 Museum Associates LACMA

The theme of light has preoccupied artists for centuries. Leonardo da Vinci wrote volumes about the importance of light in rendering nature; Romantic artists described the sublime through light; and others, from Russian icon painters to modern artists, used abstract forms to account for a divine or inner light. No one, however, has so fully considered the “thingness” of light itself—as well as how the experience of light reflects the wondrous and complex nature of human perception—as James Turrell has more than four decades. As the artist himself explains of his work, “Light is not so much something that reveals as it is itself the revelation.”

During the 1960s, Turrell emerged as one of the most radical of a new generation of artists. At a moment when American art in particular was dealing with extremely simplified forms (which were the beginnings of Minimalism), Turrell applied this approach to nothing—no object, only light and perception. His earliest light projections and constructions conjure a material perception of the immaterial, and in his (still unfinished) magnum opus, Roden Crater, Turrell goes beyond even that. One of the most ambitious artworks ever conceived, representing forty years of ongoing work to convert an extinct volcanic crater in northern Arizona, Roden Crater—through light—conveys the vastness of the cosmos within the tangible space of human experience.

James Turrell, Roden Crater Project, view toward northeast, photo © Florian Holzherr

By devising means to hold light as an isolated and almost tactile substance, Turrell has created opportunities for us to experience it as a primary physical presence rather than as a tool through which to see or render other phenomena. Viewing his work, we are called upon not to consider what is being lit but instead to contemplate the nature of the light itself—its transparency or opacity, its volume, and its color, which is often perceived as changing, thus adding a temporal aspect to the experience. Turrell’s work is especially “modern” in this sense. So often it is presumed that the most revolutionary aspect of (Western) modern art is a tendency toward abstraction or intellectualization, accompanied by a distancing of emotion. But quite the opposite is true: as Cubism offers multiple points of view at once; as Color Field Painting and Hard Edge Abstraction isolate visual phenomena through distinct color and form; as Abstract Expressionism allows the materiality of paint or canvas to dominate composition or subject; as Surrealism excavates the unconscious and brings it to the surface; as Conceptualism can provide more direct access to the artist’s intentions; and as photography has often concerned itself with verisimilitude, much modern and contemporary art strives to heighten awareness of our own perception and understanding more than artworks based on conventional narrative, symbolic, or illustrative structures. Turrell’s Skyspaces—essentially rooms with apertures that open to the sky—afford the immediacy of pure color and light without the distractions of image or even paint, dramatizing the materialization of our own perception characteristic of modern art as they magically bring the sky we take for granted as being far away into our intimate physical space. There could be no better illustration of art’s capacity to put an otherwise distant truth directly in front of us than the heroic gesture of bringing the sky down to earth for our immediate consideration. Turrell closes the gap between the thing perceived and the perceiving being as he plays with the very act of seeing itself.

James Turrell, Twilight Epiphany, 2012, A James Turrell Skyspace, the Suzanne Deal Booth Centennial Pavilion, Rice University, Houston, TX, © James Turrell, photo © Florian Holzherr

Of course, removing the distance between the perceiver and the object perceived in order to see “truth” is an ongoing concern, if also an elusive concept. This “problem of objectivity” is one of the great themes of both modern art and twentieth-century philosophy. Even in the nascent Modernism of late nineteenth-century French painting—the often dimly lit but shocking realism of Gustave Courbet’s studio-based practice on one hand and the intense reality of pure color and light of the Impressionists’ plein air painting on the other—one senses those artists’ interests not only in what is seen but also in how it is seen, and in what context. Courbet’s realism stripped away the artifice of artistic description in search of the social and political truths of his day. The Impressionists, anticipating Turrell’s interests a century before, opened the door to understanding that our perception of “reality” is dependent on the medium of light, which is a reality in itself. Claude Monet’s huge water lily paintings paved the way for the American Abstract Expressionists’ efforts much later to disassociate the facts of paint, color, and light from any particular referent in the visible world in favor of a visceral formal coherence that often attempts to fill the entire field of one’s vision. More recently, installation art immerses the viewer entirely in its own visual context. “Removing the frame” from a picture or creating the entire “frame of reference” for a visual experience is evidence of artists’ growing awareness of the idea that what is seen depends on the context in which it is seen and the mechanism that facilitates vision.

James Turrell, Bridget’s Bardo, 2009, Ganzfeld, installation view at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany, 2009, © James Turrell, photo © Florian Holzherr

Today we understand that knowledge depends on perspective—that is, the circumstances through which it is attained—and that perception is not fixed. Historically, however, this was not always the case. Renaissance artists utilized color for its symbolism and to enhance the naturalism of their compositions, and in the seventeenth century, Sir Isaac Newton defined the optical spectrum of color in terms of absolute and universal wavelengths of visible light. A radical shift occurred when Johann Wolfgang von Goethe responded to Newton in the eighteenth century with a theory of color based on observation and the experienced (rather than the externally measurable) qualities of phenomena as they are received. In the early to mid-twentieth century, Josef Albers demonstrated in both his teaching and painting that our perception of color is entirely dependent on the context within which we see it. Turrell deploys that same principle in his Skyspaces to make the wide open sky appear to turn red or green or any other color he chooses. Visible form is subject to the same relativity. A particularly surprising moment in the experience of Roden Crater happens when visitors climb a tunnel several hundred feet long toward its open terminus, a circular disc of light; as a viewer approaches, he or she perceives the disc transform slowly into a highly elongated ellipse, not a circle at all, and may recall that an ellipse can easily be perceived as a perfect circle when viewed from a certain vantage point.

Turrell’s formal theatrics aim not to deceive but to reveal. Never do we see the world with entirely open and unbiased eyes; the preconditions of our seeing and understanding are an ever-present influence on our vision. The brilliant astronomer Copernicus was limited in trying to reconcile his experience of planetary motion into circular orbits due to assumptions dating back to the time of Aristotle that the universe is perfect and therefore would express itself in the perfect geometry of a circle. These assumptions were upended by Johannes Kepler, who understood that a circle is only a manifestation of an ellipse, which in turn defines planetary orbits. The circle is essentially a geometric subset, an ellipse with its two foci coexistent.

James Turrell, Raemar Pink White, 1969, Shallow Space, collection of Art & Research, Las Vegas, © James Turrell, photo by Robert Wedemeyer, courtesy Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles

Turrell’s art does not illustrate these leaps in understanding but embodies them. The actual experience of light in Turrell’s constructions often defies our expectations—whether it is seeing a circle reveal itself as an ellipse or wondering how the world outside a Skyspace can seem from inside as if it has been painted a deep shade of blue or red or green. These experiences prompt us to consider the nature of our own perceptual apparatus as much as the thing we are perceiving. This is by design. In fact, the artist has said that perception is his true medium. The greatest revelations borne by Turrell’s art are a deeper understanding of what it is to be a perceiving being and an awareness of how much of our observation and experience is illuminated by the “inner light” of our own perception. Turrell often refers to the brilliance of color experienced in a lucid dream when the eyes are closed—or to the Quaker practices of his religious upbringing, which describe meditation as “going inside to greet the light.” The Quaker concept of “inner light,” which is shared in a collective silent-prayer meeting, is echoed in the experience of Turrell’s Skyspaces—in the collective silence, duration, and receptivity they induce.

Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director

Pompeo Batoni, Portrait of Sir Wyndham Knatchbull Wyndham, 1758-1759, Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation.

For example, recently, a visitor (identified online here only as “Microbe”) wanted to know a lot about our Portrait of Sir Wyndham Knatchbull-Wyndham, currently on view on the third floor of the Ahmanson Building, but apparently better-known to Microbe by perusing our website (where this image, like 19,999 others, representing one-fourth of all of the works of art on the site, is regarded as public domain and made available for you to download and use as you see fit).

Microbe wrote:
The portrait is very familiar to a whole host of former children in care at The Caldecott Community school, which occupied for 50 years ‘Mersham-le-Hatch’ the ancestral Robert Adam-built mansion of the Knatchbull family, UK, where this elegant Batoni portrait was on display in its original dining room niche above an expansive decoratively carved marble fireplace. As one of those ‘former familiar children’ I note the painting has had a clean, since certain detail wasn’t nearly so apparent in my childhood when chancing to gaze up during every mealtime from ‘my porridge’ at the mannered Georgian stance of Sir Wyndham Knatchbull portrayed, I recall, against a much darkened backdrop of overlaid grime of enumerable decades.

Microbe is correct – museum records verified that indeed, the painting had hung in the historic home. And indeed, our conservation center had cleaned the painting, rendering it far more legible. Microbe’s question prompted my colleagues Robyn Sanford and Monique Abadilla in our registrar’s office to dig up and share this information:

The portrait was painted in 1757, when the young Sir Wyndham was in Rome on his Grand Tour. After his return to England, Sir Wyndham commissioned the design and building of Mersham Hatch, Kent, where the painting hung over the fireplace in the dining room until its sale in 1994. See, Arthur T. Bolton, “Mersham Hatch, Kent, the seat of Lord Brabourne,” Country Life, March 26, 1921, pp. 368-375, especially ills. p. 371 and 373.

The portrait sitter was not married and had no heir, so upon his death, his property went to his uncle. This was work purchased by the museum with funding provided by the Ahmanson Foundation in 1994 from Simon C. Dickinson, Ltd. Prior to 1994, the work was held within the Knatchbull family.

So you see, we really do pay attention to these comments and route them through the museum to try to find an answer to your questions. In fact, educator extraordinaire Mary Lenihan in our education department recently fielded another one: an online visitor, captivated by Salon des Cent, a 19th century French print (and another of the 20,000 images on our website available to download and use without restriction), wrote to ask:

Who is this woman? Why do you think she has a pencil and a book? Is she an artist observing the fine details and tonality of this plant for a drawing? Is she a poet about observing the existence of this plant to create metaphors for a poem? Is she a scientist observing the structure of the plant for a research paper?

Salon des Cent,
Eugène Samuel Grasset, France, 1894
Kurt J. Wagner, M.D., and C. Kathleen Wagner Collection

Mary turned to her personal library, and to our museum information database, before writing back:

Most likely, the woman depicted here is based on a model and is not intended to depict a particular person. In some cases, the artist did design posters advertising theater productions, depicting specific actors or musicians. But in this case, this is a proof for a poster promoting a one-man exhibition honoring Grasset himself, and it is likely that he used a model whose name is not recorded. (He was taken aback at the honor – it was his first one-man exhibition, held at Salon des Cent in 1894.)

(Mary also commented to me, “It’s fascinating to hear questions and see what objects people find on our website!”)

So choose any record on the site and just beneath the main image, you’ll see a “Comment” option. Then add your own two cents (you’ll need to create a quick account requiring only a username and password). We’ll keep an eye out.

Amy Heibel

Six years later, I was lucky to help coordinate a similar experience for high school students, this time around Stanley Kubrick (closing June 30). Over the course of two months, LACMA Teaching Artists (Sofia Mas, Mariah Garnett, Ismael De Anda, Rosanne Kleinerman and Chelsea Hogan) led over 400 students through the exhibition. They designed tours that focused on themes of literary adaptation, technological innovation, and the influence of art on Kubrick’s work. Many of the students were not familiar with Kubrick, and as I observed the tours I noticed they were experiencing the same feeling of excitement I had when I saw Dalí & Film.

2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick (1965-68; GB/United States). The astronaut Bowman (Keir Dullea) in the storage loft of the computer HAL. © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

When I asked each group about Kubrick’s influence, one student felt inspired to pursue acting while another said she was motivated to develop her talent in painting. Other teens mentioned that Kubrick had “set the bar for filmmaking” and that he viewed things with “a different perspective”. The obstacles he faced with the studios, technology, and financing showed the students that a true artist has “the drive to continue when it gets tough” and an ability to “force himself and audiences out of their comfort zone.” In all their responses the students noted the auteur’s passion, determination, and process as the main source of inspiration.

Students at HeArt Project Hollywood Media Arts Academy using vegetable oil and paint to create stop-motion animation inspired by the Star Gate sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey

The students’ Stargate abstraction

To supplement their field trip, several of the classroom teachers asked their students to view movies, write reports, and make art inspired by their visit. A group at ArtLAB High School started a film club. Students at Hollywood High School made documentaries of their experience, while teens at the HeArt Project Hollywood Media Arts Academy created stop-motion animations inspired by the Star Gate sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey. In addition, they created their own “visions of the future,” also inspired by the epic film.

Stephen Na, student at the HeArt Project Hollywood Media Arts Academy, working on re-imagining the future LA landscape, inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey

Stephen Na’s watercolor

Transportation of the future by a student at HeArt Project inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey

As Stanley Kubrick comes to a close and I look back on the experiences of these students as well as my own, I’m reminded once again of the impact a great artist can have.

Valentina Mogilevskaya, Art+Film Education Coordinator

Want to have the perfect date? Start early with jazz and dinner at Ray’s, then head over to the Bing Theater at 7:30 for a double feature of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, the romantic classics starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy and directed by Richard Linklater. (PS: the perks of being a Film Club member—you’d have gotten an invite to next week’s sold-out preview screening of Before Midnight.)

Saturday is International Art Museum Day, and we’re celebrating by offering discounted general admission all day—just $10 admission (excluding Stanley Kubrick). Don’t forget: kids under 18 are always free, every day. There is a lot on view at the moment—from Ming Masterpieces to Hans Richter to Henri Matisse, and much more.

One exhibition to check out is Unveiling Femininity in Indian Painting and Photography on the top floor of the Ahmanson Building. The installation looks at the depiction of women in court paintings and photographs in India from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Gain some added perspective on the show Saturday night, when the Shakti Dance Company performs Devadasi: The Eternal Dancer in the Bing Theater. The dance, choreographed by Viji Prakash, was inspired by a photograph in the exhibition, as detailed on Unframed earlier this week.

William Willoughby Hooper. Hindoo Dancing Girls, India, 1870, from the collection of Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck

Stay late on Saturday for International Museum Night. We’ll be keeping Stanley Kubrick open late–only a few weeks left before it goes away forever!–plus exhibitions on Henri Matisse, Hokusai, and more. Music will be supplied by KCRW DJ Marion Hodges, and we’re also offering talks on a variety of topics and special tasting stations created by Executive Chef Jason Fullilove, inspired by the art on view. More info and tickets.

2001: A Space Odyssey, set photo, directed by Stanley Kubrick, 1965-68

On Sunday afternoon contemporary art fans will find much to enjoy, starting with a free screening of two episodes of the PBS series Art21. The first episode, “Place,” examines the work of Richard Serra, Sally Mann, Barry McGee, and more. The second episode, “Spirituality,” features James Turrell, among others. Turrell’s much-anticipated retrospective opens next week at LACMA. Advance tickets for the exhibition are on sale now.

James Turrell in front of Roden Crater Project at sunset, October 2001, photo © Florian Holzherr

At 4pm artist Gary Simmons, whose work was recently on view at LACMA in Lost Line, will be at Art Catalogues in conversation with curator Franklin Sirmans. The two will discuss Simmons’ new book, Paradise, as well as other topics like music, pop culture, and more. Finally, the evening at LACMA concludes with a concert in the Bing Theater by the Crossroads Orchestra, performing works by Dvorakm, Mozart, and Bartok for our free Sundays Live concert series.

Scott Tennent

Chef Jason Fullilove, an Executive Chef with Patina Restaurant Group at LACMA since 2012, has been creating menus for LACMA’s pop-up RED dinners inspired by films, music, and more

What was your beginning as a chef?
Jason Fullilove: I started out washing dishes in Amherst, Massachusetts 21 years ago and worked my way up to pantry cook in a few months. I was an Executive Chef at a boutique hotel in Ohio, a chef for a large fine dining restaurant company in New York City, and a chef for the Ritz Carlton in the Virgin Islands before relocating to California in 2009.

The menus you create for LACMA – especially the themed ones – are so creative. When did you start making “inspired” menus for events?
I’ve always been a creative chef. I’ve always been a curious chef. Oftentimes, I write menus with ideas I’ve never actually tried before, just to see if we can pull it off and make something delicious. We succeed more often than not! The themed menus at LACMA give me a chance to push this creative curiosity to the extreme―like when I’m asked to create food inspired by a 19^th-century Japanese printmaker!

Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, c. 1830–31, gift of the Frederick R. Weisman Company

That’s right! For International Museum Night, you’ve created two tasting stations―one inspired by Hokusai at LACMA and one by Henri Matisse: La Gerbe. How did you decide what to create?
I love Japanese food and I love French food. The Japanese are known for clean, crisp flavors and obviously a mastery of raw fish. The French are gods of cooking techniques and the farmer’s market. I wanted to create dishes that would celebrate that in one or two bites, but still with my personal twist on it.

In honor of International Museum Night, I have to ask―do you have a favorite place to eat outside of the United States?
Sogo’s by the ferry dock in Maho Bay, St. John, US Virgin Islands. They have the best curried goat, Johnny Cakes, and lots of good rum.

DJ Marion Hodges, who recently celebrated her four-year anniversary with KCRW, will be spinning an eclectic mix of new and classic sounds that will include indie pop, soul, and gentle beats from points all around the world

What’s your favorite song from another point around the world?
Marion Hodges: That is really tough to pin down. I have so many favorites! I have to go with this feel-good Brazilian psych party jam “Bat Macumba” by Os Mutantes. Honorable mentions go to Spanish artist Sonya’s cover of the Rolling Stones “Get Off of My Cloud,” (she calls her version “En Mi Nube”), and another Brazilian track, also a cover―”It’s My Thing” by The Cry Babies. I’m planning to play all of these at International Museum Night!

What’s your favorite type of artwork?
Pop Art is my favorite type of art in general. I love that level of humor and self-awareness in pieces like Any Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Can and Roy Liechtenstein’s comic strip-inspired work. (Editor’s note: artworks by both Warhol and Lichtenstein are on view in the Ahmanson Building during International Museum Night)

Roy Lichtenstein, Cold Shoulder, gift of Robert H. Halff through the Modern and Contemporary Art Council

Do you have a favorite artwork at LACMA?
Lichtenstein―the artwork is shockingly vibrant and beautiful. I feel like I must have seen those images so many times before I knew who the artist was. I just remember thinking, every time I saw one, “Oh, this is for me. Everything about this is for me.”

Find out more about International Museum Night.

Meghan McCauley, LACMA Muse

The production is inspired by a photograph in LACMA’s current exhibition Unveiling Femininity in Indian Painting and Photography.

William Willoughby Hooper. Hindoo Dancing Girls, India, 1870, from the collection of Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck

Literally, devadasi means “female servant of god.” A devadasi was dedicated to the temple and married to the deity. Skilled in dance and music, she performed stories of the gods before the temple deities. Trained in the arts of painting, sculpture, music, and composition, she was equally learned in Sanskrit and the Vedic scriptures. The devadasi tradition is more than 1,500 years old.

The devadasi was a harbinger of good fortune because of her auspicious role as the wife of God. She was called nityasumangali, the evergreen bride. The consort of the Immortal, she therefore never could be tainted by widowhood. Compared to the women of her day, the highly educated devadasi enjoyed riches, power, and an elevated status unconstrained by the duties of married life.

Within the temple the devadasi had specific roles in the performance of the sacred rituals. She also participated in festivals and processions. The innermost sanctums of the temple were open to her. Weddings, births, and royal court functions required her auspicious presence and blessing. For her services, gifts of gold and jewels were lavished upon her by patrons. She received land, fame, title and prestige. Many became wealthy landholders. In return she donated much of these riches to the building of temple structures and gardens, financing temple processions and to the construction and funding of schools.

Photo by John Merrell

Quite commonly a prepubescent girl from the village would be dedicated to the deity as a devadasi. It was considered an act of supreme devotion. Others came from the ranks of the temple dancers themselves. The devadasi was permitted liaisons with men of proper status and her offspring found a place in society by becoming dancers and musicians in the temple. As long as dance was a hereditary profession the devadasi had a well-defined and important role in society.

In the last half of the nineteenth century this traditional role was threatened by a combination of forces. The British were robbing the royalty of their power and money, so they could no longer afford to support the local temples and be patrons of the arts. British missionaries also had issues with what they viewed as questionable behavior. Dance within a sacred space was seen as scandalous. The children of devadasis were considered illegitimate. The missionaries found it difficult to recognize these dancers as women of God. Their views converged with a national social reform movement that condemned the practice of dedicating young girls to the temples. For 65 years the argument was fought in official circles until the death knell was struck with the passage of the 1947 Madras Devadasi Prevention of Dedication Act. The devadasi era in the temples was drawing to a close

Photo by John Merrell

During this long debate, the devadasi was faced with a lack of support as patronage ebbed. The devadasi tradition went into a downward spiral taking with it the artists, musicians, sculptors, and scholars who were dependent upon it. The devadasi had to leave the temples and return to her ancestral villages with no means of support. She was without a defined role in a highly structured society.

Fortunately there was a group of revivalists who appreciated the wealth of material that these temple women possessed and took it upon themselves to save the dance tradition. Indians who were seeking a means of expression through western dance were encouraged by famous artists of the caliber of Anna Pavlova to delve into the rich dance tradition of their own country. Today we enjoy a dance tradition that has its roots in the 3000 year old text of the Natyashastra. It has not been lost. The performances have moved from the temple to a new audience in the theater, but the art of the devadasi will live eternally in the hearts of all those who love dance.

Kay Talwar, Southern Asian Art Council member

The Russian Room at the 1929 “FiFo” exhibition in Stuttgart.

Using augmented reality, a technology that enables the creation of a 3-D visual environment within the field of vision of the camera, Will and John Craig have recreated and interpreted the extraordinary design of the Russian Room, with it’s scaffolding and surfaces at various heights juxtaposing photography and moving images. They’ve also added some creative elements of their own.

Augmented reality installation by John Craig Freeman and Will Pappenheimer. (Easter egg spoiler alert: Will and John Craig appear at lower right.)

If you want to see the piece in use in the gallery, watch this short video demonstration from John Craig.

This is Will and John Craig’s second stint at LACMA; last summer, they participated in our Artist’s Respond series with an augmented reality “intervention” called Project O-rator that you can still experience on our BP Pavilion. Curator Tim Benson saw that project during development and realized that augmented reality might bring to life the spirit of the FiFo Russian Room, documentation of which has largely been lost to history. And so our first in-gallery augmented reality experiment was born.

While Will and John Craig were installing the piece at the museum, we talked about the project. Here’s what they had to say:

John Craig: We’re interested in using emergent technology to invent new forms of public art. We’ve worked at museums before but ti was in an interventionist way – we’d go in without an invitation and people would show up with their cell phones without the museum knowing. But this project was a way for us to iron out the possiblilities within an exhibition, working with the curator. This is the first time a museum has been willing to take a risk on us like this.

Will: Hans Richter was working at a time when artists were embracing new technologies and engaging them within their work in order to explore what they signify. One of the things we really got into was the idea of expanded cinematic space, an idea that fascinated Richter and his contemporaries.

John Craig: We hope we’re demonstrating a continuous line of inquiry. The questions these artists were raising in the early 20th century are questions that aren’t by any means answered yet. For example, how do we invent a new visual language to respond to the emergent technology of our day? In the case of Sergei Eisenstein, the response to that question was to invent montage that eventually became the norm for how film constructs meaning. That same kind of inquiry needs to happen now with network communications and virtual forms of meaning and representation. What’s the new grammar of virtual space and social media?

Will: What will cinematic space be now? There is the idea of a collective space created by the internet that you move through at the same time as you move through the physical world. Whether or not it’s narrative is a discussion we should be having. Augmented reality can be very powerful if it has a narrative, but it doesn’t have to have a narrative, just as there is non-narrative film and video. It can be a spatial  narrative, too, instead of linear narrative, as you move from one thing to another.

Augmented reality allows you to juxtapose two realities: what’s in the world and what’s in the augmented reality experience. I like to think about resonance; the object we’re putting there isn’t necessarily forming a narrative, it’s forming a resonance with what is there in the environment already. And that resonance can be dissonance. Everything doesn’t have to work together in a harmonious way.

In talking to Tim Benson about his research on Hans Richter and his contemporaries, we learned how those artists went to great lengths to see if they could destabilize the viewer’s perception going into an exhibit. That’s what the FiFo Russian room is about – you’re not sure what’s where. They wanted to destabilize space and create an immersive experience of encountering art.

What we’re doing is it is immersive too; it’s all around you. When people first pick up the iPads, they wonder what they’re seeing. There is a confusion about what space it is, and what’s real.

John Craig: Being here in Los Angeles is special too. I took Will to the camera obscura in Santa Monica. It really impacted me as a kid and my need to engage with virtual reality. Painting is based on the camera obscura: representation requires a frame being made, and a point of view  and the artists choosing to leave something in the image or not. What we’re doing departs from that; although the iPad has a frame, the experience is starting to get loose of the frame. The point of view is handed over to the audience, because you can walk through the space. Augmented reality is destabilizing the way we construct representation.

Amy Heibel

Tonight and tomorrow we are proud to present Young Women Filmmakers from Mexico—a special series—free admission, by the way—co-organized with the nonprofit AMBULANTE and co-hosted with the Consulate General of Mexico. Friday screenings feature Natalia Almada’s El General and Yulene Olaizola’s Intimidades de Shakespeare y Víctor Hugo (Shakespeare and Victor Hugo’s Intimacies). Almada will be on hand for a Q&A following El General. On Saturday, watch Tatiana Huezo’s El Lugar Más Pequeño (The Tiniest Place) followed by Lucia Gaja’s Mi Vida Dentro (My Life Inside), the story of Rosa—an illegal immigrant charged with murder in 2003. Both films will include Q&A’s with their directors; Rosa’s attorney, Yuriria Marván, will also be here to say more about the case. Check out this week’s Unframed post for trailers from all four films.

This weekend at LACMA is also all about families—and especially all about Mom. Start your activities on Saturday either at LACMA with Family Tours of the collection, or at Charles White Elementary School for awesome family activities related to the exhibition on view there, Shinique Smith: Firsthand (see our Unframed post from this week for more about the show). On Saturday night, drop your teenagers off at After Dark—a TEENS-ONLY party that takes over all the exhibitions inside BCAM, including Ends and Exits, Stephen Prina: As He Remembered It, and Chris Burden’s Metropolis II. The party is free but tickets are required. There will be live bands and DJs, free food, and no parents. Moms and Dads, if you want to stick around on campus while your kids have a ball, treat yourselves to dinner at Ray’s, drinks at Stark Bar, or take in the free screenings in the Bing mentioned above. More info on Teen Night is here.

Jack Goldstein, Untitled, 1988, The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica, © Jack Goldstein Estate

Then of course there is Mother’s Day itself. Ray’s is offering a special Mother’s Day Brunch and Dinner—check out the menu and make reservations at 323 857-6180. Pair your meal with a stroll through our galleries: may we suggest Henri Matisse: La Gerbe, Hokusai, or Hans Ricther: Encounters? We’ve also got free family art activities on the L.A. Times Central Court.

Henri Matisse, La Gerbe (The Sheaf), 1953, LACMA, gift of Frances L. Brody in honor of the museum’s twenty-fifth anniversary, © 2012 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Fans of William Wegman, Kerry James Marshall, Maya Lin, Louise Bourgeois, Bruce Nauman, or William Kentridge will want to stop into the Brown Auditorium on Sunday afternoon for free back-to-back showings of the award-winning series Art21. The first explores the theme of “identity” in various artists’ works, while the second episode is fully dedicated to Kentridge’s creative process. (Nauman fans: find time for For Beginners in BCAM while you’re here.)

The weekend closes with a free performance from the Lyris Quartet. The foursome was just here earlier this week for a powerful rendition of Steve Reich’s WTC 9/11 and Different Trains. They return this weekend for more classical fare: works by Beethoven and Gerard Shurmann.

Scott Tennent

A mere mention of the mother-and-child theme brings one artist’s name instantly to mind: Mary Cassatt. Her tender depictions of this theme have made her paintings among the most beloved in any museum collection.  LACMA has what might be her very first such treatment, Mother About to Wash Her Sleepy Child, from 1880. I feel almost remiss in mentioning it, since it currently is on tour with other museum objects in Korea and Australia, so visitors here can’t see it right now. But it is a museum favorite, and certainly a shining star of the collection, so I can’t omit it from this list.

Mother About to Wash Her Sleepy Child, Mary Cassatt,
United States, 1880, Mrs. Fred Hathaway Bixby Bequest

Notice the immediacy and the intimacy of the painting, hallmarks of the Impressionist movement, in which Cassatt played an important role. She cropped the scene, even cutting off the sides of the chair, so we feel as if we are right there with the mother as she affectionately holds her child. The painting is not at all static – the mother’s hand, poised with a wet washcloth, anticipates motion, while the child’s left arm, slightly blurred, seems to move. The colors—cream, pink and warm grays and blues—suggest  a Victorian-era nursery, as do the upholstery fabric and the wallpaper.

Cassatt, an American woman, was a full-fledged member of the French Impressionist circle starting in the 1870s in Paris.  A friend of Edgar Degas, she exhibited alongside the others in the group, and absorbed many of the elements that infused their work: a lightened palette, rich background patterns, unconventional perspective, and feathery brushstrokes. Because Cassatt tended to use conventional “feminine” subject matter, such as family scenes and women taking tea, her canvases were actually underappreciated during the decades following her death in 1926.  Around 1980, art historians began to re-examine her work, noting that while her subject matter might have been traditional, her technique was modern and daring. One does not need to know much about art history to appreciate her paintings; looking at LACMA’s canvas, we can simply revel in the gorgeous colors and convincing emotion, which Cassatt painted without succumbing to the obvious sentimentality that lesser artists might use with such a scene.

Mrs. Schuyler Burning Her Wheat Fields on the Approach of the British, Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, United States, 1852, Bicentennial gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Schaaf, Mr. and Mrs. William D. Witherspoon, Mr. and Mrs. Charles C. Shoemaker, and Jo Ann and Julian Ganz, Jr.

Mrs. Schuyler Burning Her Wheat Fields on the Approach of the British by American artist Emanuel Leutze might seem an odd choice to include in this Mother’s Day blog, but it depicts a mother doing what most any mother would do: heroically protecting and defending her family.  This painting is currently on view on the third floor of the Art of the Americans Building, and is worth a long look.

Painted in 1852, the scene is actually one from the American Revolution, 75 years earlier.  Museum staff and docents use it frequently in gallery tours, and many school children who tour the collection have no trouble at all deciphering the theme; the fact that most of the figures are clad in red, white, or blue signals that it is a patriotic American story.  Without knowing the actual narrative, or even what era it dates from, children also outline the tale by looking closely at the figures’ dramatic body language and facial expressions.  They rightly surmise that the central woman is a mother surrounded by two similarly clad daughters, one of whom clings to her fearfully.  A stagecoach, packed and ready, stands nearby.  A helpful neighbor gestures to the distant hillside, while a servant kneels with a candle in the forefront.

This scene is based on a popular story that circulated in the nineteenth century, that of the heroic wife of General Philip Schuyler, leader of revolutionary forces.  He has sent word to his wife that the British army was marching down the Hudson River towards New York City.  The family farm lay right in its path.  The artist shows the moment when, after packing  family belongings, Mrs. Schuyler prepares to lead her children to safety.  First, though, she stops to torch her farm’s ripened wheat fields, so that the British will not be able to make bread for its soldiers.  The story, based on an account by Mrs. Schuyler’s youngest daughter, was anthologized in books popular in the 1840s and 50s.  Historians cannot confirm that this event actually took place, but it is an example, nevertheless, of the resolute strength of an American mother.

Portrait of Mrs. Edward L. Davis and Her Son, Livingston Davis, John Singer Sargent, United States, 1890, Frances and Armand Hammer Purchase Fund

The third painting, Mrs. Edward L. Davis and Her Son, Livingston Davis, from 1890, is an example of yet another way artists have depicted the mother-and-child theme.  The Cassatt painting is what we might call a “genre painting,” an everyday scene of modern life.  Scholars classify Leutze’s canvas a “history painting.”  John Singer Sargent’s painting is a portrait; he was hired to paint the likeness of Mrs. Davis and her son, who were part of an influential family in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Sargent, an American artist who spent much of his life in Europe, was from a wealthy expatriate family with strong connections to other affluent Americans living abroad.  He anchored a lively circle of European and American writers, intellectuals and aristocrats.  By 1890, many considered him the best portrait painter in London.  He made several extended visits to the United States, where he was promptly flooded with offers of portrait commissions.  He completed the Davis painting in two weeks, during one of these visits.

Just as the Cassatt painting is considered one of the artist’s best paintings of its type, the Sargent painting is considered by many to be one of Sargent’s best portraits.  Part of the museum’s collection since 1969, it is another favorite of museum visitors, and is on view on the third floor of the Art of the Americas Building.

Notice that the artist painted Mrs. Davis in a way that conveys her wealth and social importance, depicting her with a confident gaze, regal bearing, and fashionable dress.  Her maternal role is also evident; her arm protectively surrounds her son, with their hands intertwined.  Young Livingston, age 8 at the time, appears a bit shy, but his mother’s friendly, open facial expression communicates warmth and affection.  A double portrait challenges an artist, since one figure must not overshadow another.  In this case, Sargent succeed wonderfully; the poses, setting, and clothing combine to effectively capture each individual, but also signal Mrs. Davis’s fulfillment of one of the principal functions of a late-nineteenth century woman, the role of affectionate mother.

Visit LACMA on Sunday to see the Sargent and Leutze paintings, along with all the other wonderful art currently on display.  Enjoy the day with your family!

Mary Lenihan

James Turrell, Raemar Pink White, 1969, Shallow Space, Collection of Art & Research, Las Vegas, Installation view at Griffin Contemporary, Santa Monica, CA, 2004, © James Turrell, photo by Robert Wedemeyer, courtesy Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles

Due to the nature of the artwork, this exhibition has extremely limited capacity. Many pieces require solitude and time for the eyes to adjust and fully perceive the work. It is strongly recommended that visitors purchase tickets in advance as many time slots are already selling out.

Turrell’s Perceptual Cell is separately ticketed from the exhibition. Capacity is very limited (only three tickets are sold per hour) and certain months are already selling out. In the immersive work, a single viewer lies down in a spherical chamber for about twelve minutes to experience what Turrell calls “behind-the-eyes” seeing.

James Turrell, Light Reignfall, 2011, Gaswork, courtesy of James Turrell, Pace Gallery, and Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow, installation view at Garage Center for Contempoaray Culture, 2011, © James Turrell, photo © Florian Holzherr

Visitors have two options for tickets: 

1.)   A James Turrell: A Retrospective exhibition ticket allows same-day access to the exhibition and all LACMA galleries including Stanley Kubrick (on view through June 30). This ticket does not include access to James Turrell’s Perceptual Cell.

Tickets: $25 general public; $20 groups of 10+; free for members and children under 18

Learn more about the exhibition and purchase tickets

2.)   A Perceptual Cell ticket allows same-day access to the full exhibition and all LACMA galleries including Stanley Kubrick (on view through June 30).

Tickets: $45 general public; $15 members; children under 17 not permitted

Learn more about Perceptual Cell and purchase tickets

Alex Capriotti