LACMA

Glass: Material Matters

April 30–December 10, 2006 | Modern and Contemporary Art Building

Glass: Material Matters is the first exhibition of contemporary glass organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and incorporates more than fifty works from LACMA’s permanent collection. This eclectic presentation is organized to reflect a spectrum of thematic, formal, and technical directions in glass primarily from the mid-1980s to the present; the works of such artists as Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster, Maya Lin, and Rem Koolhaas, who have been important innovators in glass. This show with its diversity of subjects will underscore LACMA's commitment to the collection and display of contemporary works in glass.

This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and was made possible by Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser.

It was supported in part by the Glass Alliance of Los Angeles. Additional support has been provided by Ruth C. Greenberg, Roberta and Melvin Olshansky, Cynthia and Jeffrey Manocherian, the Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation, Dale and Doug Anderson, Andy and Charles Bronfman, Salli and Bernie Harris, Ellie and Mark Lainer, and Dr. Susan Krevoy and Leo Spiwak.

Curators: Howard Fox, Contemporary Art; Sarah Nichols, Guest Curator.

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June 29–September 17,  2006 | Modern and Contemporary Art Building

In the first West Coast museum retrospective of his work, LACMA in collaboration with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Cincinnati Art Museum have organized this small but highly selective exhibition of fifty of Richard Pousette-Dart’s drawings and paintings on paper, representing the full range of his fifty-year career from the 1940s to the 1990s. Pousette-Dart, the youngest of the abstract expressionists and the first of them to paint on a heroic scale, never separated his art from his spiritual experience. Always original, the artist’s work changed and evolved with each successive decade, never losing its early potency.

Curator at LACMA: Leslie Jones, Prints and Drawings.

This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Cincinnati Art Museum. Following Los Angeles, the exhibition will travel to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (October 14, 2006–January 14, 2007) and the Cincinnati Art Museum (February 3–May 3, 2007).

Richard Pousette-Dart, Chromatic Dream (1940s), ink, graphite,  watercolor and gouache on Arches paper, 30 x 22 inches (76.2 x 55.9 cm), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of the Estate of Richard Pousette-Dart, © Estate of Richard Pousette-Dart, Photo by Thomas R. Du Brock.

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June 11–September 4, 2006 | Modern and Contemporary Art Building

LACMA presents David Hockney Portraits, the first exhibition devoted solely to Hockney’s portraiture, one of the most significant facets of his work. Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the National Portrait Gallery, London, in collaboration with LACMA and senior curator Stephanie Barron, the groundbreaking exhibition surveys half a century of the artist's career, revealing some of his most profound compositions, new and old.

For decades, Hockney has revisited the same intimate subjects—friends, family, lovers, and even himself—unveiling the often circular nature of his artistic preoccupation and also underscoring the range of his creative practice. In part because of his pioneering portraits, Hockney rapidly became the best-known British artist of his generation. It is through the lens of Los Angeles, however, that much of his work is viewed. Fittingly then, David Hockney Portraits comes to L.A.—the city the artist has long called home—and to LACMA, which has already presented two previous exhibitions devoted to the artist.

This exhibition was curated by Sarah Howgate and Barbara Stern Shapiro and organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the National Portrait Gallery, London, in collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The Los Angeles presentation was made possible in part by LACMA’s Wallis Annenberg Director’s Endowment Fund. Additional support was provided by the Frederick R. Weisman Philanthropic Foundation. In-kind support was made possible by official hotel sponsor Millennium Biltmore as part of the Millennium on View program.

LACMA Coordinating Curator: Stephanie Barron.

This is a specially ticketed exhibition: Adults $15; students 18+ with ID and senior citizens 65+ $12; children under 17 free – tickets are required; Groups (10 +) $10.

David Hockney (England, b. 1937), Beverly Hills Housewife, 1966, acrylic on two canvases, 72 x 144 in., private collection, © David Hockney, all rights reserved. Downloading, transferring or otherwise making copies of this image without prior written permission is strictly prohibited.

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Antenna Audio Tour Highlight [requires Flash 6 plugin]

Exhibition Extra

Q&A with Stephanie Barron

Essay by Lawrence Weschler

A Curator’s Eye: The Visual Legacy of Robert A. Sobieszek

May 11–August 20, 2006 | Hammer Building 

For fifteen years, Robert A. Sobieszek shepherded LACMA’s permanent collection of photographs with the highly refined visual understanding of an historian, the intellectual rigor and sophistication of an academic, the critical eye and sensitivity of a connoisseur, and the exuberance and passion of a man totally enthralled by photographers, photographs, and visual culture.  This exhibition will feature pivotal works from the permanent collection acquired during Sobieszek’s tenure that have substantially shaped the direction and strengths of the Department of Photographs. The exhibition will celebrate the collection as well as the visual sensibility that has defined it. Featuring works of important historical significance, works by acknowledged masters of the medium, as well as those by contemporary artists, the exhibition will give a sense of the character of the collection, a character that is as elegantly complex as the curator under whose guidance it was shaped. The exhibition includes more than 30 framed works. Additionally, a Powerpoint presentation highlighting additional components in the photography permanent collection will be on display.

This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Gregory Crewdson (United States, b. 1962), Untitled, 1998, silver dye-bleach (Cibachrome) print with laminate, 55 x 65 in., LACMA, Ralph M. Parsons Fund, ©Gregory Crewdson.

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Slideshow

Collections Online

Gustav Klimt: Five Paintings from the Collection of Ferdinand and Adele Bloch-Bauer

April 4–June 30, 2006 | Ahmanson Building

LACMA is honored to announce a special exhibition of five important paintings by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt (1862–1918). The paintings were recently returned by the Austrian government to the family of Maria Altmann, of Los Angeles, following a lengthy legal dispute over the rightful ownership of these works stolen by the Nazi regime. The five masterpieces by Klimt epitomize the height of Viennese Jugendstil. They include two portraits of Maria Altmann’s aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer (1881–1925) and three landscapes, Beechwood (1903), Apple Tree I (ca. 1911), and Houses in Unterach on Lake Atter (1916). The five paintings, which until recently hung in the Austrian Gallery Belvedere in Vienna, have never before been shown together in the United States.

This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and made possible through the generosity of The Broad Art Foundation, the Office of Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, Lynda and Stewart Resnick, Nancy and Dick Riordan, AT&T, Herta and Paul Amir, Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation, Kathy and Frank Baxter, The Gordon Family Foundation, Ellen and Andrew Hauptman, Nina and Bobby Kotick, the Robert F. Maguire III Family, the Peter Norton Family Foundation, Ted Slavin and Patricia Rubin, Terry and Lionel Bell, Lee and Lawrence Ramer, and the Robert Gore Rifkind Foundation. Special support for this exhibition was provided by LACMA's Art Museum Council. This exhibition is not specially ticketed. There is no additional charge for members; non-members are admitted with a general admission ticket.

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907, oil, silver, and gold on canvas, 55 1/8 x 55 1/8 in. (140 x 140 cm), Estate of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, photo © 2006 Museum Associates/LACMA.

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Exhibition Extra

February 24–April 16, 2006 | Modern and Contemporary Art Building

This year, LACMA celebrates its fortieth anniversary. To commemorate this milestone, an exhibition of works of art given or promised to the museum in honor of its first four decades will take place from February 24th to April 16th, 2006. “LACMA at 40” is, above all, a celebration of the art of giving, and it honors in equal measure the museum and its generous, and essential, donors. While only a fraction of the many exceptional gifts the museum received in 2005 can be exhibited, a selective tour of these gives a sense of the diversity and quality of fortieth-year gifts, reflecting LACMA’s many areas of collecting. This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Robert Henri, Spanish Dancer-Seviliana (Dancer with Castanets), 1904, oil on canvas,
promised gift of Abby and Alan D. Levy, photo courtesy of Abby and Alan D. Levy.

February 24–April 16, 2006 | Modern and Contemporary Art Building

This exhibition features a selection of sixty-one works that longtime LACMA supporter and trustee Robert H. Halff has given to the museum during the past forty years. Considered one of the most important gifts of modern and contemporary art given to LACMA, the collection features works by artists such as Robert Gober, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Miró, Claes Oldenburg, and Andy Warhol, among many others.

February 24–April 16, 2006 | Modern and Contemporary Art Building

This exhibition features a selection of works from the recent gift by the Jane and Marc Nathanson Family Foundation, which includes one-hundred-and-fifty prints from 1960 to 2004 by Ed Ruscha, given in honor of the museum’s fortieth anniversary. Added to what LACMA already owns, this remarkably coherent body of work, which traces an arc across the full trajectory of the artist’s career, gives the museum a comprehensive collection of Ed Ruscha’s prints.

March 12 – June 11, 2006 | Hammer Building

Long recognized as a major figure in architecture and design, Ettore Sottsass, Jr., is celebrated internationally for his landmark contributions such as the first Italian calculator—the Elea 9003, the bright red poppy plastic Valentine typewriter, and mobile, multi-functional fiberglass furniture units of the 1970s. This exhibition will be a survey of his career, and will present the wide array of objects he has created: furniture, ceramics, glass, product design, silver, jewelry, and lighting. An exhibition of Sottsass' career in an American museum is long overdue, and LACMA is the ideal venue for such an exhibition as historically Los Angeles has attracted cutting edge architects and designers. This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and was made possible by Max Palevsky. Curator is Ronald T. Labaco, assistant curator of Decorative Arts.

Ettore Sottsass, in collaboration with Perry A King, Valentine portable typewriter, 1969, made by Olivertti, Oliverti S.p.A., all rights reserved, ABS plastic, metal, rubber, 4 ½ x 13 ½ x 14 in., LACMA, gift of Daniel Ostroff.

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Exhibition Extra

March 12–June 11, 2006 | Hammer Building

Peter Shire (b. 1947), the Los Angeles sculptor and ceramist, came to the attention of Ettore Sottsass and the Memphis design collaborative through his progressive teapot designs from the mid-1970s. Such works as his Mexican Bauhaus teapot (1980) poke fun at the functionalist heritage of modernist design while referencing Southern California’s rich cultural landscape.

Contemporary Projects 10: Mrzyk & Moriceau and Félicien Rops—You Only Live 25 Times

March 23–June 4, 2006 | Modern and Contemporary Art Building

Representing a collaborative effort between the Contemporary Art and Prints and Drawings departments, You Only Live 25 Times is a project featuring young French artists, Petra Mrzyk and Jean-François Moriceau, who will present an ephemeral and site-specific drawing installation inspired by a selection of works by the nineteenth-century Belgian artist, Félicien Rops. These will be drawn from LACMA’s permanent collection.

This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and made possible by the Contemporary Projects Endowment Fund. Contributors to the fund include Mr. and Mrs. Eric Lidow, Ronnie and Vidal Sassoon, Steve Martin, the Broad Art Foundation, Bob Crewe, Tony and Gail Ganz, Ansley I. Graham Trust, Peter Norton Family Foundation, Barry and Julie Smooke, and Sandra and Jacob Y. Terner.