Essential Arts & Culture: Chicago architecture biennial, 'The Red Shoes' hits L.A. and more PST: LA/LA

Sept. 22, 2017 6:35 PM PT

An architecture biennial looks to history. A pair of red shoes are set to dance at the Ahmanson. And getting a closer look at some of the shows (including music!) that are part of Pacific Standard Time: Los Angeles / Latin America. I’m Carolina A. Miranda, staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, with the week’s essential culture news:

Architecture plays itself

The second iteration of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, organized by L.A. architects Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, opened last weekend. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne reports that this is a biennial that turns turns its gaze to the profession’s own history, in “an elegantly and densely layered exhibition” — though one that seems to be at a remove from the current national mood. Los Angeles Times

Hawthorne sat down for a conversation with curators Johnston and Lee. The show, says Lee, is a reaction to the “complete fascination with newness — new for new’s sake.” Los Angeles Times

Art and natural disaster

Arts communities all over the Americas are reeling from natural disaster.

Mexico City’s museums appear to be emerging largely unscathed in the wake of the powerful 7.1 earthquake that had left at least 274 people dead as of Friday. ARTnews

A rescuer listens for signs of life in a building felled by the earthquake in Mexico City.

How the architectural center La Casa del Arquitecto in Mexico City became a headquarters for architects and engineers aiding quake rescue efforts. Citylab

In Chicago, Puerto Rican and Mexican cultural groups have come together to create relief funds for Mexico and Puerto Rico (hit by the devastating Hurricane Maria). Chicago Sun-Times

Florida sizes up damage — physical and financial — to its theaters in the wake of Hurricane Irma. American Theatre

‘The Red Shoes’ in L.A.

Choreographer Matthew Bourne’s company New Adventures is known for dance theater adaptations of works such as “Lord of the Flies” and “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Now he’s bringing his award-winning production of “The Red Shoes” (inspired by the 1948 film) to the Ahmanson Theatre. “It’s an expression of what art can do,” he tells The Times’ Jessica Gelt. “It’s about dying for art.” Los Angeles Times

Choreographer Matthew Bourne photographed at the Ahmanson Theatre, where "The Red Shoes" is having its U.S. premiere.

Contributing reviewer Lewis Segal reports that the show’s highlights include the ways in which Bourne “acutely” reveals character and social class. But some of the key narrative components “don’t always match the high achievement of the dances.” Los Angeles Times

All PST, all the time

The PST: LA/LA series of Latin American exhibitions is in full throttle. Here’s what we’ve been looking at:

Times art critic Christopher Knight reports that the exhibition devoted to the work of 20th century artist Martín Ramírez at the Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles may rank “among the most significant shows” in the series. Ramírez was a Mexican migrant who spent much of his life in California state mental hospitals and created curious, pattern-filled drawings of trains and caballeros. “The artist’s presentation of conceptual mysteries through rigorous formal clarity is seductive,” writes Knight. Los Angeles Times

In Orange County, The Times’ Deborah Vankin reports on the life and legacy of late muralist Emigdio Vasquez, which serves as a point of inspiration for a group exhibition at Chapman University. Vasquez’s son, Emigdio “Higgy” Vasquez, who has helped restore key pieces of his father’s work, will paint a new mural at Chapman as part of the show. Los Angeles Times

Vankin also has a look at a striking mural installation by the Oaxacan artist collective Tlacolulokos at the Los Angeles Public Library. “‘Visualizing Language: Oaxaca in L.A.,’” she writes, “provides an alternate perspective on California history that gives voice not only to the Zapotec community but to all indigenous communities.” Los Angeles Times

Dario Canul of Tlacolulokos examines a portion the collective's new mural at the L.A. Public Library.

Plus, Times music writer Randall Roberts reports on a series of PST “Musical Interventions” organized by curator and critic Josh Kun — events that looks at how Latin American musicians have shaped L.A. music and vice versa. Los Angeles Times

And because you can’t have enough of a good thing: Critic Holland Cotter reports on PST: LA/LA in a lengthy dispatch about the series — describing it is “a huge historically corrective, morale-raising cultural event.” New York Times

PST in the galleries

Times reviewer Sharon Mizota has a look at what’s doing in commercial galleries in conjunction with PST:

First up: the exhibition at Regen Projects organized by artists Abraham Cruzvillegas and Gabriel Kuri which features a flaming bubble machine and a 1939 wallpaper design by Miguel Covarrubias. Los Angeles Times

Meanwhile, at Freedman Fitzpatrick, an installation by the artist known as f.marquespenteado imagines a fictional dinner party that features an encounter between Mexican Americans and a Brit. Los Angeles Times

And in her solo show at Commonwealth & Council, Carolina Caycedo continues her project “Be Dammed,” which looks at the environmental and social impacts of dams. The exhibition, writes Mizota, with its “elegiac” forms builds a “tension between flow and congestion.” Los Angeles Times

Playing the Italian avant-garde

Few cities in the world, writes Times classical music critic Mark Swed, can put on a show of Luciano Berio’s 14 Sequenzas working only with local musicians. The Italian avant-garde composer’s works require unusual techniques on a wide range of instruments. But the Monk Space in Koreatown just put on such a show — with soloists who “offered a fascinating look at the inner workings of musical life in L.A.” Los Angeles Times

Bassist Tom Peters plays Luciano Berio's Sequenza XIVb at Monk Space.

A big night

Paul Rudnick’s “Big Night” at the Kirk Douglas Theatre takes on the Hollywood awards machine as plot device. The play is about Michael (played by Brian Hutchison), the gay central character, who has been nominated for an Oscar. But sitting like a specter on the sidelines are issues of violence and intolerance — which intersect with a seemingly blissful night. “The interplay of perspectives is lively,” writes Times theater critic Charles McNulty, “but the characterizations are ‘types’ led more by laugh lines than by psychology.” Los Angeles Times

Brian Hutchison performs in "Big Night" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.

Master of puzzles

The prolific Tom Jacobson is a writer known for stirring history, sexuality and religion “in plays that often are constructed like puzzles or that kaleidoscopically shift styles,” writes The Times’ Daryl H. Miller. Following a staging of “The Devil’s Wife” just a few weeks ago, the writer now has another work on view: “Walking to Buchenwald,” at the Atwater Village Theatre, inspired by a trip he took with his family. Los Angeles Times

Playwright Tom Jacobson hangs out with some taxidermied critters at home.

Art and DACA

L.A. artist Camilo Ontiveros made a towering sculpture with the belongings of Juan Manuel Montes, the first recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (known as DACA) to be deported under the Trump administration. Made months ago, this prescient work greets visitors to “Home — So Different, So Appealing” at LACMA. “They are the belongings of someone who is really vulnerable,” Ontiveros tells me, “someone who is taken away.” Los Angeles Times

Artist Camilo Ontiveros with "Temporary Storage: The Belongings of Juan Manuel Montes."

Plus, I look at how various art works around town and on the border have acquired new significance in the wake of Trump’s announced DACA phase-out. Los Angeles Times

Extra plus, 10 artists on the rescinding of DACA. Walker Reader

Long read I’m seriously digging

Paul Chaat Smith, a curator at the National Museum of the American Indian, recently gave a talk at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. And it was wondrous: “Indians are present in daily life of Americans, but for most Americans, the vast majority, Indians are not present and Indians are invisible. Yet paradoxically, Americans are deeply familiar and emotionally connected with Indian imagery, with Indian place names, with Indians in the fabric of American life.” Walker Reader

In other news…

— More than 100 U.S. museums, led by the Guggenheim, have filed a pair of amicus briefs against Trump’s immigration ban on the basis that it negatively affects arts institutions. Artnet

— Plus, on its blog, the Guggenheim features art against the ban. Guggenheim

— The firing of director Matthew Halls roils the Oregon Bach Festival. New York Times

— The plan to build a cultural pier designed by architect Thomas Heatherwick over New York’s Hudson River is dead. Artforum

— Sherry Lansing and former Metropolitan Museum director Thomas Campbell join the Broad museum board. Los Angeles Times

— John Seed pays tribute to Los Angeles gallerist Greg Escalante, who recently passed away. Hyperallergic

— Lin-Manuel Miranda took Puerto Rican independence activist Oscar Lopez Rivera to see “Hamilton” in Chicago late last month. Chicago Tribune