Essential Arts & Culture: The Getty's new trove, an Italian artist's due, ‘Angels in America’ returns

July 21, 2017 6:40 PM PT

New works from Old Masters at the Getty. Reconsidering the career of Marisa Merz. And our man in London has a look at the revived “Angels in America.” I’m Carolina A. Miranda, staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, with your weekly report on all things awesome in the world of culture:

The Getty’s ‘Surprise’

The J. Paul Getty Museum is adding a group of 16 Old Master drawings to its collection — among them, drawings by Rubens, Goya, Degas and a “superlative” Michelangelo, according to Times art critic Christopher Knight. On top of this incredible haul, the museum has also added a new canvas by Jean-Antoine Watteau that had long been thought destroyed. It is fittingly titled “The Surprise.” Los Angeles Times

An artist gets her due

She was a pioneer of the 20th century Italian artistic movement that was known as Arte Povera. But she remains largely forgotten. Christopher Knight looks at how the reputation and the “intensely personal art” of painter, sculptor and installation artist Marisa Merz is being revived in an important retrospective at the Hammer Museum. Los Angeles Times

‘Angels’ remains fresh

Times theater critic Charles McNulty is in London, and he reports that the town’s best new production is Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” starring Nathan Lane, Andrew Garfield and Russell Tovey — and, yes, he’s well aware that “Angels” first debuted in the ’90s. “But it’s hard not to be astonished by the way the play’s richly expansive sociopolitical vision, which was born out of a particular historical moment,” he writes, “is able to shed light on contemporary crisis-ridden America.” Los Angeles Times

Can’t make it to London? Thankfully “Angels in America” will be broadcast live to U.S. theaters in late July. Los Angeles Times

The eternal Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett recently teamed up with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. For the duration of the performance, reports Times classical music critic Mark Swed, Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Phil remained somewhat sidelined. The show, he writes, was all on the 90-year-old Bennett, “who held the stage for well over an hour, never faltered on a lyric, hit a lot of pitches on the nail, retained high notes and showed himself to remain as agile a dancer as a singer.” Los Angeles Times

The show came on the heels of another L.A. Phil performance that featured none other than recently retired Dodgers announcer Vin Scully, who read the famous line — “Fellow Citizens, we cannot escape history” — for Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait.” Los Angeles Times

Plus, Times contributor Margaret Gray profiles composer Stephen Sondheim in advance of a concert celebrating his 75th birthday at the Hollywood Bowl: “Sondheim on Sondheim,” a revue of his Broadway career. Los Angeles Times

Satire that remains contemporary

The play is about a condition that turns the citizens of a French town into rhinoceroses, but it’s really about “the seductively corrosive lure of herd mentality,” writes Times contributing reviewer Philip Brandes. And this production of Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist satire “Rhinoceros” couldn’t be more timely. Staged by director Guillermo Cienfuegos (working under the acting name Alex Hernandez), at the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, this faithful staging, says Brandes, also manages to tame “the play’s unrulier idiosyncrasies.” Los Angeles Times

Shakespeare and xenophobia

I was really moved by Stephen Greenblatt’s essay exploring the anti-Semitism he contended with as a student at Yale along with the anti-Semitism he encountered in literature — including Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice.” It was something that led him to dive into Shakespeare even deeper: “I wouldn’t turn away from works that caused me pain as well as pleasure. Instead, insofar as I could, I would pore over the whole vast, messy enterprise of culture as if it were my birthright. I was determined to understand this birthright, including what was toxic in it.” It’s a stirring look at Shakespeare’s social and political context — and his surprising humanity, even in his most stereotyped characters. New Yorker

Speaking of must-read essays: Michelle Garcia’s deconstruction of filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s reading of the tarot for an elite audience at the Museum of Modern Art is pretty magical. Of course, given writer and subject, it would be. The Baffler

An Eve Babitz moment

Eve Babitz — writer, dater of the famous, poser of the infamous nude chess-playing photo with Marcel Duchamp — is having a moment. Her 1979 novel “Sex and Rage” was just re-released by Counterpoint Press, following re-issues of her essay collections: “Eve’s Hollywood” and “Slow Days, Fast Company.” These have invited some intriguing reconsiderations of her work. “Sex and Rage” is plotless, reports critic Michelle Dean, but it is a “portrait of an It Girl on the verge of a nervous breakdown that softens and opens the type.” Los Angeles Times

And “’Sex and Rage’ isn’t as sharp as the books Babitz made her name on,” writes Jia Tolentino. “She’s really a memoirist — but it’s nonetheless a mesmerizing account of a young woman trying to decide what to do about her own premonition.” New Yorker

A generous donation

The Valley Performing Arts Center at Cal State Northridge just announced the single largest arts gift to the state university system: a $17-million donation from business mogul Younes Nazarian and his wife, Soraya Nazarian. VPAC will be renamed the Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts — “the Soraya” for short. Los Angeles Times

Arts patrons Soraya and Younes Nazarian.

In other news...

— Gentle people, start your browsers: The Broad museum will be releasing tickets — at $25 a pop — for the much-hyped Yayoi Kusama exhibition on Sept. 1. Los Angeles Times

— Critic Andrew Russetth asks if the Broad’s Kusama tickets are simply too much — especially at a time when some critics are arguing museums, like libraries, should be free. ARTnews

— A floating concert hall designed by architect Louis Kahn could end up in Kingston, N.Y., after a push from cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Chicago Tribune

— Speaking of which, critic Paul Goldberger considers Kahn’s legacy and his new biography, “You Say to Brick.” The Nation

— A “gap between good intentions and real life.” Architecture critic John King revisits Thom Mayne’s San Francisco Federal Building 10 years out. San Francisco Chronicle

— The iPalpiti festival, known for fostering the careers of young classical musicians, is staging concerts around L.A. through July 30. Los Angeles Times

— Amid scandal and tumult, French choreographer Jean-Christopher Maillot teams up with the Bolshoi for a successful “Taming of the Shrew.” New York Times

— Salvador Dalí’s remains, mustache intact, are exhumed for a paternity suit. New York Times

Members of a forensic crew leave the Figueres Theatre-Museum after exhuming the remains of Salvador Dali.

— Storms invade the Louvre, damaging works by Nicolas Poussin and others. Artnet

— An Israeli artist, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, stole Auschwitz artifacts for an exhibition. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum says it will press charges. The Independent

— Artists on art: light and space artist Helen Pashgian on a painting by 17th century painter Georges de La Tour. Unframed

— Capturing lost worlds: Images of mid-century Vancouver by Fred Herzog. The Guardian

— Pairs well with this photo essay on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles by Leopoldo Peña. Más Ultra

— How Sanrio makes anti-capitalism adorable with characters such as Aggretsuko. New York Times