Essential Arts & Culture: Ojai Music Festival, Paris floods, historic hobo graffiti

Opera and theater director Peter Sellars is overseeing the Ojai Festival this year.

By Carolina A. Miranda

June 4, 2016 5:30 AM PT

I’m Carolina A. Miranda, arts and culture writer at the Los Angeles Times, and this is your weekly update on everything arts and culture in the Southland and beyond — complete with Texas selfie sculpture.

Music inspired by place

Let’s start with the high-brow. The Ojai Music Festival kicks off Thursday with a series of performances and other events organized by Los Angeles theater director Peter Sellars. His engaging, conversational style, writes classical music critic Mark Swed, has resulted in a richly textured lineup that will be as inspired by the mystical qualities of the Ojai setting as it is by personal and political struggle. “The way the programs are put together,” Sellars says, “has to do with dream cultures and a bunch of things that are, I think, reflected in this place.” Expect to hear lots of new voices. Los Angeles Times

Portrait by Mapplethorpe

Andes Hruby wrote a moving essay about being photographed by the late artist Robert Mapplethorpe in New York City in 1979. “He had us sit, then stand,” writes Hruby. “He dragged the chair forward, then we sat down again, and he returned to hiding behind his cape. He would let out a soft sigh then push the chair in another direction.” Mapplethorpe is the subject of a pair of concurrent exhibitions at the L.A. County Museum of Art and the Getty Museum. Los Angeles Times

A pianist recovers from tragedy

In 2013, Ukrainian-born pianist Vadym Kholodenko suffered an unspeakable tragedy when he arrived at his Texas home to find that his two daughters, ages 5 and 1, had been slain. In advance of a performance at the Valley Performing Arts Center on Saturday, he sat down for a lengthy Q&A with writer Rick Schultz about his life and career. “Music contains literally everything inside itself,” says Kholodenko. “It could be an escape or healing for someone, but its significance for people would never be exhausted.” Los Angeles Times

Latin American artists in L.A.

Roughly a dozen Latin American artists have been spending time doing residencies in Los Angeles as part of a partnership between the L.A. County Museum of Art and the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica. The purpose: to provide an opportunity for them to explore area archives and conduct research in advance of next year’s Pacific Standard Time Los Angeles / Latin America exhibitions. I spent time with Carla Zaccagnini and Runo Lagomarsino, two artists of Argentine origin, who are conducting research on Carmen Miranda and colonialism respectively. Los Angeles Times

Arts from all over...

Works from the Louvre had to be moved to safe areas after high water levels in the Seine threatened to damage the museum's art.

Flooding affects Paris museums: Severe floods in the City of Light have led two museums along the banks of the Seine — the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay — to shut their doors to the public and move art out of harm’s way. The Independent

The urbanism of flooding: As in Paris, Texas has been experiencing devastating floods — yet the state has done little to design its cities in ways that make them more flood resistant. CityLab

Selfie art: Speaking of Texas, Sugar Land now boasts a sculpture of two girls taking a selfie ... because selfies. Click2Houston

Art and the IRS: A Senate subcommittee led by Orrin Hatch has looked into the tax loopholes offered to private art foundations — such as the Broad Foundation in Los Angeles — and submitted its findings to the IRS. The concern is that some institutions may be used as a way for the wealthy to avoid paying taxes on art purchases without real benefit to the public. The Art Newspaper

MOLAA director steps down: Stuart Ashman, the president and chief executive of the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, is leaving California for a new role at the Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe in New Mexico. Los Angeles Times

UCSD closes gallery: UC San Diego is converting its 50-year-old gallery into classroom space — a decision that has inspired protest in the artist community. Voice of San Diego

Historic graffiti: Anthropologist Susan Phillips has found century-old hobo graffiti in the L.A. River. “It was like opening a tomb that’s been closed for 80 years,” says the Pitzer College professor. 89.3 KPCC

People putting their heads in tiny galleries: This is a thing. Designboom

A Don’t-Miss Art Show

“Even now, when the strangest of bedfellows aren’t so strange anymore,” writes art reviewer Leah Ollman, “the materials brought together in ‘Doublemix’ at De Soto Gallery in Venice induce a shudder of surprise.” The exhibition is displaying collaborative works by photographer Denis Darzacq and ceramic artist Anna Lüneman — a series of sculptural fragments in clay embedded into the surface of photographic prints. Through July 23. 1350 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice, desotogallery.com.

For more arts events and exhibitions, see my arts datebook on Culture: High & Low.

And last but not least...

You too can can commission a portrait in the style of the Sweet Valley High book covers. This is so unbelievably tempting.

Find me on Twitter @cmonstah.