Newsletter: Essential Arts & Culture: Zumthor’s latest LACMA plan, USC’s big art hires, a reparations debate, Streisand’s Sondheim
LACMA’s museum-building plan crawls forward. USC’s troubled art school brings on a high-profile new staff. And an art project about race reparations draws ire. I’m Carolina A. Miranda, staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, with your guide to the top arts and culture stories:
A peek at LACMA’s proposed building
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has released a dribble of new renderings that show what its proposed building, by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, might look like. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne has studied them and concludes: “The great gray mass of the building could still succeed as a bracingly alien presence on the Miracle Mile — but only if its imposing forms and severe palette are tempered with blasts of color, inventive landscape design and appealing, richly detailed public space at ground level.” Los Angeles Times
In the meantime, critic William Poundstone is debating what shade of gray LACMA’s new building will be: “Charcoal grey? Apple space grey?” Los Angeles County Museum on Fire
USC’s art school makes ‘transformative’ hires
The embattled MFA program at the Roski School of Art and Design at USC has faced acrimonious faculty and student defections over the last two years — along with plummeting rankings. Now the school is announcing a “transformative” group hire that the university says signals a turnaround, reports Deborah Vankin. New faculty include prominent Los Angeles artists such as Suzanne Lacy and Edgar Arceneaux. Los Angeles Times
An art project about reparations causes heated debate
Seattle-based conceptual artist Natasha Marin has launched an online project called Reparations that allows members of underrepresented minority groups to request help or services from a white person who fulfills the ask free of charge. “There are people across the political spectrum who don’t understand that they have privilege,” she tells the Times’ David Ng. “So in many ways the site lets you cash in your whiteness to help other people.” But the controversial project has drawn criticism and even death threats directed at the artist. Los Angeles Times
Guillermo del Toro’s monsters ball
Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro — the man behind fantastical flicks such as “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Hellboy” — is currently the subject of a one-man show at LACMA that displays ephemera from his movies as well as the spooky objects that inspire him (such as Frankenstein’s monster). “I’m not interested in the mechanics of the scary horror,” he tells the Times’ Meredith Woerner. “I’m interested in the sort of kinship it has with fairy tales. The dark, magical beauty of horror.” Los Angeles Times
It is the 500th anniversary of the passing of 16th century Flemish painter Hieronymus Bosch, an artist known for producing canvases that are as bizarre as they are masterful. Critic Ingrid D. Rowland reviews two major European exhibitions and five new books about the mysterious artist — noting his “boundless ingenuity” and “unerringly observant eye.” New York Review of Books
Gabriel García Marquez’s western movie
Before he wrote “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” the novel that shook up the world of Latin American letters, Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez worked as a screenwriter in Mexico. This week, one of his rarely seen early projects, the 1966 western “Tiempo de Morir,” is screening at the Ford Theatres in Hollywood. “It has this Greek tragedy aspect to it,” says the author’s son, filmmaker Rodrigo Garcia, of the picture, “that your future is already written.” Los Angeles Times
Barbra Streisand makes memories
The title of the concert may have been schmaltzy — “The Music … the Mem’ries … the Magic!” — but Barbra Streisand’s turn at the Staples Center this week showed the diva in command of her instrument, writes Times theater critic Charles McNulty. “Her persona assists her in drawing out the spiritual and psychological essence of lyrics,” he writes. “She mines herself for meaning. And her razor sharp intelligence permits no line to go unturned.” Then there was her trio of Stephen Sondheim songs, which McNutly said, “made you wish she might still find a way to realize her long-aborning movie dream” of remaking “Gypsy,” which “she has been trying like Sisyphus to turn into a cinematic swan song for herself.” Los Angeles Times
In other news…
— A public art installation for the Rio Olympics has been canceled due to budget cuts. The Art Newspaper
— The Centers for Disease Control has issued a Zika travel advisory for Miami’s arts district. ARTnews
— The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco are in turmoil over actions taken by longtime board head Dede Wilsey — whose tenure may soon come to an end. New York Times
— Somebody is vandalizing horse sculptures around San Juan Capistrano. Orange County Register
— The Metropolitan Museum of Art breaks attendance records. Artnet
— How Getty Museum curator Jeffrey Spier helped reunite an ancient statue’s body with its head. The Iris
— Sidney Felsen, the co-founder of the print studio Gemini G.E.L. reminisces about working with artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg and hanging out with Gregory Peck. Los Angeles Times
— Cleveland will kick off a new art triennial in 2018. New York Times
— The new Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, formerly the Santa Monica Museum of Art, has hired the Hammer Museum’s Jamillah James as curator. Los Angeles Times
— The New Mexico Museum of Art is honoring the state’s lowrider culture with an exhibition. LS1Tech
— Stephen Sondheim is at work on a new musical — inspired by a pair of films by Luis Buñuel. Washington Post
— The first Broadway revival of “Miss Saigon” will kick off in March — in the very theater where the show began its decade-long run back in ’91. New York Times
— As 20th century plays such as “The Crucible” are updated by new directors, critic Noah Millman asks what this might mean for our relationship to history. The New Republic
— What would a Hillary Clinton presidential library look like? Architectural critic Mark Lamster reports that the Democratic presidential candidate already has a library to her name in Arkansas — and it’s a “considerable success.” Dallas Morning News
Can’t Miss Show
Artist Timothy Paul Myers, in collaboration with Andrew Barnes, has sheathed an entire domestic setting in gray felt at Walter Maciel Gallery in Culver City, and the effect, writes critic Leah Ollman, is “gasp-inducing.” Through Aug. 20. 2642 S. La Cienega Blvd., Culver City, waltermacielgallery.com. Los Angeles Times
And last but not least…
From Akira Kurosawa to Spike Jonze: 45 essential movies for students of philosophy. For when you want to Netflix and ponder the meaning of existence. Mubi
Find me on Twitter @cmonstah.
The biggest entertainment stories
Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
