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Essential Arts covers the depth and breadth of Southern California’s complex cultural sphere: the latest biennial, the avant-garde building design, a groundbreaking opera and the Pulitzer Prize-winning play — along with all the bits of related news emerging from the region and beyond.
We’ll also send you recommendations and reviews from our award-winning critics, investigations, profiles, interviews, photo essays and explanatory pieces produced by a team of longtime journalists wh know what’s happening in every creative corner of L.A. and beyond.
Recent Newsletters
Handmade trophies for President Trump are stacking up on the National Mall as part of activist group Secret Handshake’s new protest art.
“Schmigadoon” is sure to add laughs to any summer trip to Broadway; remembering actor Peter Van Norden.
Being a thoughtful American is an art unto itself as the country celebrates its 250th birthday on the Fourth of July.
It’s easy to unwind during Golden Hour music in the garden at Norton Simon Museum on select Fridays this summer.
Obama’s presidential center opens on Juneteenth featuring a 225-foot tower that, while somber, still conjures the hope of a different era.
President Trump’s name has been removed from the Kennedy Center’s website and is coming off the building, too. But serious damage has been done.
The World Cup arrives Thursday in L.A., and culture lovers can get in on the action at a variety of local museum watch parties, including at the Getty, the Autry and more.
A lawsuit filed this month alleges Trump’s order to paint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue has caused an ‘aesthetic injury.’
In a historic first for a major American orchestra, a woman has been chosen to lead San Francisco Symphony
Visual artists are in an AI crisis, this new survey explains why: L.A. arts and culture this weekend
A new survey shows AI is deeply impacting the careers of working artists, a majority of whom feel they are in direct competition with the technology.
The Huntington acquires Robert Indiana’s iconic “LOVE” sculpture: L.A. arts and culture this weekend
The Huntington acquired Robert Indiana’s iconic “LOVE” sculpture. Designed in 1966, the piece is third in an edition of five.
The jury resigned nine days before the opening of the Venice Biennale. The awards ceremony has now been pushed to November and Israel is no longer excluded from two newly established awards.
The Essential Arts Team
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Jessica Gelt is the arts editor for the Los Angeles Times.
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Christopher Knight won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for criticism and was a finalist for the prize in 1991, 2001 and 2007.
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Mark Swed has been the classical music critic of the Los Angeles Times since 1996.
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Charles McNulty is the theater critic of the Los Angeles Times.
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Now in his second tour with the Los Angeles Times, totaling more than 25 years, Kevin Crust is the planning editor for Entertainment and Arts.