Free Museum Day As Pacific Standard Time Comes to an End

Pacific Standard Time, the region-wide celebration of L.A. post-war art, is already drawing to a close -- but before the event officially ends, 20 museums, galleries and collections will open their doors for free to visitors on Saturday, March 31. Participating museums include LACMA. Here's the list:

American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA)
Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara
California African American Museum (CAAM)
Chinese American Museum
Eames House Foundation
Fisher Museum of Art, University of Southern California
The J. Paul Getty Museum
The GRAMMY Museum
LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
Mingei International Museum
ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives (West Adams)
ONE Archives Gallery & Museum (West Hollywood)
Pacific Asia Museum
Palm Springs Art Museum
Pasadena Museum of California Art
Pomona College Museum of Art
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Scripps College, Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery

We hit several Pacific Standard Time exhibits at LACMA and MOCA, among other spots. And yet... I feel like we never got a good handle on such a sprawling event. And I don't know if it took the city by storm like promised. What do you think? Was Pacific Standard Time a big success? Did anything wow you? Or was it too spread out to get your arms around?

L.A. Conservancy Celebrates the Art and Architecture of Millard Sheets

(Conservancy pic by Larry Underhill)

The L.A. Conservancy and its Modern Committee brings Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945-1980 to Claremont and Pomona this weekend for "Millard Sheets: A Legacy of Art and Architecture," a look at Pomona native Sheets' influential work there.

"His mid-century designs completely integrate art with architecture; he is perhaps best known for the iconic, mosaic-covered branches of Home Savings," the Conservancy writes. "In recent years, Sheets's work has grown increasingly vulnerable to demolition and excessive alteration."

Tour sites will include several key examples of Sheets' work, including:

· Former Millard Sheets Studio (1956-9) -- Sheets designed this complex in Claremont for use as his own design and mosaic studio, covering the exterior with small mosaics. Now used as a medical office, the site remains remarkably intact, inside and out -- down to Sheets's former office, replete with original furniture and cork paneling.

· Garrison Theater, Scripps College (1963) -- Sheets led the art department at Scripps for nineteen years and created this wonderful theater in a blend of modern and neo-classical design. The grand entrance features monumental mosaics depicting scenes from Shakespeare, and the two-story lobby has original tapestries by artists Jean and Arthur Ames.

· Pomona First Federal, now American Museum of Ceramic Art (1956) -- This bank complex now houses the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA). Now gallery space, the former banking lobby features a nearly 80-foot-long painted mural by Sheets depicting the history of the Pomona Valley. In the same room is AMOCA's Pacific Standard Time ceramics exhibition Common Ground, featuring hundreds of works by artists who had a direct connection to Sheets.

· Pomona First Federal, now US Bank (1969) -- Nearly unchanged since it opened, this former branch of Pomona First Federal combines the modernism, neo-classicism, mosaics, and mural art associated with the best of Sheets's famous Home Savings designs.

· Pomona Mall (1962) -- Pomona's downtown mall was the first pedestrian mall in America west of the Mississippi. To create the mall, Millard Sheets closed off nine blocks to car traffic and unified the area using planters, mosaic- and sculpture-covered fountains, and simplified building facades. Five blocks of the mall have since been reopened to car traffic, yet many historic features remain intact.

· (from the Mall) Home Savings Tower, now Chase Bank (1963) -- From the Pomona Mall, we'll discuss this elegant tower designed by Sheets to anchor the mall. The six-story building was designed for Home Savings, and the exterior grillwork weaves the initials “H” and “S” together. Its upper floors are currently covered for repairs, yet one of Sheets’s trademark mosaics is visible on the façade.

A panel discussion follows. The event takes place Sunday, March 18, 2012 - rain or shine - from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.; the panel discussion is at 5 p.m. Tix are $30 for the general public; $25 for L.A. Conservancy members; $15 for students; and $10 for kids 12 and under. Go to http://lac.laconservancy.org/sheets for more info.

On Pacific Standard Time: MOCA Gets "Naked" With Weegee

Weegee -- real name Arthur Fellig -- first made his name in the 1930s and 1940s as a New York photojournalist covering the city's seedy underbelly. His book of photos, "Naked City," was released in 1945 and later became the inspiration for the motion picture "The Naked City." In 1947, he moved to Los Angeles to try his hand at Hollywood.

Instead of crime, Weegee began poking holes into the Hollywood fairy tale -- juxtaposing the glitz and glamour of the movie biz with the harder realities of life among regular folks in L.A. He also chronicled the fans who worshipped celebrity and used a special distortion lens to play around with how Hollywood stars looked. His 1953 book "Naked Hollywood," a sequel of sorts to "Naked City," collected those photos. A minor celebrity thanks to his successful photography work, Weegee also made small appearances in several films and worked as a photographer for Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."



As part of the Pacific Standard Time exposition, the Museum of Contemporary Art is showcasing what it says is the first exhibit dedicated to Weegee's Hollywood photos (including many never before seen). "Naked Hollywood: Weegee in Los Angeles" continues at MOCA through the end of February.

We visited MOCA this weekend (yes, we took advantage of the free admission, as part of this weekend's Museum Free-for-All) and I could have spent hours combing through all of the Weegee pics. For fans of old L.A. like myself, it's a must. (One quibble, of course: There's some irony that photography was forbidden in an exhibit about photography.)

More pics:


Shot of Weegee and collaborator Mel Harris combing through hundreds of photos for "Naked Hollywood."


Weegee's suitcase


Elsewhere inside MOCA: Strings overhead spell out "PICKLE."


Also on display: "Kenneth Anger ICONS," which explores the experimental filmmaker's work and collection.


From one of the walls devoted to "Kenneth Anger ICONS."

On Pacific Standard Time: LACMA's California Design Exhibit

As part of the citywide Pacific Standard Time exposition of California mid-20th Century art and design, LACMA's Resnick Pavilion is currently showcasing "California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way," an interesting cross-section of the state's influential modern design from that era. Details:

This exhibition is the first major study of California midcentury modern design. With more than 300 objects—furniture, ceramics, metalwork, fashion and textiles, and industrial and graphic design—the exhibition examines the state’s role in shaping the material culture of the entire country. Organized into four thematic areas, the exhibition aims to elucidate the 1951 quote from émigré Greta Magnusson Grossman that is incorporated into the exhibition’s title: California design “is not a superimposed style, but an answer to present conditions…It has developed out of our own preferences for living in a modern way."

We visited the exhibit on the same day we checked out the Broad Contemporary Art Museum and the "Metropolis II" exhibit. Some pics from "California Design":


Vintage Airstream streamline trailer






Studebaker's 1962 sports car Avanti


Album covers


Ceiling light from Barton's Bonbonniere candy shop in San Francisco, circa 1952. (Victor Gruen, designer)


Modern furniture


Mattel and Barbie are a sponsor of the exhibit, hence the mid-century Barbie dolls on display


Barbie's mid-century dream house, circa 1962


Wartime poster


Table from the sportswear department at Bullock's Wilshire, designed by Jock D. Peters


Screen (with a cool atomic, space age feel), cira 1952, designed by Greta Magnusson Grossman.


"Rib chair," designed by Arthur Espenet Carpenter in 1968.

Grammy Museum Celebrates 30 Years of L.A. Pop Music

(Flickr pic by MindHead Media.)

The Grammy Museum joins in on "Pacific Standard Time" initiative this February with "Trouble In Paradise: Music and Los Angeles, 1945-1975," a look at 30 pivotal years in the Los Angeles pop music scene. The exhibit opens on Wednesday, February 22, 2012, and will be housed on its fourth floor. USC professor Josh Kun is co-curator. A few details:

The exhibit features iconic images, a cross-section of ephemera (album art, handbills, concert posters, etc.), music, and filmed interviews with key figures in the scene. Rather than an exhaustive overview, Trouble In Paradise focuses on the tensions between alluring myths of Southern California paradise and the realities of social struggle that characterized the years following WWII.

Genres of music highlighted in the exhibit include surf rock, jazz, R&B, Laurel Canyon folk rock, the Sunset Strip rock scene and the East L.A. Chicano sound, all of which helped shape the most diverse and influential music scenes in all of America during this socially tumultuous period of L.A. History. Trouble In Paradise : Music and Los Angeles, 1945-1975 will be on display through March 25, 2012. Additional public and educational programming related to the exhibit will be announced soon.

The Grammy Museum is located downtown at L.A. Live.