The Arts in Latin America, 1492-1820

August 5–October 28 | Art of the Americas Building*

The Arts in Latin America, 1492-1820 is an ambitious, multimedia, pan-national presentation of approximately 250 works of art created in the Spanish viceroyalties of New Spain (which today comprises Mexico and Central America) and Peru (now the countries of Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru) and in the Portuguese colony of Brazil during the three hundred years between the discovery of the "New World" by the "Old" and the creation of new, independent nation-states. The Arts in Latin America, 1492-1820 will be the first exhibition to disregard the national boundaries created in the early nineteenth century, instead exploring both the artistic differences and commonalities throughout colonial Latin America in a new, synthetic context. Spectacular examples of painting, sculpture, feather-work, shell-inlaid furniture, objects in gold and silver, ceramics, and textiles will be borrowed from public and private collections throughout the Americas and in Europe.

This exhibition is curated by Joseph J. Rishel, the Gisela and Dennis Alter Senior Curator of European Painting before 1900 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt, working with an international committee of scholars and in collaboration with the curators at the participating museums. Ilona Katzew, LACMA curator of Latin American Art, and a renowned specialist of Spanish colonial art, is in charge of the presentation at LACMA.

The international tour of The Arts in Latin America, 1492–1820 was made possible by Fundación Televisa.

The exhibition was organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, Mexico City.

This exhibition was also supported by an indemnity from the U. S. Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Initial scholarly research was supported by a Collaborative Research Grant from The Getty Foundation; funding for conservation was provided in part by the Huber Family Foundation and the Ceil and Michael E. Pulitzer Foundation.

The Los Angeles presentation was made possible in part by LACMA’s Wallis Annenberg Director’s Endowment Fund, LACMA’s Art Museum Council, The Getty Foundation, and Bank of America.

In-kind support for the Los Angeles presentation was generously provided by KKJZ 88.1 FM. 

The organizers are grateful for the special collaboration of the National Council for Culture and the Arts (CONACULTA), the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), and the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA), Mexico.

Artwork above:
The Divine Shepherdess (detail), Quito, Ecuador, c. 1780, oil on canvas, 61 1/8 x 38 1/4 in., Collection of Marilynn and Carl Thoma.

ONLINE

Territory and Identity: bilingual exhibition brochure

Riqueza colonial en LACMA: video from La Opinión Digital

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Talks
Art Chats
August–October

Exhibition Focus Day
September 8

Exhibition Roundtable Discussion
September 29

An Evening with Carlos Fuentes
October 3

Symposium: Tradition & Innovation in Spanish & Portuguese America 
October 13

Music
Dori Caymmi
August 4

Film
Latin American Cinema: A Weekend Celebration
August 24–26

NexGen
Treasures of Latin America
September 2–30

ADMISSION

Admission to this exhibition is free for museum membersand included in the price of general admission for nonmembers.

* Formerly the Modern and Contemporary Art Building (see map for details).

Dan Flavin: A Retrospective

May 13–August 12 | Art of the Americas Building*

This is the first comprehensive exhibition devoted to minimalist artist Dan Flavin's full career. Organized by Dia Art Foundation in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and co-curated by Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director, and Tiffany Bell, Director of the Dan Flavincatalogue raisonné, the exhibition features more than forty of Flavin's seminal fluorescent light works. Also presented is a special reconstruction of the corridors made for the E.F. Hauserman Co. showroom, formerly located at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles. This will be the final destination of a multi-venue tour.

"Perhaps because Flavin is known so well as one of the founders of minimalism, his work has rarely been considered in all of its breadth and innovation before this retrospective," said Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director. "Flavin was one of the inventors of what we now know as 'installation art' and his groundbreaking use of color and light in architecture has been emulated not only in art, but in design and architecture. I count him among the most important figures in twentieth century art."

Dan Flavin: A Retrospective is organized by Dia Art Foundation in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington. 
 
The exhibition and accompanying publications are made possible in part by The Henry Luce Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Lannan Foundation, the Terra Foundation for American Art, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
 
The Los Angeles presentation is sponsored by Lexus and supported in part by the Frederick R. Weisman Philanthropic Foundation.

Artworks above, left to right:
the diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi), 1963, yellow fluorescent light, 8 ft. long on the diagonal, Dia Art Foundation; "monument" 1 for V. Tatlin, 1964, cool white fluorescent light, 8 ft. high, Dia Art Foundation.

ONLINE

"A Sort of Romanticism": Remembering Dan Flavin

Dan Flavin . . . in daylight and cool white

Slideshow

Essay by Michael Govan

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Conversations with Artists: James Welling
May 31

Conversations with Artists: Jennifer Steinkamp
June 7

Art Chats: Tours
June–July

Lecture: Tiffany Bell on Fluorescent Light as Art
July 15

* Formerly the Modern and Contemporary Art Building (see  map  for details).

The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890–1950

March 4–June 3 | Hammer Building

In the first major exhibition to explore the role of the American West in the development of modernism in the United States—a movement traditionally associated with the East Coast—the works of some of the most influential artists of the last century and a half will be highlighted. Together, pieces from Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams, Jackson Pollock, and others challenge the notion that the art of the West is unrelated to modernism in the United States and demonstrate that the vast, rugged land of the West, in fact, left an indelible mark on modernism. Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Modern West features approximately one hundred paintings, watercolors, and photographs that collectively redefine commonly held perceptions of modernism as well as western art.

Curator: Emily Ballew Neff, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Curator at LACMA: Austen Bailly, American Art.

This exhibition was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Generous funding was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Los Angeles presentation was made possible in part by the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation.

In-kind support for the Los Angeles presentation was made possible by official hotel sponsor Millennium Biltmore as part of the Millennium on View program.

Artwork above:
John Henry Twachtman, United States, 1853–1902, Emerald Pool, Yellowstone, c. 1895, oil on canvas, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT., bequest of George A. Gay, by exchange, and The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund.

On homepage:
Grant Wood, United States, 1891–1942, Spring Turning, 1936 (detail), oil on masonite panel, Reynolda House, Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, © Estate of Grant Wood, licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

ONLINE

Q&A with Austen Bailly

Exhibition Extra

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Searchers, Misfits, and Left-Handed Guns: Reinventing the Myth of the American West
April 13–May 12

Landscape Matters: The Modern West
March 3

Conversations with Artists: Ken Gonzalez-Day
March 15

Music of Aaron Copland and Dave Grusin
March 19

The Director's Series: Conversations with Michael Govan—Diana Thater
April 12

Native Modern: American Indian Painting
April 15

Re-SITE-ing the West: Contemporary Photographs from the Permanent Collection

March 4–June 3 | Hammer Building

This exhibition, which includes approximately thirty works by artists such as Lewis Baltz, Hank Wessel, and Mark Ruwedel, continues the dialogue about—and affirms the enduring mystique of—the place we call the West. By the 1970s, when most of the photographs on view were made, America's postwar optimism had faded. Anxiety about potential nuclear annihilation grew as the cold war raged. With its weapons laboratories and test sites, the West was implicated in this new chapter of human history. Ravenous consumption sparked by American affluence further transformed the mythical guise of the Western landscape. Artists soon began to investigate our contradictory appetites for creation and destruction. Reflecting on the realities of rapid development and exploring the terrain as object, the artists in this exhibition celebrate the West as a site in and of itself, with imposed illusions, allusions, and romantic pretensions laid to rest. This installation accompanies The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890–1950.

Curator: Tim Wride, Photography.

This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Artwork above:
Mark Ruwedel, United States, b. 1954, Deep Creek #2, 1999, M.2001.146.1, from the series Westward the Course of Empire, gelatin-silver print, with graphite lettering, ed. of 10, 7 7/16 x 9 3/8 in., mount 16 x 20 in., Ralph M. Parsons Fund, © Mark Ruwedel.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Conversations with Artists: Ken Gonzalez-Day
March 15

The Director's Series: Diana Thater
April 12

Conversations with Artists: Christina Fernandez and Roberto Tejada
April 22

Conversations with Artists: Anthony Hernandez
May 3

Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images

November 19. 2006–March 4, 2007 | Modern and Contemporary Art Building

Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images is the first major exhibition to explore the impact of Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte's (1898-1967) work on U.S. and European artists of the post-war generation. Featuring sixty-eight paintings and drawings by Magritte, including many international loans of his signature works, and sixty-eight works in diverse media by thirty-one contemporary artists such as Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, Vija Celmins, Robert Gober, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha, and Andy Warhol, the exhibition examines the different and sometimes unconscious ways that pop, conceptual, and post-modern sensibilities have referenced Magritte's ideas and imagery. In addition, the exhibition installation is specially designed by conceptual artist John Baldessari and includes an inventive presentation that is playful and humorous, yet provides a deep visual understanding of Magritte's work. Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images is on view at LACMA from November 19, 2006, through March 4, 2007, and will not travel to other venues. At the center of the exhibition is LACMA's Magritte masterpiece— The Treachery of Images (This Is Not a Pipe), (1929)—a seminal painting and popular cultural icon.

Curators: Stephanie Barron, Modern Art, LACMA, and Michel Draguet, Director Musée Royaux de Bruxelles.

This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and is presented by Lexus. It was supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Frederick R. Weisman Philanthropic Foundation. In-kind media support for the exhibition was provided by CBS/Decaux and 89.9 KCRW. In-kind support for the exhibition was provided by The Beverly Hilton. This exhibition was supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanties.

René Magritte, The Treachery of Images (This is not a pipe), 1929, oil on canvas, 25 3/8 x 37 in. (64.5 x 94 cm), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by the Mr. and Mrs. William Preston Harrison Collection, © C. Herscovici, London/Artists Rights Society (ARS), N.Y. 2006, photo © 2006 Museum Associates/LACMA.

ONLINE

Exhibition Extra

Q&A: Ed Ruscha

Essay: Robert Gober and Magritte

Antenna Audio Tour Highlight [requires Flash 6 plugin]

John Baldessari on the exhibition design   [video]

Picasso's Greatest Print: The Minotauromachy in All Its States

November 16, 2006–February 25, 2007 | Ahmanson Building

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents Picasso’s Greatest Print: The Minotauromachy in All Its States, a groundbreaking exhibition of Pablo Picasso’s etched masterpiece, Minotauromachy (1935). On view together for the first time in the U.S., the eight etchings that comprise this focused exhibition (the print’s seven states, plus a second impression of the seventh state, hand-colored) represent the only existing suite of all the states of Minotauromachy. Together, they offer a remarkable opportunity to trace Picasso's creative process through the evolution of a single, complex image—one that gradually unfolds from bold conception to glorious fruition.

This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Curators: Stephanie Barron, Modern Art, and Kevin Salatino, Prints and Drawings.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Minotauromachy (state VII, colored), 1935, e tching; additional work with scraper and burin, and colored inks applied à la poupée, 19 1/2 x 27 1/4 in., private collection, © 2006 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo courtesy of Gagosian Gallery, London.

ONLINE

Minotauromachy Symposium [audio]

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Film: The Mystery of Picasso
February 11

Jacques-Louis David: Portrait
of Jean-Pierre Delahaye,
a Rediscovered Masterpiece

October 19, 2006–January 21, 2007 | Hammer Building

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents a special exhibition featuring the recent acquisition and first-ever public display of French artist Jacques-Louis David's Portrait of Jean-Pierre Delahaye (1815), along with works by eleven artists illustrating the portrait's historical context — all drawn from LACMA's permanent collection. In June 2006, LACMA purchased the painting at auction with funds provided by The Ahmanson Foundation; it had been in the sitter's family since its execution. Jacques-Louis David: Portrait of Jean-Pierre Delahaye, a Rediscovered Masterpiece opens at LACMA on October 19, 2006. Organized by J. Patrice Marandel, LACMA Chief Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, Jacques-Louis David: Portrait of Jean-Pierre Delahaye, a Rediscovered Masterpiece introduces David's portrait to Los Angeles audiences. In addition, the exhibition features works by Louis-Léopold Boilly, Léon-Mathieu Cocherau, Baron François-Pascal-Sim Gérard, Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, Adélaide Labille-Guiard, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres — all pupils of David — as well as works by their contemporaries, Robert-Jacques Lefèvre, François Masson, Jacques Sablet, Joseph-Benoit Suvée, and Joseph-Marie Vien.

This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Curator: J. Patrice Marandel, European Painting and Sculpture.

Jacques-Louis David (France, 1748-1825), Portrait of Jean-Pierre Delahaye, 1815, oil on panel, 24 x 19 1/4 in. (60.96 x 48.9 cm), M.2006.63.

Consider This…

April 9, 2006–January 15, 2007 | LACMA West

Consider This... is LACMALab's fifth exhibition. The show continues the LACMALab mandate to investigate new models for presenting art and engaging audiences through the commission of participatory, "age-free" installations. In addition, it will incorporate the results of the recent critical review commissioned by LACMA and will be designed by the internationally known artist, Barbara Kruger.

LACMALab has commissioned six artists to examine the cultural and social landscape: who are we and who do we want to be? The goal of the exhibition is to fuse analytical thinking and creative expression at a time when there is a heightened need for meaningful discourse. The artists, Mark Bradford, Dorit Cypis, Margaret Honda, Philip Rantzer, Mario Ybarra, Jr., and Bruce Yonemoto, were chosen for their ability to provide a thoughtful, provocative, and constructive response to the questions posed. As always, the artists represent different generations and work in a wide range of mediums. If they choose, the artists could select objects from LACMA's permanent collections to incorporate into their installations.

LACMALab investigates new models for presenting art and engaging audiences. The hallmark of LACMALab is the participation of commissioned artists to create new works for all ages through a collaborative process. This exhibition was produced by LACMALab, a research and development unit of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Philip Rantzer's participation in this exhibition was made possible in part by a grant from The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles's Tel Aviv/Los Angeles Partnership.

Consider This... entrance; Bruce Yonemoto, Birthday Party.

ONLINE

Interview with Barbara Kruger

Consider This... Project Studio   
(Word doc: 39K)
 

Masquerade: Role Playing in Self-Portraiture—Photographs from the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection

October 12, 2006–January 7, 2007 | Modern and Contemporary Art Building

Consisting of some thirty works drawn from LACMA’s permanent collection, Masquerade: Role Playing in Self-Portraiture explores the way in which photographers—costumed, masked, wigged, made-up or transformed through technique or situation—present their fictional, or “Other Selves.” Photographers whose work is featured include Cindy Sherman, Yasumasa Morimura, Claude Cahun and Pierre Molinier, as well as nineteenth-century photographers Roger Fenton and Francis Frith, who dressed in authentic clothing from faraway places to associate visually with the places where they practiced their “documentary” photography.

This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Photographs in the exhibition are from the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection. Curator: Deborah Irmas, Guest Curator.

Cindy Sherman (United States, b. 1954), Untitled Film Still #5 [Woman opening letter], 1977, gelatin-silver print, 6 3/4 x 9 1/2 in., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection, © Cindy Sherman.

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Long Exposures: Contemporary Photo-Essays from the Permanent Collection

October 12, 2006–January 7, 2007 | Modern and Contemporary Art Building

Long Exposures is an exhibition of contemporary photo-essayists organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and incorporates works drawn exclusively from the Photography department's permanent collection. The exhibition explores varying themes of humanistic or environmental conversion, transition, and upheaval, and reflects a varied range of conceptual, formal, and technical approaches prominent in the genre from the 1990s to the present, with works from six artists—Simon Norfolk, Anne Fishbein, Nic Nicosia, Vincent Cianni, Andrew Freeman, and Sant Khalsa—who have established themselves as innovative and influential visual voices of the contemporary photo narrative. This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Curator: Tim Wride, Photography.

Andrew Freeman, Photograph from the Project "(Manzanar) Architecture Double," 2001-05, chromogenic development (Lightjet) print, 20 x 30 in., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by the Photographic Arts Council, 2006, and the Ralph M. Parsons Fund, © Andrew Freeman.

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Breaking the Mode: Contemporary Fashion from the Permanent Collection

September 17, 2006–January 7, 2007 | Hammer Building

Creating clothing, for protection, profession, or spectacle, has undergone dramatic change over the past twenty-five years. A number of designers have introduced subversive elements into the fashion system, examining and deconstructing its entrenched conventions and changing the rules about what is aesthetically pleasing and fashionable. Breaking the Mode: Contemporary Fashion from the Permanent Collection presents designers who found traditional criteria and solutions obsolete—designers who challenged the canons of the body’s fashionable silhouette, revolutionized methods of garment construction, rejected the formulaic use of materials and techniques, and exploited new technology in textile production. The recent dynamic changes in the forms and surfaces of fashionable dress will be featured in this comprehensive exhibition, which will include over 100 examples of contemporary dress drawn exclusively from LACMA’s collection. Among the contemporary designers whose work will be exhibited are Jean-Paul Gaultier, Rei Kawakubo, Martin Margiela, Issey Miyake, Thierry Mugler, and Yohji Yamamoto, with historical examples by Gilbert Adrian, Christian Dior, and Charles James.

This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and was supported by the museum's Costume Council. In-kind support was provided by Neiman Marcus. Curators: Kaye Spilker and Sharon Takeda, Costume and Textiles.

Yohji Yamamoto (Japan, b. 1943), Woman's Two-Piece Suit (detail), autumn/winter 1993-94, wool gabardine with wool and goat hair canvas trim, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Mrs. H. Grant Theis, © Yohji Yamamoto.

ONLINE

Exhibition Extra