Tag Archives: John Cage

Leap Before You Look: Inside the revealing new exhibition on Black Mountain College, with MOCA curator Helen Molesworth

 

Photo: Hazel Larsen Archer, Merce Cunningham Dancing, c. 1952-53, gelatin silver print, 8 ¾ x 5 7/8 inches. Estate of Hazel Larsen Archer and Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center.

Photo: Hazel Larsen Archer, Merce Cunningham Dancing, c. 1952-53, gelatin silver print, 8 ¾ x 5 7/8 inches. Estate of Hazel Larsen Archer and Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center.

“Most people in the room probably know a little something about Black Mountain College, and it’s probably part wrong and part true,” said Helen Molesworth. Relaxed in black sneakers and a loose sweater, the new chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, less than five months into her new job, offered a candid and engaging behind-the-scenes look at her work on a revealing new exhibition about Black Mountain College—the first comprehensive exhibition on the subject to take place in the United States.

The curator’s talk in February, a full year ahead of the exhibition’s opening in L.A., was part of both the Wind Tunnel Lecture Series and Art Center Dialogues. And as she disclosed to her unsuspecting audience at the outset, “You’re the first! I haven’t actually given a Black Mountain talk yet.”

For Molesworth, Black Mountain College’s mythic status—as the birthplace of the neo-avant-garde and the site of legendary collaborations by Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage and Merce Cunningham—has in fact been a problem to overcome, an impediment to a more complete understanding of its history. “It was a place charged in ways that engendered mythmaking from its inception,” she said, “and a lot of that mythmaking was self-generated.” Continue reading →

ArtNight Pasadena!

Enjoy a free evening of art, music and entertainment as Pasadena’s most prominent arts and cultural institutions swing open their doors tonight, Friday, March 9. Last fall, 14,000 people experienced the excitement of ArtNight Pasadena. Don’t miss the fun this time!

Begin your journey at any one of the 12 participating cultural institutions, where free shuttles will be waiting to transport you to your next destination.

Art Center is featuring The History of Space Photography, the most comprehensive exhibition of its kind ever organized, in the Williamson Gallery. The student gallery will also be open, where you can glimpse the future and see visionary works by our young artists and designers. There will also be a special rehearsal of John Cage’s 4’33”
(no. 2) (0’00”) by the Southwest Chamber Music at 7 pm in the Williamson.

Other participating venues are Alliance Française de Pasadena, the Armory Center for the Arts, artWORKS, Lineage Dance, the Norton Simon Museum, the Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena City College, the Pasadena Museum of California Art, the Pasadena Museum of History, Shumei Arts Council, and the Side Street Projects.

ArtNight is an ongoing partnership among many cultural institutions and the Cultural Affairs Division of the City of Pasadena. The event is sponsored by the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission with support from the following: Pasadena Department of Transportation Transit Division; Los  Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority; Pasadena Center Operating Company.

FREE SHUTTLES
Free shuttles will loop throughout the evening with stops at each venue. Park at any one venue and ride to the others.

ARTS BUS
Pasadena ARTS Route 10 runs along Colorado Boulevard and Green Street until 8 p.m.
For more information about the Arts Bus, see cityofpasadena.net/artsbus.

METRO GOLD LINE
Attend ArtNight by taking the Metro Gold Line to Pasadena. Check metro.net for information.

ARTNIGHT BICYCLE TOURS
For more information, visit cicle.org.

For information on ArtNight, please call the ArtNight Pasadena Hotline at 626.744.7887 or visit artnightpasadena.org.

Explore “The History of Space Photography” and the Music of John Cage in Art Center’s Williamson Gallery

The Aurora Austalis, as photographed from the International Space Station. Photo courtesy of NASA.

Now open in the Williamson Gallery, the exhibition The History of Space Photography explores the beauty, mystery, science and meaning of images depicting our planet and worlds beyond.

Guest curated by Jay Belloli—the director of gallery programs at the Armory Center for the Arts from 1990 to 2010—the exhibition presents an extraordinary variety of astronomical photographs created since the development of photography, and will feature a number of the most important scientific photographs ever created.

From the earliest black and white documentation of the Moon, solar eclipses, and stars through the most recent color images of the early history of the Universe, The History of Space Photography is the most comprehensive exhibition of its kind ever organized.

Continue reading →