Eric and I will be getting to the museum early, as they have several interesting exhibits.
Pete
Autry Museum – Current exhibits:
http://www.autrynationalcenter.org/#Dreamers in Dream City - September 25, 2009, through January 3, 2010Native son and photographer Harry Brant Chandler brings to the Autry National Center a set of compelling and evocative color portraits, personal insights, and biographies of fifty-four of the most accomplished and colorful men and women from the City of Angels in the new exhibition, Dreamers in Dream City. From immigrants to billionaires, unknowns to the world-famous, surfers to moviemakers, quacks to rocket scientists, dreamers are and have always been attracted to Los Angeles and its surrounding areas. Those who live there know that Southern California has the potential to provide the opportunity to turn dreams into fantastic realities. Chandler is a fifth-generation member of the Chandlers and Brants in Los Angeles, families whose dreams helped shaped the city—from the founding and running of the Los Angeles Times to numerous civic, business, and real estate endeavors. Chandler believes that the Los Angeles he knows so well is not a city of nostalgia but rather a dynamic, always-moving metropolis where the dreamers who made their mark years ago are still visible in our everyday lives. Chandler’s choice to colorize and customize the older photographs is based on his heartfelt notion that yesterday’s dreamers who have long since passed are as vibrant today as when their dreams were first born. As he merges past and present using the newest technologies, his artistic portrait photography proves that the impact of Dream City is timeless.
Charting the Canyon - view the majestic Grand Canyon through large-scale, sweeping panoramas that marry 21st-century color photographs with historic drawings and images. Charting the Canyon: Photographs by Mark Klett & Byron Wolfe explores this celebrated place of dramatic beauty, featuring the vivid colors, breathtaking vistas, and jaw-dropping canyon depths that have lured photographers to Northern Arizona for years. The canyon is perhaps the world's best "photo op," as it is not only a national park and international tourist attraction but also a natural wonder and sacred ground. In 2007, Mark Klett, a Regents Professor at Arizona State U, and Byron Wolfe, a former student of Klett's and now a Lantis University Professor at California State University at Chico, headed to the Grand Canyon to re-envision the many images made at the site over the past 150 years. During 2 summers of fieldwork, they identified exact locations portrayed in early photographs and drawings. From those geographic points they created new photographs that incorporate the original view. Digital versions of historic images are inserted within the contemporary photograph, creating combined images that convey big picture surrounding the earlier artists' depicted view.
The Art of Native American Basketry: A Living Tradition November 7, 2009 - May 30, 2010 The Art of Native American Basketry: A Living Tradition is a comprehensive exhibition presented by the Autry National Center. Baskets from more than 100 cultures, arranged in eleven geographic regions, will be revealed in this selection of artworks from the world's largest collection of Native American baskets. The exhibition opens November 6, 2009, and runs through May 30, 2010. More than 250 objects will be on view, ranging in size from small Pomo feather baskets made for sale to tourists, to massive Apache olla baskets used for storing large quantities of seeds. Because the works shown have been selected from a remarkably wide-ranging and distinguished collection, visitors will be able to see how the materials, techniques, and designs of the baskets vary from region to region, reflecting different physical environments and traditions. Also evident will be the distinctive styles of individual artists, whose signatures can be instantly recognizable to other weavers. The Autry has invited thirteen contemporary basketweavers to serve as consultants in research and planning and will purchase a basket from each consultant to add to the permanent collection. The Art of Native American Basketry is drawn from the nearly 14,000 baskets in the collection of the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, considered to be one of the premier holdings of its kind in the world. The exhibition will be presented at the Autry’s Museum of the American West in Griffith Park. Both institutions are part of the Autry National Center, an intercultural organization dedicated to expanding our understanding of the diverse peoples of the American West.
Karen Kitchel: Seasonal Overture (Autry) July 17, 2009, through January 3, 2010 The flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass The details of nature – the grasses and leaves underneath our feet – may seem less significant than the mountains, waterfalls, and cliffs that occupy our imaginations, but they have an important role to play in the visual history of the American West. Since the nineteenth century, many Western artists have relied upon a detail-oriented approach to landscape in order to validate their work as “authentic.” Nineteenth century painters Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran filled their foregrounds with rocks, grasses, and meadows, reflecting their awareness of geology and natural history. Despite these connections, Western landscapes then and now often focus on the monumental and symbolic phenomenon of mountains, lakes, and canyons. Widely seen in paintings and photographs of the romantic era to the present, the traditional approach tends to view the landscape from a distance in order to encompass as much space as possible. Western landscapes thus often overlook the surface of the terrain in favor of grand vistas and the power and control that they imply. Karen Kitchel’s Seasonal Overture challenges this approach by bringing the viewer into close contact with the landscape surface. The series consists of forty individual oil paintings on plywood panels constructed by the artist. Together, they represent four different places and seasons: Dead Grass Winter (Wyoming); Dead Grass Early Spring (Montana); Dying Grass Autumn (Colorado); and Mature Grass Summer (California). Just as the natural cycles of growth and death are charted through the change of season, so are the different colors, textures, and character of these distinct places. All works in this installation are on loan courtesy of the artist.