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Scott Timberg on Creative Destruction

New Offerings at UCLA

June 29, 2010 by Scott Timberg

WHEN I moved to the Eastside five years ago, the main think I knew I’d miss from my more central position in the city was the cultural stuff at UCLA. The last few days — which has seen a new schedule  for UCLA Live and a season preview at the Hammer Museum — reminds me just how much is going on there.

One of the best developments since I landed here 13 years ago has been Ann Philbin’s revival of the oil tycoon’s museum in a particularly corporate part of Westwood. Today’s preview continued a fresh program of art in various forms, much of it infused, this time, with music and performance.

Douglas Fogle, the newish chief curator, opened up the preview by welcoming us on “what passes for bad weather in LA – ‘There’s a mist, I can’t go out.'” He was especially excited about a September show by Mark Manders, a sculptor who started out as a poet and retained, he said, a poetic approach to his craft. The Hammer’s Contemporary Collection is about to open, full of what seemed like challenging work.

Overall, there seemed like a great deal of installations, documentaries, musical offerings, etc. coming over the next few months. The next Hammer Invitational, still without a title, looks promising, and this year will offer not only LA artists — Kerry Tribe and Charles Gaines, both of whose recent work sounds fascinating — as well as international artist who have not had much exposure in the Southland.

I was able to very swifty move through Outside the Box: Edition Jacob Samuel, 1988-2010, and will be returning to take a closer look at the beautifully austere work of the old-school Santa Monica-based printmaker, who obvious loved Durer. (I especially liked his work with Barry McGee – right — and Ed Ruscha.)

UCLA Live, which for years I have found to be the most challenging arts series in town, recently announced its 2010-’11 schedule, and as usual there is some wonderful stuff on here, if not, alas, the international theater festival that has helped connect LA audiences to the best work happening in the rest of the world.

It’s hard to imagine John Cale being better suited to any spot in town than this series, and I am eager to see piano virtuoso Murray Perahia, Dengue Fever playing to silent film The Lost World as well as the intriguing bill of soul legend Mavis Staples and Brit folk-punk singer Billy Bragg.

Should I be surprised that cashiered UCLA Live artistic director David Sefton, whose last season this is, is not, from what I can tell, anywhere mentioned in the rollout of the new season?

Filed Under: Ann Philbin, art, David Sefton, Ed Ru, Hammer Museum, printmaking, ucla

Comments

  1. 育財育財育財 says

    July 4, 2010 at 10:14 pm

    成熟,就是有能力適應生活中的模糊。.................................................................

Scott Timberg

I'm a longtime culture writer and editor based in Los Angeles; my book "CULTURE CRASH: The Killing of the Creative Class" came out in 2015. My stories have appeared in The New York Times, Salon and Los Angeles magazine, and I was an LA Times staff writer for six years. I'm also an enthusiastic if middling jazz and indie-rock guitarist. (Photo by Sara Scribner) Read More…

Culture Crash, the Book

My book came out in 2015, and won the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award. The New Yorker called it "a quietly radical rethinking of the very nature of art in modern life"

I urge you to buy it at your favorite independent bookstore or order it from Portland's Powell's.

Culture Crash

Here is some information on my book, which Yale University Press published in 2015. (Buy it from Powell's, here.) Some advance praise: With coolness and equanimity, Scott Timberg tells what in less-skilled hands could have been an overwrought horror story: the end of culture as we have known … [Read More...]

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