Cineramadome on Sunset Boulevard photographed by Ed Ruscha in 1985. Streets of Los Angeles Archive. The Getty Research Institute, 2012.M.1. © Ed Ruscha

This month, we take an interactive road trip along Sunset Boulevard; a new acquisition reveals the exquisite craftsmanship of Indigenous communities in South America; artists and writers reflect on the enduring importance of a 16th-century Indigenous manuscript; and we celebrate queer joy at an iconic feminist art space.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Cineramadome on Sunset Boulevard photographed by Ed Ruscha in 1985. Streets of Los Angeles Archive. The Getty Research Institute, 2012.M.1. © Ed Ruscha

Getty Research Institute Presents 12 Sunsets

12 Sunsets: Exploring Ed Ruscha's Archive is an interactive website featuring thousands of photographs taken by artist Ed Ruscha during his 50-year project to capture the entire stretch of this iconic Los Angeles thoroughfare.

The sophisticated user interface allows you to "drive" down Sunset Boulevard in 12 different years between 1965 and 2007. See how neighborhoods have changed, search by address, and explore images by words on signs or by subject.

Learn more about this project.
Explore the website.

NEW ACQUISITION

Pilagá Woman with Thread to Knit in Loom, Grete Stern, 1964. Getty Research Institute, 2019.R.36. Partial donation of Matteo Goretti

Grete Stern's Gran Chaco Series

Between 1959 and 1964, renowned German-Argentine photographer Grete Stern produced a seminal photographic record of the Indigenous peoples of the Gran Chaco, an area that includes territories in modern-day Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia. Demonstrating the impressive artisanal skills of these communities as well as their deprived living conditions under colonialism, this body of work departed from the "otherness" prevalent in other depictions to present a more humanizing portrayal.

Explore the photos accessible through the Library Catalog.

EVENTS

Black Lives Matter protest, downtown Los Angeles, California, 2020. Photo: Rob Liggins

Radical Archive: Preserving Protest Ephemera

Virtual Event | November 10, 2020 | 4 pm - 5 pm PST | Online

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, we explore how community-generated, spontaneously made posters and ephemera—not meant to exist beyond the limited span of a protest—become part of an institutionalized archive. This discussion between conservators and curators provides a behind-the-scenes look at conservation practices while exploring the significance of these items in times of social upheaval.

Learn more and register to attend this event.

Sandy Rodriguez, De los Child Detention Centers, Family Separations, and Other Atrocities (detail), 2018

Project 1521 and the Florentine Codex

Virtual Event | November 19, 2020 | 5 pm- 6:15 pm PST | Online

With the approaching quincentennial of the conquest of Mexico, artists, writers, and scholars reflect on the continued relevance of the Indigenous knowledge found in the Florentine Codex, a 16th-century encyclopedic manuscript by Nahua scholars and artists under the direction of a Spanish Franciscan friar in Mexico City.

This event is presented by the Fowler Museum at UCLA in partnership with Getty Research Institute.

Learn more and register to attend this event.

LISTEN

Photograph from Dyke of Your Dreams event, February 14, 1978. Getty Research Institute, 2017.M.43

Reflections: Erin Fussell on the Dyke of Your Dreams dance

On this episode of our Reflections podcast series, artist Erin Fussell, digital library assistant at GRI, reflects on photographs from the Dyke of Your Dreams dance, held on Valentine's Day at the Woman's Building in 1978, and how the event reclaimed a derogatory term to embrace the power of revolutionary love.

Listen to the podcast.

PUBLICATION

Fluxus Means Change: Jean Brown's Avant-Garde Archive

By Marcia Reed

Providing an expanded understanding of avant-garde and Fluxus artists through the lens of the Jean Brown Archive at Getty Research Institute, this powerful volume documents how Fluxus artists and their anti-establishment demands for change challenged traditional modes of how art was created, performed, exhibited, and collected.

Buy this title.

NEW FOR RESEARCHERS

Moorea. Habitation indigène, Henry Lemasson, 1897. Getty Research Institute, 2002.R.22

Henry Lemasson Views of Tahiti and Moorea

Finding Aid

The album contains 52 turn-of-the-century collodion prints of Tahiti and Moorea by Henry Lemasson, the colonial postmaster of Pape'ete, a capital city in the South Pacific islands that was commandeered by the French in the 1800s. The album reveals scenes of daily life, coastal vistas and anchored ships, landscapes of the island interiors, and views of Pape'ete's streets and buildings.

Browse the finding aid.

LIBRARY AT HOME

Pulsa, Harmony Ranch, Oxford, Connecticut, ca. 1969. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC BY)

New and Selected

Listen to a selection of audio interviews with members of Pulsa, an experimental art collective, from the Michel Oren papers. In the late sixties, Pulsa employed emerging technologies—electronic music generators, analog and digital computers, and punch paper tape readers, in addition to sitars and gongs—to create large-scale sound and light performances in public spaces. "We wanted to create energies which would flow in the environment," said the group.

Explore the interviews accessible through the Library Catalog.

CHECK FOR UPDATES

Getty will be closed to the public through at least December 2020 as the region works to minimize the spread of COVID-19. The closure impacts J. Paul Getty Museum locations at the Getty Center and Getty Villa, as well as the gardens and grounds, Research Institute, and Library. We will continue to share updates on our response to COVID-19 on our website. Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn for more news and resources.

Stay updated.