Event Calendar
May 2011 Next Month
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Performances and Films/Videos
Lectures and Conferences
Tours and Talks
Family Activities
Courses and Demonstrations
Exhibitions
Food Events
Free Hours at L.A. Museums (PDF, 269 KB)
Autry National Center
Craft and Folk Art Museum
Fowler Museum at UCLA
Hammer Museum
Huntington Library
Japanese American National Museum
LACMA
Los Angeles Public Library
MAK Center for Art & Architecture
MOCA
Museum of Latin American Art
Natural History Museum
Norton Simon Museum
Orange County Museum of Art
Pacific Asia Museum
Pasadena Museum of California Art
Santa Monica Museum of Art
Skirball Cultural Center
May 29, 2011
Courses and Demonstrations
Artist-at-Work Demonstration: Paris Fashion
Sunday May 29, 2011
1 pm - 3 pm
Museum Studios, Getty Center


Drop by as historic costume designer Maxwell Barr explores fashion in the prosperous world of 18th-century Paris. This period in fashion showcases the extraordinary craftsmanship and virtuosity of the textiles and designs used to create the period dress worn throughout the day. Complements the exhibition Paris: Life and Luxury.

Family Activities
Art Adventures for Families
Weekends through September 4, 2011
2 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


Our one-hour tour for children (ages 5 and up) and adults to enjoy together feature a fun, activity-filled visit to the galleries. Space is limited. Sign-up begins at 1:30 p.m. at the Museum Information Desk.

Tours and Gallery Talks
Garden Tour
Daily
11:30 am, 12:30 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:30 pm
Getty Center


This is a 45-minute tour of the Getty gardens, including Robert Irwin's Central Garden. Meet the docent outside at the bench under the sycamore trees near the front entrance of the Museum.

¡Bienvenidos al Getty!
Weekends
11 am
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


Disfruten de una breve y divertida introducción al Museo y sus colecciones. Las familias son bienvenidas. Los esperamos en la sala de entrada del Museo bajo la escalera.

Focus Tour: Sculpture Discovery Walk
Sundays
3 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


Enjoy a one-hour tour focusing on the Getty's collection of sculpture by exploring works from European history and the recent past. Meet the educator at the Museum Information Desk.

Exhibition Tour: Paris: Life & Luxury
Daily through July 15, 2011
1:30 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


Join an educator for a special one-hour overview of the exhibition Paris: Life & Luxury. Meet the educator at the Museum Information Desk.

Getty Center
Architecture Tour
Daily
10:15 am, 11 am, 1 pm, 2 pm, 3 pm, 4 pm
Museum Entrance Hall, Getty Center


Discover more about Richard Meier's architecture and the design of the Getty Center site in this 45-minute tour. Meet the docent outside at the bench under the sycamore trees near the front entrance to the Museum.

Halberdier / Pontormo
Collection Highlights Tour
Daily
11 am
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


This one-hour tour provides an overview of major works from the Museum's collection. Meet the educator at the Museum Information Desk.

Exhibitions
La Roldana's Saint Gines
La Roldana's Saint Ginés: The Making of a Polychrome Sculpture
Daily

South Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center


Luisa Roldán (Spanish, 1650–1704), affectionately known as La Roldana, was one of the most celebrated and prolific sculptors of the Baroque period. This intimate exhibition introduces visitors to La Roldana, whose artistic superiority catapulted her to fame at the royal court in an otherwise male-dominated profession. She ran a workshop, worked for the king, raised a family, and was a celebrity in her own day. With her polychrome sculpture of Saint Ginés de la Jara from the Getty Museum's collection as a focal point, this exhibition explores the artist's life, artistic achievement, and the multifaceted process used to create masterfully lifelike polychrome sculpture.

 Learn more about this exhibition
Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture and Decorative Arts
New Galleries for Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture and Decorative Arts
Daily

North Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center


A newly designed installation of medieval and Renaissance European sculpture and decorative arts is now on view in the J. Paul Getty Museum's North Pavilion at the Getty Center. Displayed with paintings, drawings, and illuminated manuscripts that enrich their context, the works of art are arranged by period and theme. The installation features innovative technologies, including interactive touch screens, that enhance the visitor's experience.

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In Focus: The Tree
In Focus: The Tree
Daily through July 3, 2011

West Pavilion, Terrace Level, Getty Center


Since the origins of photography in the nineteenth century, the tree has remained a popular subject for photographers. Through the works of artists such as Gustave Le Gray, Carleton Watkins, Eugne Atget, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Eliot Porter, William Eggleston, Simryn Gill, and Myoung Ho Lee, this exhibition spans the history of photography to address the image of the tree in its many connotations: as a graphic form, a universal icon of strength, and a symbol of the beauty of nature.

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Spirit of An Age: Drawings from the Germanic World
Spirit of an Age: Drawings from the Germanic World, 1770–1900
Daily through June 19, 2011

West Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center


Unveiling recent acquisitions that reflect a new area of the Museum's collection, this exhibition features about 40 German and Austrian drawings and watercolors. The works reflect the profound changes—intellectual, social, and political—that the Germanic world underwent from about 1770 to 1900. Events such as the publication of the writings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the formal unification of Germany contributed to shaping the artist's world. Drawing captured the spirit of the age and evolved quite dramatically over the course of this period, which is rarely showcased by North American museums.

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Paris: Life & Luxury
Paris: Life & Luxury
Daily through August 7, 2011

Exhibitions Pavilion, Getty Center


Evoking the elegant, prosperous world of Rococo Paris, this major, international loan exhibition brings to life activities that took place inside a Parisian town house over the course of a typical day—from dressing and letter writing to dining, music, and other evening entertainments. Paris: Life and Luxury unites prime examples of the extraordinary creative virtuosity of the period's great artists and craftsmen, including furniture, fashion, silver, paintings, sculpture, musical instruments, clocks, and books. Rarely shown together, these objects literally and figuratively open up, allowing their functions and the parts they played in the fine art of eighteenth-century Parisian living to be understood by contemporary visitors.

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Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia
Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia
Daily through August 14, 2011

North Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center


Cambodia is renowned for the extraordinary art produced during the Angkor period of the Khmer empire, between the ninth and the fifteenth centuries, when sculptors mastered the art of bronze casting and created profound images of Hindu and Buddhist divinities. A focused exhibition of loans from the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, Gods of Angkor includes some of the finest Cambodian bronzes in existence as well as a small group of bronzes from the pre-Angkor period and some recently excavated works. It also celebrates the establishment of a bronze conservation studio at the National Museum of Cambodia and that institution's role in conserving Cambodia's cultural heritage.

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A Revolutionary Project
A Revolutionary Project: Cuba from Walker Evans to Now
Daily through October 2, 2011

West Pavilion, Terrace Level, Getty Center


A Revolutionary Project: Cuba from Walker Evans to Now looks at three critical periods in Cuba's history as witnessed by photographers. The exhibition unites Walker Evans's views from the 1930s with those of Cubans who participated in the 1959 revolution and contemporary foreign artists exploring the island nation since the end of Soviet support in the 1990s. Together the works span reportage, portraiture, landscape, and street photography, demonstrating a diverse international range of perspectives. In addition to Evans, the exhibition includes photographers such as Virginia Beahan, Raúl Corrales, Alex Harris, Alberto Korda, Osvaldo Salas, and Alexey Titarenko.

 Learn more about this exhibition
May 29, 2011
Courses and Demonstrations
Artist-at-Work Demonstration: 19th-Century Photography Techniques
Weekends through May 29, 2011
11 am, 3 pm
Auditorium Plaza, Getty Villa


Watch this live demonstration with contemporary photographer Luther Gerlach as he demonstrates the wet-plate photographic process behind photographs on view in the exhibition In Search of Biblical Lands: From Jerusalem to Jordan in Nineteenth-century Photography. This is a free, drop-in program.

Family Activities
Art Odyssey for Families
Weekends
2 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Villa


This 45-minute journey through the galleries is a fun, activity-filled experience for children (ages 5 and up) and adults to enjoy together. Space is limited. Ofrecida en español. Sign-up begins 15 minutes before the tour at the Tour Meeting Place.

Learn more about Art Odyssey

Art Odyssey for Families
Weekends
2 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Villa


This 45-minute journey through the galleries is a fun, activity-filled experience for children (ages 5 and up) and adults to enjoy together. Space is limited. Ofrecida en español. Sign-up begins 15 minutes before the tour at the Tour Meeting Place.

Learn more about Art Odyssey

Tours and Gallery Talks
Getty Villa Outer Peristyle
Garden Tour
Daily
10:30 am, 11:30 am, 12:30 pm, 1:30 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:30 pm
Getty Villa


Discover the rich mythological and cultural connections of ancient gardens in this 40-minute tour of the Getty Villa's four Roman gardens. Meet at the Tour Meeting Place outside the Museum Entrance.

Getty Villa Inner Peristyle
Architecture Tour
Daily
10:30 am, 11:30 am, 12:30 pm, 1:30 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:30 pm
Museum, Getty Villa


Explore daily life in an ancient Roman villa through the Museum's architecture in this 40-minute tour. Meet at the Tour Meeting Place outside the Museum Entrance.

Collection Highlights Tour
Weekends
11 am
Museum Galleries, Getty Villa


This one-hour tour provides an overview of major works from the Museum's collection. Ofrecida en español. Space is limited. Sign up at the Tour Meeting Place outside the Museum Entrance 15 minutes before the tour.

Spotlight Talk: Bust of Commodus
Daily through May 29, 2011
1 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Villa


Learn how to look at ancient art in this 20-minute gallery talk examining in depth one work in the Villa galleries. The featured object this month is a Bust of the Roman Emperor Commodus, from about A.D. 180–185. Sign-up begins 15 minutes before the talk at the Tour Meeting Place.

Focus Tour: Life in a Roman Villa
Sunday May 29, 2011
3 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Villa


In this hour-long tour, imagine the Museum as an ancient Roman Villa and discover works of arts that were essential to daily life in such opulent residences. Tour topic subject to change. Sign-up begins 15 minutes before the tour at the Tour Meeting Place.

Exhibitions
Molten Color
Molten Color: Glassmaking in Antiquity
Daily

Museum, Floor 2, Getty Villa


In 2003, the J. Paul Getty Museum acquired a collection of over 350 pieces of ancient glass, formerly owned by Erwin Oppenländer. The works on view in Molten Color are remarkable for their high quality, their chronological breadth, and the glassmaking techniques illustrated by their manufacture. The vessels are accompanied by text and videos illustrating ancient glassmaking techniques.

 Learn more about this exhibition
Roman Ephebe from Naples
Roman Ephebe from Naples
Daily

Getty Villa


Youth as a Lamp Bearer, a long-term loan from the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, is on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa.

 Learn more about this exhibition
Apollo from Pompeii
Apollo from Pompeii: Investigating an Ancient Bronze
Daily through September 12, 2011

Museum, Floor 2, Getty Villa


Buried during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, the Apollo Saettante (Apollo as an Archer) was unearthed in pieces between 1817 and 1818. Depicting the god in the act of shooting an arrow, the statue was one of the first major bronzes to be found at Pompeii. As part of the J. Paul Getty Museum's collaboration with the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, the sculpture was brought to the Getty Villa for study and conservation treatment in 2009. This exhibition offers a behind-the-scenes look at that project, revealing how the statue was manufactured in antiquity as well as the methods and materials used to restore it in nineteenth-century Naples.

 Learn more about this exhibition
In Search of Biblical Lands
In Search of Biblical Lands: From Jerusalem to Jordan in Nineteenth-century Photography
Daily through September 12, 2011

Museum, Floor 2, Getty Villa


In the 1800s travelers came to the eastern margins of the Mediterranean and encountered a landscape of belief, at once forbidding and monotonous. Propelled by a connection to the Old and New Testaments of the Bible and encouraged by texts recently discovered in Egypt and Assyria, explorers, excavators, and entrepreneurs came to photograph places hitherto only imagined. This exhibition presents images of the region known variously as Palestine, western Syria, the Transjordan Plateau, and the Holy Land. Subjects range from architectural sites and strata to evocative geography and scenes of pastoral life.

 Learn more about this exhibition