Event Calendar
December 2008 Next Month
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Performances and Films/Videos
Lectures and Conferences
Tours and Talks
Family Activities
Courses and Demonstrations
Exhibitions
Readings and Book Signings
Japanese American National Museum
Hammer Museum
Museum of Latin American Art
Autry National Center
Huntington Library
LACMA
Los Angeles Public Library
MAK Center for Art & Architecture
MoCA
Natural History Museum
Norton Simon Museum
Orange County Museum of Art
Pacific Asia Museum
Pasadena Museum of California Art
Skirball Cultural Center
UCLA Fowler Museum
December 14, 2008
Lectures and Conferences
Conversation: Robert Irwin and Lawrence Weschler
Sunday December 14, 2008
3 pm
Harold M. Williams Auditorium, Getty Center


New Yorker contributor Lawrence Weschler has been talking with artist Robert Irwin about perception, philosophy, and the destiny of art for thirty years now. On the occasion of the release of Weschler's newly expanded edition of Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin, the two will pursue that conversation yet further, including a discussion of the Getty Center's Central Garden.

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Courses and Demonstrations
Artist-at-Work Demonstration: Wet-Plate Collodion Negatives and Albumen Prints
Sundays through January 4, 2009
1 pm - 3 pm
Museum Studios, Getty Center


Drop by as photographer Luther Gerlach demonstrates how to make wet-plate collodion negatives and albumen prints using authentic mammoth plate cameras, lenses, and procedures from the 19th century. Complements the exhibition Dialogue among Giants: Carleton Watkins and the Rise of Photography in California.

Family Activities
Family Art Stops / Enfoque Artístico
Weekends through February 28, 2009
2 pm, 2:30 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


Get up close and personal with a single work of art at this half-hour, hands-on gallery experience geared for families with children ages 5 and up. Ofrecida en español a 2:30 p.m. Sign up at the Museum Information Desk 30 minutes before the start of the program.

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Family Storytelling
Sunday December 14, 2008
11:30 am, 1:30 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:30 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


Party 18th-century style with storyteller Lou Stratten as she tells a musical tale inspired by Nicolas Lancret's painting Dance before a Fountain. Sign up at the Museum Information Desk the day of the program.

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Tours and Gallery Talks
Masterpiece of the Week Talk
Daily through December 14, 2008
4 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


This 15-minute gallery talk offers an in-depth look at one object. This week the featured work of art is Salome Presents the Head of John the Baptist by the Limbourg Brothers. Meet at the Museum Information Desk.

Getty Center
Architecture Tour
Tuesdays - Thursdays and Sundays through June 30, 2009
10:15 am, 11 am, 1 pm, 2 pm, 3 pm
Museum Entrance Hall, Getty Center


Getty Center architecture tours are offered daily by docents. Tours last 30–45 minutes. Meet outside in front of the Museum Entrance Hall.

Halberdier / Pontormo
Collection Highlights Tour
Daily through June 30, 2009
11 am
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


This one-hour tour provides an overview of major works from the Museum's collection. Offered in English and Spanish on weekends. Meet at the Museum Information Desk.

Central Garden
Garden Tour
Daily through June 30, 2009
11:30 am, 12:30 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:30 pm
Central Garden, Getty Center


Garden Tours are offered daily by docents. They focus on the Central Garden and landscaping of the Getty Center site. Tours last 45–60 minutes. Meet in front of the Museum Entrance Hall.

Exhibition Tour: Dialogue among Giants: Carleton Watkins and the Rise of Photography in California
Daily through December 21, 2008
1:30 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


A special one-hour exhibition overview of Dialogue among Giants: Carleton Watkins and the Rise of Photography in California. Meet at the Museum Information Desk.

Focus Tour: Sculpture Discovery Walk
Sundays through June 30, 2009
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 at the Museum Information Desk.

Exhibitions
Please Be Seated
Please Be Seated: A Video Installation by Nicole Cohen
Daily through January 11, 2009

South Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center


Internationally recognized video artist Nicole Cohen (American, b. 1970) explores the intersection of historical interiors, the social behaviors they conditioned, contemporary popular culture, and fantasy. Her project for the Getty Museum focuses on the Museum's collection of French seating furniture and its original and museological contexts. Viewers are invited to engage in a participatory experience, forming personal, imaginative narratives through video projections that render the chairs virtually accessible.

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Tango with Cows
Tango with Cows: Book Art of the Russian Avant-Garde, 1910–1917
Daily through April 19, 2009

Research Institute Exhibition Gallery, Getty Center


Drawing principally from the Getty Research Institute's superb collection of Russian modernist books, Tango with Cows: Book Art of the Russian Avant-Garde, 1910–1917 brings into focus a brief, but tumultuous period when Russian visual artists and poets, including Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Kazimir Malevich, Alexei Kruchenykh, and Velimir Khlebnikov, challenged Symbolism and revolutionized book art. They fabricated pocket-sized, hand-lithographed books and juxtaposed primitive and abstract imagery with a transrational poetry they called zaum'("beyonsense"). The exhibition traces the avant-garde's use of the materials of their book art—imagery, language and its sounds, design, graphic technique—to convey humor, parody, and an intriguing ambivalence and apprehension about Russia's past, present, and future.
In Focus: The Landscape
In Focus: The Landscape
Daily through January 11, 2009

Center for Photographs, Getty Center


Like painters and draftsmen before them, photographers turned to the landscape as a source of inspiration after the invention of the medium was announced in 1839. Since then, changing artistic movements and continual technical advancements have provided opportunities for camera artists to approach the subject in diverse and imaginative ways. This exhibition, which is drawn exclusively from the Getty's collection, brings together the work of over 25 innovative photographers who have left their mark on the history of the genre, including Gustave Le Gray, Alfred Stieglitz, and Robert Adams.

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Dialogue among Giants
Dialogue among Giants: Carleton Watkins and the Rise of Photography in California
Daily through March 1, 2009

Center for Photographs, Getty Center


Dialogue among Giants presents the photographs of Carleton Watkins (American, 1829–1916) in the context of the birth and evolution of photography in California. The exhibition considers the social, political, economic, and artistic developments in California between the time of statehood in 1850 and the mid-1880s. It includes approximately 150 works, from daguerreotypes by unknown makers to mammoth-plate photographs by Watkins and his contemporaries.

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Belles Heures of the Duke of Berry
The Belles Heures of the Duke of Berry
Daily through February 8, 2009

Museum Galleries, Getty Center


The Belles Heures of John, Duke of Berry is one of the most beloved books of the Middle Ages and one of the most sumptuous. Painted by the Limbourg brothers when the art of manuscript illumination in France reached new heights of elegance and sophistication, the book, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will be presented with its individual leaves unbound. The resulting display offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the visitor to walk through the book to view all of its major miniatures, a unique gallery of paintings of sublime beauty.

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Sur le Motif: Painting in Nature around 1800
Sur le motif: Painting in Nature around 1800
Daily through March 8, 2009

West Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center


During the late 1700s and early 1800s European artists made a formal practice of working outdoors in the clear, pure light of the Italian countryside, transcribing the atmosphere and depth of picturesque landscape views. Originally intended as studies for more formal, idealized studio paintings, the sketches they created are today considered highly satisfying works of art in their own right. This concise survey exhibition features recent acquisitions by artists such as Jean-Victor Bertin, Jean-Joseph Xavier Bidauld, Camille Corot, Simon Denis, and Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes, supplemented by loans from local collections.

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December 14, 2008
Family Activities
Art Odyssey for Families
Art Odyssey for Families
Weekends through December 31, 2009
2 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Villa


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

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Tours and Gallery Talks
Spotlight Talk
Weekends through December 28, 2008
1:30 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Villa


This 20-minute gallery talk introduces ways of looking at ancient art through an in-depth exploration of one object in the collection. This month the featured object is a Roman sarcophagus featuring a Dionysian Vintage Festival from around A.D. 290–300. Sign up at the Tour Meeting Place outside the Museum Entrance 15 minutes before the talk.

Getty Villa Inner Peristyle
Orientation Tour
Daily through December 31, 2009
10:30 am, 12:30 pm, 2:30 pm
Getty Villa


This 40-minute tour offers an overview of the Getty Villa, focusing on its architecture and educational mission. Meet at the Tour Meeting Place outside the Museum Entrance.

Collection Highlights Tour
Weekends through December 31, 2009
11 am
Museum Galleries, Getty Villa


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

Getty Villa Outer Peristyle
Getty Villa Architecture and Gardens Tour
Daily through December 31, 2009
11:30 am, 1:30 pm, 3:30 pm
Museum, Getty Villa


This 40-minute tour explores the architecture and gardens of the Getty Villa and their historical prototypes. Meet at the Tour Meeting Place outside the Museum Entrance.

The Unexplained and Mysterious Focus Tour
Sunday December 14, 2008
3 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Villa


From a Roman mummy to one of the oldest and most puzzling sculptures in the collection, join us for this one-hour tour as we take a look at some of the Getty VillaÕs most mysterious pieces and discuss the unknown. Space is limited. Tour topic subject to change. Sign up at the Tour Meeting Place outside the Museum Entrance 15 minutes before the talk.

Exhibitions
Jim Dine: Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets)
Jim Dine: Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets)
Daily through February 9, 2009

Museum, Floor 2, Getty Villa


This exhibition presents new works and poetry by Jim Dine based on ancient Greek sculptures in the Museum's collection. The first contemporary art project at the Getty Villa, this installation illustrates the continuing influence of antiquity on living artists.

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