5 Every Week says check out Art Los Angeles Contemporary at Santa Monica's Barker Hangar, a "knock-down, drag-out battle of art commerce" ... the Oscar noms ARE diverse, in the animation categories ... remembering Glenn Frey and Hotel California.
Museum of Neon Art (re)opens in Glendale, at last
The Museum of Neon Art has a long, storied history in Los Angeles.
Founded in 1981, the museum houses works of neon and electric art from artists all over the world. It also has restored vintage neon signs from businesses all over SoCal. For the neon signs that still stand today, MONA takes Angelenos on tours to check them out.
MONA's massive collection has been on display around L.A. In years past, the museum found a home in downtown Los Angeles, then the Universal CityWalk and now in downtown Glendale this month. It's right across the street from the Americana at Brand, developer Rick Caruso's massive open air shopping center. "They need some neon desperately now," said Eric Lynxwiler of the mall. He's a spokesperson for the museum.
It's true for all of Glendale and the rest of Los Angeles, too. The streets no longer hum with the buzzing of bright and bold neon. Decades have passed since that was the case. But take heart: you can find plenty at MONA; the new building features just a fraction of MONA's enormous collection.
"And funny enough, the Museum of Neon Art was actually given a few of those neon signs from Glendale back in the 1980s when they said 'eh, neon's not too good anymore, we want to get rid of it,'" said Lynxwiler.
Today, MONA buzzes with relics from the neon's past and present: a giant green frog in a coat and top hat that used to dance on the Bakersfield grocery store currently greets visitors in the lobby. On another side of the room, dozens of neon clocks cover the wall. There's even a couple for sale, like this traveling salesman clock.
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Inside the main gallery, you'll find even more neon, but elevated to a fine art. Works here span decades and include portraits, installations and this thing.
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Richard Ankrom's "Tannenbaum" uses recycled neon tubes powered by a Jacob's Ladder. "It's a whole bunch of wires allowing electrical current to pass upward from one wire to another," said Lynxwiler. "It's basically allowing you to see trapped lightning."
"And there it is, behind glass, thankfully," he added.
Lynxwiler makes a simple pitch for MONA: more than any store at that mall across the street, the Museum of Neon Art has something for everyone. "It's art, it's science, and it's also roadside Americana. It's a little bit of everything for the family," said Lynxwiler. "Come here, and take all the selfies you want, because your background is gonna be beautiful."
Which Oscars category doesn't have a whiteness problem? Animation
The Academy is under fire because not one person of color was nominated for an Oscar in the major categories for the second year in a row. If the Academy - and Hollywood in general - want a model of increasing diversity, they should look to animation.
In the animation categories, diversity is the rule rather than the exception, and has been for years.
Why hasn’t anyone noted that Pixar’s "Inside Out," the odds-on favorite for Animated Feature, has a woman screenwriter, Meg Le Fauve, and a Hispanic producer, Jonas Rivera? Among the major films that weren’t nominated, "The Good Dinosaur" was directed by Korean-American Peter Sohn and produced by Denise Ream. Two of the three producers on DreamWorks’ "Home" were women, and the co-presidents of animation production there are Bonnie Arnold and Mireille Soria. Two years ago, Jennifer Lee wrote the screenplay and co-directed "Frozen."
"The Croods" had two women producers, and "Despicable Me 2" had one.
In the Shorts category, Pixar’s "Sanjay’s Super Team" - about a father and son who reach an important understanding - was produced by Nicole Grindle and directed by Indian-American Sanjay Patel.
Two years ago, Kristina Reed co-directed the winning short "Feast;" the other nominees included Torill Kove, Daisy Jacobs, Robert Kondo and Daisuke Tsutsumi.
For more than 50 years, women have been nominated and have won in the Animated Short category, beginning with Faith Hubley, who shared Oscars with her husband John for "The Hole" in 1963 and "Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass Double Feature" in 1967. Other female artists who have won include Joan Gratz, Torill Kove, Eunice McCauley and Alison Snowden.
Not surprisingly, many recent animated films have centered on independent, interesting heroines: Riley in "Inside Out," Anna in "When Marnie Was There," Tip in "Home," Anna and Elsa in "Frozen," Merida in "Brave." These characters were interested in more than winning a man: They struggled to understand themselves and resolve problems. They were more interesting to watch than the bland, gentle princesses in older features.
At the same time, the worlds depicted in animated films are no longer exclusively white; they feature ethnically diverse characters and voice casts. "Big Hero 6" focused on Japanese-American teenager Hiro Hamada, whose friends were voiced by Genesis Rodriguez, Damon Wayans Jr. and Jamie Chung. Jordan Nagai spoke for Russell, the over-eager Asian-American scout in the Oscar-winning "Up."
In "How to Train Your Dragon 2," the villainous Drago was voiced by Djimon Hounsou and America Ferrera’s Astrid was every bit as capable as Hiccup.
The first on-screen credit for a musical score given to an African-American was Phil Moore for UPA’s "Rooty-Toot-Toot in 1951."
During the 1930’s, Walt Disney had artists who were Jewish, Hispanic, Japanese, Chinese and female working at his studio in key creative roles. Iwo Takamoto was hired there a few weeks after being released from the Manzanar internment camp. A friend told him, “They don’t care what color you are if you draw well enough.”
In 1941, male employees complained that Disney was promoting women to creative positions so he could pay them less. Walt replied in a speech to the studio, "if a woman can do the work as well, she is worth as much as a man" and "the girl artists have the right to expect the same chances for advancement as men." Those were radical statements in 1941.
But the greater diversity I’ve been talking about isn’t just fair to workers. It’s resulted in more original and interesting films that entertain and stimulate audiences. How much duller a trip to the movies would have been without Mary Blair’s brilliant designs for "Cinderella" or Brenda Chapman’s sensitive story work of Belle tending Beast’s wounds. Tove, McCauley and Snowden brought a new kind of humor to the screen. And in just seven minutes, Sanjay Patel offers a deeply felt examination of the conflict between immigrant parents and their more assimilated children.
Has animation achieved complete gender equality or proportional representation of all minorities? Not yet, but the industry and Academy Branch are moving in that direction rapidly — and offering a model to their live-action counterparts.
Charles Solomon is the author of the landmark "Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation," and he's a regular contributor to KPCC's Off-Ramp and Filmweek.
5 Every Week: Warehouses of art, warehouses of laser tag, and a laugh Riot!
Behold: Five great things you should do in Southern California this week, from art to food to music to an adventure we'll call "the Wild Card," from the makers of the 5 Every Day app. You can also get this as a new podcast in iTunes. If you want five hand-picked things to do in Los Angeles every day, download the free 5 Every Day from the App Store.
ART: Art Los Angeles Contemporary
It's an art fair so big that it literally takes place in an airplane hangar.
It’s called Art Los Angeles Contemporary, and it’s been packing Santa Monica's Barker Hangar with a stupefying volume of art for a few years now, pitting L.A.-based exhibitors such as Night Gallery, Various Small Fires and David Kordansky against dozens of blue chip galleries from around the world.
Think of it as a four-day knock-down, drag-out battle of art and commerce. These huge art markets can feel like a bit of a cattle call, but ALAC's list of contributors is hard to gripe about.
Running Thursday through Sunday, festivities include a big opening night gala, artist Alison O’Daniel’s collaboration with Centennial High School’s marching band, an appearance by Kenneth Anger and more.
CITY: Ultrazone
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Alhambra's Ultrazone hits the improbable sweet spot between family fun center and Early Dynastic hellscape.
It’s a 5,000 square-foot, multi-level laser tag arena for children, where adults are, somewhat begrudgingly, allowed. It's spectacular.
Dimly lit, full of fog and painted to look like a cheap knock-off of the Indiana Jones ride, it'll make you surrender your ego within the first 15 minutes, after you're destroyed again and again by sharpshooting eleven-year-olds.
Before the lasers stop firing, the most mellow pacifists tend to go full Lord of the Flies. It happened to us.
It's better exercise than playing Call of Duty on your couch.
FOOD: Boba 7
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When the boba tea market gets saturated, boba practitioners get reckless.
Enter Boba 7, a boba "speakeasy" boba run from the back of a Thai restaurant in downtown. Its signature drink? Heineken, green tea and those unmistakable gelatinous balls chilling at the bottom. It's like a sorority drinking game gone so wrong that it's somehow right.
Boba 7's other cocktails include a mango margarita with lychee and a Baileys and Kahlua "Bobagasm," which makes perfect sense. Think of it as a White Russian, which is already liquid candy, with the bonus of tapioca balls.
They also have adventurous non-alcoholic variations, like horchata, Nutella and rose milk tea. Sometimes, you don't know what you want until somebody tells you.
MUSIC: Bowie on Film
Did you see that news story about what might be a new planet in our solar system? They discovered it right after David Bowie died?
Definitely not a coincidence.
I’ll take any consolation because the death of David Bowie has felt inescapable for the last couple of weeks. The outpouring of grief has spilled into countless tributes throughout the city — sad and joyous celebrations that show no sign of slowing in the coming weeks.
This Friday, Cinefamily kicks off a special tribute of their own with Cracked Actor: a five-day tour of the Thin White Duke’s cinematic high points.
They’ll kick things off with a buffet of small-screen obscurities called “The David Bowie Mixtape,” followed by a special midnight screening of Bowie’s turn as a sexy vampire in "The Hunger." The tribute rolls all the way into February with screenings of "Labyrinth," "The Man Who Fell To Earth," and "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence."
Maybe if we watch all of them, he’ll get the message and spin his orbit back around.
WILDCARD: Riot LA
Free comedy nights are among Los Angeles's greatest cultural products. It’s the logical convergence of the city's abundance of young comics and its cheapskate audiences.
In this buyer’s market, it takes a lot of confidence to hang a $100 price tag on a comedy festival, but Riot LA has the bills to back it up. The three-day megafest features 150 or so of your favorite comedians, swarming downtown like whimsical locusts.
So what if you can see a lot of these people for $5 or less most nights of the week? We're here to laugh, not balance our checkbooks.
Festivities start Friday night with a pair of big-time lineups at the Theatre at Ace Hotel: a long set from David Cross, followed by a late night triple threat with Natasha Leggero, Maria Bamford and Janeane Garofalo.
Song of the week: "Vamp" by the Brendan Eder Ensemble
This week's Off-Ramp song of the week is called “Vamp.” It’s an instrumental performed by the Brendan Eder Ensemble.
Brendan Eder is the lead composer and drummer for the ensemble. He’s a Los Angeles native and when he isn’t fronting the band, scores films and TV.
"Vamp" comes off the ensemble's self-titled debut, which you can stream and buy on their Bandcamp. Check out the video for "Vamp:"
You can see the Brendan Eder Ensemble live at the Silverlake Lounge on Saturday, February 6 as part of the ongoing Classical Revolution LA series.
Artist Robert Cremean takes on conformity in new show at PMCA
Off-Ramp arts correspondent Marc Haefele reviews "Robert Cremean: The Beds of Procrustes and the Seven Deadly Sins," at the Pasadena Museum of California Art through April 3, 2016.
We all need limits, but sometimes it gets ridiculous.
Take the ancient Greek hotelier Procrustes, who had a distinctly odd approach to the hospitality industry. He’s the mythical host who felt compelled to make all his guests fit exactly in the same iron bed—lopping body parts when the guest was too tall, stretching them on the rack when they were too short.
These guests checked in, but they never checked out.
A plump Procrustes, doing his dirty work in a flaming Nazi helmet, is a key image in a disturbing, perturbing seven-part installation of the work of artist Robert Cremean at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. Along with its accompanying Seven Deadly Sins, the Beds of Procrustes provides a grueling art experience, hatched with craftsmanly skill and great devotion to a kind of perfectly shaped, almost geometrical madness—not to mention anatomical correctness.
Procrustes, to Cremean, is a kind of universal revolutionary necessity, an embodiment of Darwinian selection throughout human history, who demands we all change to conform to his dictates. In an interview, he said: “We’re borne into the acceptance of Procrustes in our lives—we’re born into natural selection. And when you think about it, it is necessary—after all, without it there would be chaos everywhere.’’
But inevitable as Procrustes is, Cremean wants humanity to resist him, to hold on to our full individuality. Cremean’s personal Procrustes seems to have been the American art world’s c. 1950 move towards abstraction, leaving the young Cremean’s superlatively figurative work critically stranded by what he still terms “the Culture Makers.”
He says: “New York was (Procrustes). It was in control, Procrustian. The world is full of Procrustes.” He was equally alienated by the “gallery system,” which, he says, was taking an undue share of his earnings.
As a result, Cremean has largely isolated himself from the American art mainstream to the extent that a show like the PMCA’s is a considerable rarity. He’s developed, via a benefactor, an “arrangement” with the Fresno Art Museum whereby it displays most of his new work. Including his Procrustes array, which combines painted canvas, friezes, written words and surmounting sculptures of variously lopped human beings, in seven entities which confront the viewer in a judgmental arc, victims and victors combined.
The Procrustes assemblage also challenges the show’s other installation: “The Seven Deadly Sins.” Each sin is represented by a tormented human form, and surrounded by lengthy, self-accusatory writings, like the words of the death sentence written all over the prisoner in Kafka’s "Penal Colony,’’ where "Guilt is always beyond a doubt.’’
The mightiest of these turpitude paintings is a triptych of three iniquities—Sloth, Gluttony and Greed. At the very center is a representation of the prototype Spanish inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada and the dates, 1492 and 8/6/45— 1492 was Columbus’ year of discovery, of course, but also the year that the (Jewish-descended) Torquemada’s Edict of Alhambra drove all the Moors and Jews out of Spain. The other date is Hiroshima Day. Each date marks some of the worst actions of mankind against humanity. All for what seemed like perfect reasons at the time.
His painting-art is much as a creative act against historic human malfeasance as a lifetime of self analysis.
Now 83, Cremean was early—and unsurprisingly-- influenced by medieval art, particularly the illuminated Chaucer manuscript at the Huntington Library. “I was amazed at the way the words and pictures met one another on the page.” Most of his painted words are transcribed from his own notebooks.
He’s working on a new installation—“It’s 30 by 8 feet.’’ But after this, “I do not want to do things like this any more.’’ He says, after decades of his massive installations, that he wants to do smaller things. After 52 years of working in the US, he is thinking of moving to France.
"Where I work, it doesn’t make a difference. I am with myself in my studio here in [the honky tonk district of ] Winston-Salem for the past 7 years, as much as I was on the ranch on Tomales Bay for 45 years.’’ He can manifest what’s been called his “desire for truth and escape from illusions” anywhere.
Cremean’s creations are on show at the PMCA with "Of Cottages and Castles: The Art of California Faience and The Nature of William S. Rice: Arts and Crafts Painter and Printmaker.’’ These are worthy and worthwhile displays of c. 1900 works in a style you might call California Biedermeier. They provide something of a reassuring counterbalance to Cremean’s outrageous creations.
Oscars 2016: From troubled divas to politics — the Academy Award-nominated documentaries
Off-Ramp correspondent R.H. Greene examines the Academy’s nominees for the Best Documentary Feature of 2015.
“Amy,” directed by Asif Kapadia
I have mixed emotions about Asif Kapadia’s vibrant and in many ways convincing biographical documentary “Amy.” Kapadia has made much of the fact that he wasn’t an Amy Winehouse fan when Universal Music Group selected him to direct this work on the strength of “Senna,” his other film about doomed celebrity.
UMG knew what it was doing. Kapadia and his collaborators unearthed a treasure trove of private videos and B-roll oddities to create an exceptional and intimate portrait of a familiar star. Yet the agenda — to make Amy Winehouse into a victim of larger cultural forces as embodied in the casual cruelty of the mass audience — seems both well-taken and emotionally false.
Celebrity crushes artists routinely, and often seems to damage even those who eventually outrace its grasp. But there was something disturbingly different about Winehouse’s public embrace of her own downward spiral. “Rehab” — her biggest hit — couldn’t be more direct as a self-depiction by a willful and entitled star shrugging off an intervention. Yet Kapadia strives mightily to make Winehouse’s self-immolation “our” fault.
Turning Winehouse into that hoariest pop culture cliche — a martyr crucified by her audience’s callousness — is a convenient position for a filmmaker enlisted by a record label to reinvigorate a back catalog, because it transforms the scary details into something comforting and familiar. While I won’t deny Kapadia convincingly states his claim, “Amy” still feels like half a truth at best. The elusive part of the story — the relentlessness of Winehouse’s drive toward self-obliteration — is obscured in favor of a tragic narrative that is easier to stomach, but ultimately harder to digest.
“What Happened, Miss Simone?” directed by Liz Garbus
Of the two pop biographies on Oscar’s 2016 Best Documentary list, “Amy” is the presumptive frontrunner. More’s the pity, because Liz Garbus’s sprawling portrait “What Happened, Miss Simone?” has greater depth, a more resonant protagonist and celebrates a far more vast and compelling musical legacy.
Like Amy Winehouse, Nina Simone found success suddenly and seemed destined to be destroyed by it. Bipolar in an era of psychiatric primitivism, black and female in a period of livid racial and gender divides, Simone resonated to her times almost uncontrollably.
Initially presented as a kind of black Julie London for cocktail sophisticates, Simone was radicalized by the civil rights movement, eventually becoming both peer and muse to Martin Luther King as well as an adjunct auntie to the Malcolm X clan. But King’s assassination deeply embittered her.
What's gonna happen now? In all of our cities?
My people are rising; they're living in lies.
Even if they have to die
Even if they have to die at the moment they know what life is
Even at that one moment that ya know what life is
If you have to die, it's all right
Cause you know what life is
You know what freedom is for one moment of your life.
— "Why? (The King of Love is Dead)"
Simone’s music became increasingly strident, even advocating for violent change, and she ultimately left the United States for exile — first in Liberia and ultimately in Europe.
Fueled by the vivid and frequently uncomfortable memories of Simone’s daughter Lisa and by a wealth of radiant archival clips of Miss Simone in action, Garbus is unflinching in charting both the intricacies and the failings of a tormented musical genius. Unlike Amy Winehouse, Nina Simone proved a survivor, who lived out a 70-year span. But her tragic life was made no less complex by her 2003 death, and Garbus is savvy enough to leave Simone’s contradictions intact. Among the most enduring of Simone’s enigmas: How did a woman who came to hate the country she was born into create one of the most sustained and most American of musical legacies?
“What Happened, Miss Simone?” understands that the answer to the question of its own title is one Simone herself might not have been able to give.
“The Look of Silence,” directed by Joshua Oppenheimer
The remaining three documentaries nominated for an Oscar move from the personal to the political.
For me personally, perhaps the single biggest Oscar disappointment in recent memory was the Academy’s failure to honor director Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing” as Best Documentary of 2012. A surreal fusion of raw testimonial and unhinged reverie, “The Act of Killing” illuminated a forgotten genocide — Indonesia’s “anti-communist” massacres of the mid-1960s — through delirious self-portraits of the unapologetic killers. In a remarkable demonstration of Oppenheimer’s ability to win his subjects’ trust, elderly former members of Indonesia’s death squads not only shared every detail of their violent work, they also re-enacted their private fantasies and memories for Oppenheimer’s lens.
Oppenheimer’s 2015 film “The Look of Silence” takes him back to Indonesia for an equally potent portrait of violence’s victims. A quieter film but no less powerful, “Silence” tracks the odyssey of Adi, a door-to-door optometrist, who uses the odd access granted to a man of his profession to interrogate the killers responsible for the death of his older brother in 1965.
The symbolism is almost too perfect. Both in the film and in life, Adi’s function is to bring a hidden world into focus. It’s a dangerous calling in a country where the death squads of the past are the rulers of today. In Adi, Oppenheimer has found the one thing “The Act of Killing” lacked: a hero, capable of startling us with his bravery and of worrying us with his reckless disregard for his own safety and that of the people he loves.
A brilliant film that stands on its own, “The Look of Silence” is also the second half of a monumental documentary achievement, specific in its milieu but universal in scope. Here’s hoping the Academy recognizes that in giving Oppenheimer another nomination, Oscar has also given itself a second chance to get its award right.
“Cartel Land,” directed by Matthew Heineman
As bullets fly and meth cookers bubble in tight close-up, “Cartel Land” becomes one of those documentaries that leaves you gasping at the sheer physical courage of the filmmakers. Inspired in part by the immediacy of Jehane Noujaim’s 2013 Oscar nominee “The Square,” director Matthew Heineman decided to examine the Mexican drug cartels by infiltrating the anti-drug vigilante movements on both sides of the border.
In dramatic terms, there is a wild imbalance between the relatively staid Arizona Border Recon in the U.S. and Mexico’s ferocious paramilitary Autodefensas, who become a national phenomenon as Heineman’s serpentine camera watches in awe. The disparity of the stakes faced by the two groups is unfortunately emphasized by Heineman’s decision to juxtapose them through simple crosscuts, as though they’re equal sides of a single coin.
In Arizona, militia leader Tim “Nailer” Foley blathers on in the by-now-familiar parlance of the American Constitutionalist malcontent, occasionally rounding up a handful of illegal border crossers for good measure. Meanwhile in Mexico, the Autodefensas and their charismatic leader Dr. Jose Mireles ignite a populist revolt, fielding a virtual citizens' army against the drug lords before becoming corrupted by infiltrators and by mass adulation.
As “Cartel Land” unspools, Heineman proves shrewd enough to know the better story is on the Mexican side of the border, and Foley’s Arizona group recedes until barely a subplot. In staying close to Mireles, Heineman and company do a superb job of demonstrating not only how revolutions rise but also the many reasons they lose their way. To make their point, Heineman and crew brave so many dangerous situations they leave the viewer constantly on edge. In the year of “The Look of Silence,” I honestly don’t know if “Cartel Land” deserves an Oscar. But if there’s some documentary equivalent to the Medal of Honor or the Purple Heart, consider my vote rendered.
“Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight For Freedom,” directed by Evgeny Afineevsky
The street-level view of a revolution is often among the most riveting as well as the most incomplete. You can’t fault Evgeny Afineevsky and his film “Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” for finding the Ukrainian revolt against the Russian puppet President Viktor Yanukovych a compelling subject, but you can ding him — deeply — for his unblinkingly partisan assumptions, which render his film woefully incomplete.
The obvious touchstone for “Winter on Fire” is Jehane Noujaim’s 2013 Oscar nominee “The Square,” which told the story of the Egyptian rebellion that overthrew Hosni Mubarak from the vantage point of mass protests in Tahrir Square. In “Winter on Fire,” the collection point is Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), where radicalized Ukrainians engage in protest and street battles to unseat a corrupt regime.
Like “The Square,” “Winter on Fire” works mostly as triumphalist propaganda, a raw and robust vision of evil vanquished and democracy proclaimed. Both films have long been overtaken by current events, and by political intrigue murkier and more intricate than Afineevsky’s anti-totalitarian politics are able to contain. Compelling in its immediacy, “Winter on Fire” is still somehow an instant period piece.