5 Design Things To Do This Week

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Your week in design events from DnA.

1. Los Angeles Plays Itself 

Movie/Los Angeles/architecture buffs have been waiting for the moment that Los Angeles Plays Itself, Thom Andersen’s famed meditation on the depiction of Los Angeles in the movies, would go on general release. Well, this month it does; the remastered, HD, 3-hour documentary made up of clips from around 200 movies in which L.A. (a contraction the director detests, by the way) plays subject or character, will be screened at Cinefamily for a week starting September 4. In October the film becomes available on DVD and online. On Tuesday’s DnA, Thom Andersen shares why he is bothered by the portrayal of classic Modernist houses as pads for bad guys, and other observations.

When: September 4-11, 2014

Where: Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theatre; 611 N Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles

Tickets: $12; Free for members. Click here for tickets.

ani kasten

2. Ani Kasten Featured at Heath Ceramics

Ceramic artist Ani Kasten returns to the Los Angeles showroom of Heath Ceramics to to exhibit pottery that she describes as an exploration of “the meeting point between natural and man-made worlds. The shapes and surface treatments take their influence from plants, water, rocks and clay, as well as from architecture, industry and machinery.” 
The public is invited to a reception with the artist on Saturday, September 6; her show, Ani Kasten: In The Rough runs through October 5, 2014.

When: September 6, 2014 6:00-8:00 PM; her show, Ani Kasten: In The Rough runs through October 5, 2014.

Where: Heath Ceramics; 7525 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles

Tickets: Free, but RSVP here.

Click here for more information.

dunbar hotel

3. Heidi Duckler: Dancing at Dunbar

Heidi Duckler’s dance troupe has performed in gas stations, laundromats, corporate towers and private homes. Now they are heading to the former heart of the Los Angeles jazz scene on Central Avenue: the Dunbar Hotel, once host to legends such as Langston Hughes, Louis Armstrong and Paul Robeson. Now it is part of Dunbar Village, an affordable, residential complex for seniors owned by Thomas Safran & Associates. Dancing at Dunbar will entertain residents and then the public in a new performance based on Life’s Tragedy and Sympathy, two poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar, the hotel’s namesake. 

When: September 6, 2014 8:00 PM

Where: 4225 South Central Avenue, Los Angeles

Tickets: Click here for tickets.

Click here for more information.

Jantjes - untitled

4. African Cosmos: Stellar

When “African Cosmos: Stellar Arts” first appeared at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, the New York Times described it as an exhibition packed with celestial bodies and patches of darkness sending forth light” that is broadly “about the extent and persistence of cosmological consciousness in art, old and new, from the African continent. . .and. . . a bold demonstration of a more specific reality: In Africa art and science, including astronomy, have always intersected.” Now the exhibition has come to LACMA and will show works including ancient Egyptian sculpture, traditional Dogon masks of Mali, Yoruba divination instruments from Nigeria, and creations by contemporary South African artists..

When: From August 24- November 30, 2014

Where: LACMA Hammer Building, Level 3; 5905 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles

Tickets: Exhibition included in General Admission.

Click here for more information.

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5. MAK Center Artists and Architects-in-Residence

Twice annually the MAK Center offers a six-month residency to two artists and two architects and invites people to see the product of their engagement with Los Angeles and each other’s disciplines in the Schindler-designed, MAK owned Mackey Apartments. Their 38th group hales from Denmark, Vienna, Shanghai, London and Venice, CA: Pradeep Devadass & Sushant Verma, Maria von Hausswolff, Peter Jellitsch, and Björn Kämmerer. Come see their work — and the Mackey Apartments — at a reception this Thursday.

When: Opens September 4, 2014, runs until September 7, 2014

Where: Mackey Apartments, 1137 S Cochran Ave, Los AngelesCA 90019

Tickets: Free and open to the public.

Click here for more information.

And don’t forget to listen to this week’s DnA: