5 Design Things To Do This Week

Your week in design events from DnA.

1. Carla Fernandez: The Future is Handmade! Exhibition & Vintage Mexican Clothing and Booksigning at Decades

An exhibition of couture and ready to wear clothing, as well as textiles and housewares by Carla Fernández, an evangelist for harnessing the handcrafting skills of her native Mexico with contemporary form, opens this weekend in downtown LA.

Curated by Renee Zellweger (not the actress) of San Francisco’s Summerschool, “The Future is Handmade!” includes work by other Mexican artists and, in Fernández’ words, “presents the realm of possibilities, by shifting the historical boundaries between craft, design, folk art and contemporary art. What’s old is new again.”

In addition to the exhibition, Cameron Silver will display “Carla’s personal curated collection of Mexican vintage handcrafted clothing” at his Melrose store Decades and Fernandez will sign copies of her book “The Barefoot Designer: A Handbook.”

‘The Future is Handmade!’ Exhibition in Downtown LA

When: September 12 — Opening Event 4-7PM; Sunday September 13– 10AM to 6PM. The exhibition continues: September 14 – 28th. Mondays closed. Tuesday-Friday 11AM to 6PM. Saturdays/Sundays By Appointment

Where: Red Desert, 850 S Broadway, Ste. #600; LA, CA 90014; (213) 438-0676

Vintage Clothing and Booksigning at Decades

When: Friday September 11, 4-7PM Book Signing.The vintage collection is available until September 28: Monday-Saturday 11AM to 6PM; Sunday 12 to 5PM

Where: DECADES, 8214 Melrose Avenue, LA, CA 90046; (323) 655 1960

Tickets: Free and Open to the Public

Click here for more information.

2. Opulent Mobility

How you ever gone to a medical devices store and been struck by just how grim, grey and clinical all the products look? That was how artist A. Laura Brody felt when her partner had a stroke and she was thrown into the world of assisted mobility.

Her belief that dependency shouldn’t mean loss of beauty has lead to ‘Opulent Mobility,’ an exhibition of art, designs and inventions by 19 artists including Brody, dealing with, and reflecting on, disability and mobility. Read DnA’s interview with Laura here and check out more of the amazing exhibits.

When: September 9 – September 19, 2015; Mon-Sat 12-4 pm., Thursdays 12-8 pm. Artist Reception:  Saturday, September 12 4-8 pm.

Where: West Gallery, Art and Design Center, Cal State University, Northridge

Tickets: Free and open to the public.

Click here for more information.

3. Frank Gehry

Retrospective of the prolific and hugely transformative LA-based architect comes to LACMA after a first outing at the Pompidou Center Paris.

Entitled, simply, Frank Gehry, the exhibition of models, drawings and interviews spans his work from the early 1960s in Paris through to Gehry’s newest project in LA, the development on Sunset Boulevard. But don’t expect any master plans for the LA River! Listen up to this DnA for an interview with Christopher Hawthorne about the exhibition.

 When: September 13, 2015–March 20, 2016

Where: Resnick Pavilion, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Tickets: Free for LACMA members and for youth (17 and under); $25 for all other visitors. General museum admission is included. Click here for tickets.

Click here for more information.

4. The Princes of Kings Road/R.M. Schindler: The Prequel

The Princes of Kings Road

Austrian-born Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler were contemporaries with a profound influence on the development of LA’s early Modernism. They were also friends and business partners who became bitterly estranged in 1953. . . until 23 years later, when they found themselves by chance in  the same hospital room in Cedars  of  Lebanon Hospital.

What might have transpired between the two ailing men in that hospital room? That’s the fascinating subject of “The Princes of Kings Road,” a new play for Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA by writer/director Tom Lazarus. Starring John Nielsen, Heather Robinson and Ray Xifo and produced by Stevie Stern Lazarus, the play will be performed in the Neutra-designed offices that are now Dion Neutra‘s Neutra Institute and Museum  of  Silver Lake.

Read DnA’s interview with the playwright, Tom Lazarus, here.

When:  Preview: Sept. 11; Performances: Sept. 12-Oct. 4; Fridays at 8 p.m.: Sept. 11 (preview), 18, 25; Oct. 2; Saturdays at 8 p.m.: Sept. 12 (opening), 19, 26; Oct. 3; Sundays at 5 p.m.: Sept. 13, 20, 27; Oct. 4

Where: Neutra Institute and Museum of Silver Lake; 2379 Glendale Boulevard, Los Angeles

Tickets: $25; Call (323) 641-7747 or click here for tickets. 

Click here for more information.

R.M. Schindler: The Prequel; Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, Josef Hoffmann and the Modernist Debates of Early 20th Century Vienna

And speaking of Rudolf Schindler, architecture history buffs shouldn’t miss this exhibition at the MAK Center at the Schindler-designed Kings Road House in West Hollywood. Curated by Christian Witt-Dörring of MAK Vienna, designed by Andrea Lenardin, R.M. Schindler: The Prequel “explores the intellectual climate in Vienna at the time of R.M. Schindler‘s architectural training” and contextualizing “the landmark 1922 Kings Road House as a direct result of the debates playing out in Vienna Modernist circles from 1890-1914, when Schindlerwas a student and young practitioner.”