This week, you can: see "gráfica de las Américas" at MOLAA; celebrate the lives and dreams of Iranian teenage girls; discuss the role of design in building the Los Angeles we want to be; appreciate Lydia Kallipoliti's closed world prototypes; and ogle Guo Pei's extraordinary dresses.
1) Gráfica América
Curated by Gabriela Martínez, MOLAA Curator of Education and Rogelio Gutiérrez, Professor of Printmaking at Arizona State University - School of Art, Gráfica América celebrates the collaborative spirit of printmaking. Featuring works by artists representing print shops, publishing houses, and artist collectives from throughout the United States, México, Central America, South America and the Caribbean, the exhibition presents historical prints and publications as well as contemporary traditional and experimental works made in collective studios and workshops established by Latin American and Latinx printmakers. You can learn more about what's happening at MOLAA here.
When: Exhibition runs through Sept 1
Where: Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), 628 Alamitos Ave, Long Beach 90802
Tickets: General Admission $10; Students and Seniors $7; Members and children under 12 Free
Farima Malekmadani's work found a universality to what girls want, despite drastically different circumstances2) Unexposed Wishes of Teenage Girls in Iran (exhibition) + The Girls (documentary film)
If you give a girl a camera and a notepad, she might just dream of a different future. Filmmaker Farima Malekmadani and her team traveled to provincial cities across Iran to expand the imaginations of young girls beyond their real and perceived limitations. Through photography and writing, the girls were given the freedom to demonstrate their visions in any manner they chose. This exercise in free-form creativity resulted in a magnificent array of visual expressions that depict not only their existing realities and perceptions of their limitations, but also their inspirations and dreams for their futures, the likes of which they may have never before considered. On March 5th, coinciding with International Women's Month, the Laemmle Monica will present the exhibition Unexposed Wishes of Teenage Girls in Iran along with a screening of the accompanying documentary film The Girls. The event will start with the screening, followed by a photo exhibition. Come share in the conversation around the status of women, their rights and their long-term desires.
You can watch the trailer here.
When: Tuesday, March 5, 7 - 10 pm
Where: Laemmle Monica Theatre, 1332 2nd St, Santa Monica 90401
Tickets: $30; you can get tickets here.
Plus, you can join the Farhang Foundation for a daylong Nowruz (Iranian New Year) celebration on Sunday, March 10th, starting at 12:00 at UCLA's Dickson Court, 445 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles, CA 90095. You can read more about the day's festivities and get tickets for the evening performances at Royce Hall here.
The discussion will take place at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre adjacent to Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1921 Hollyhock House
3) (Re)Designing LA: Is There an LA Sensibility? Place and Politics in Los Angeles Design
Los Angeles’ first-ever chief design officer, Christopher Hawthorne is asking a lot of questions about how design can best serve our city: How best to promote innovative design that addresses climate change; how can design mitigate the displacement of neighborhood culture and architectural history that comes with placemaking and gentrification; and what exactly is a Los Angeles design sensibility in a city that is rapidly changing and means so many different things in so many diverse communities.
Leading the discussion to address these questions at the first in a series of Hawthorne's (Re)Designing LA initiative (year 4) will be Los Angeles City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson (to discuss the Destination Crenshaw initiative), artists Rosten Woo, Janna Ireland and Ruben Ochoa, architect Frederick Fisher, Helen Leung, Elizabeth Timme, Christopher Torres and others.
Other events in the series include Strange Beauty: Making Sense of the L.A. architecture of the 1980s and 1990s (March 27 at MoCA's Ahmanson Auditorium) and Turn Off the Sunshine: Shade as an Equity Issue in a Warming Los Angeles (April 17 at Occidental’s Choi Auditorium).
When: Wednesday, March 6, 7 - 9 pm
Where: Barnsdall Art Park Gallery Theatre, 4800 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles 90027
Tickets: Free. Registration required. You can read more about the event and register here.
Buckminster Fuller's Geoscope, one of the 37 prototypes in The Architecture of Closed Worlds: Or, What Is the Power of Shit?
4) Lydia Kallipoliti Week: Book Signing, Exhibition and Lecture
Published by Lars Müller Publishers and Storefront for Art and Architecture, Lydia Kallipoliti's latest book, Architecture of Closed Worlds: Or What is the Power of Shit?, features 37 inventive and unusual prototypes (from her eponymous exhibition) for self-sustaining physical environments, including those from Buckminster Fuller, Jacques Cousteau and Walt Disney. Kallipoliti is an architect, engineer and scholar whose research focuses on the intersections of architecture, technology and environmental politics, and more particularly on recycling material experiments, theories of waste and reuse, as well as closed and self-reliant systems and urban environments. You can RSVP to the book signing and pre-order a book here.
When/Where/Tickets:
The Architecture of Closed Worlds Book Signing, Wednesday March 6, 7 - 9 pm at Archinect Outpost, 900 E 4th St, Los Angeles 90013.
Closed Worlds Exhibition, Thursday March 7, 6 - 9 pm at WUHO Gallery, 6518 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles 90028, and
Lydia Kallipoliti Lecture, Friday, March 8, 6 - 7 pm at Woodbury University Architecture Complex- Ahmanson Main Space, 7500 N Glenoaks Blvd, Burbank 91504. All events are free.
Guo Pei's designs are visual striking and technically exquisite, but not alway easy to wear - and that's fine by her.5) Guo Pei: Couture Beyond
The emperor should have called Guo Pei. For over 20 years, the internationally renowned couturière designer has been creating extraordinary 'costumes' for celebrities, royalty and politicians who want to wear something visually striking and technically exquisite. Guo Pei: Couture Beyond will feature 40 pieces from her boldest shows that underscore the artistic and structural nature of her work. For example, notes from the Paris 2018 runway described her work as having the intention to evoke architecture’s “beauty of strength” via garments that suggest “a dialogue between the human body and spatial dimension,” with references to Gothic churches and flying buttresses. That these dresses push the limits of fashion is exactly what Guo sets out to do, remarking (through a translator) that, “Haute couture, if it’s really interesting, doesn’t have to be close to everyday life; .....it doesn’t have to be wearable like ready-to-wear.” Look, but don't wear, through July 14.
When: Opens Saturday, March 9; Exhibition runs through July 14
Where: Bowers Museum, 2002 N Main St, Santa Ana, CA 92706
Tickets: Adult $15, Seniors and Students $12