This week: browse products by contemporary Mexican designers, see the latest home trends at Dwell on Design, admire ceramic art by Peter Shire and others, discuss the future of preservation in Los Angeles, and explore unrealized film projects by Sergei Eisenstein and Bertolt Brecht.
1) NERO48 Pop Up Store at Vinz on Fairfax
There’s been a lot of buzz around contemporary Mexican design, from clothing and furniture to jewelry and graphic art. Tijuana-based curators Illya Haro and Vero Hernandez are bringing their nomadic design fair NERO48 to Los Angeles for a brief pop-up experience at Vinz on Fairfax. Shop for products by some of Mexico’s most influential design talent, enjoy live music, and attend workshops and lectures presented by artists, designers and chefs. You can buy tickets for your food on site.
When: Saturday and Sunday, April 7-8 from 11 am to 6 pm
Where: Vinz on Fairfax, 950 S Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles 90036
Tickets: Free and all ages (dogs are welcome too). Register here.
2) Dwell on Design 2018
The three-day trade show Dwell on Design returns with more than 2,000 furnishings and products showcasing modern design trends, as well as design consultations with architects and interior designers, and self-guided home tours across the city. See the latest in hot home trends from prefab and tiny homes to smart home products. Pick out the appliances and lighting for your dream kitchen or bathroom, and browse for outdoor furnishings for that back patio. Noted designer Jonathan Adler will kick things off April 5 as the keynote speaker.
DnA host Frances Anderton will join a panel at the Dwell on Design Main Stage on Saturday, April 7 from 1-2 pm called “Architects of Change: How Women Are Disrupting The Status Quo Through Design.” Other panelists include Maryam Eskandari, principal at MIIM Designs; Eve Epstein, vice president of content at Hunker; and Tiffany Brown, construction administration at SmithGroupJJR.
When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. April 5; and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 6 and 7
Where: Los Angeles Convention Center, South Hall, 1201 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles 90015
Tickets: Passes are $40 and up. Home tours, $125. More information here.
3) Ceramics in the Spotlight: Peter Shire and “Making It Work: Production by Design”
Peter Shire, noted local sculptor and ceramicist known for his zany post-modern teapots and his connection to the 1980s Memphis design movement, will be showing some new work at Kayne Griffin Corcoran called “Drawings, Impossible Teapots, Furniture & Sculpture.” We explored Peter Shire’s renaissance on a recent DnA episode.
Shire tells us by email: “The work as always isn’t teapots and chairs, rather about the way we think about teapots and chairs and what struck me is that for me it’s also about how objects can actually be drawings. There are 31 ceramic irrational vitrifications, all done between 2016 and earlier this week. Twenty plus drawings, ranging from 1981 to 2018, including two drawings of Sophia Loren contemplating De Chirico. Four chairs from 2015 that are modeled after chickens, not to mention two new explorations (that’s a way of saying that they are a little different) of the Bel-Air Chair.”
When: On view April 5 – May 12. Opening reception is Thursday, April 5 from 6 to 8 pm.
Where: Kayne Griffin Corcoran, 1201 South La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles 90019
Tickets: Free. More information here.
And head out to Pomona to see “Making it Work: Production by Design” at The American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA). Curated by Jo Lauria, the exhibition complements the current show “Discovering Saar Ceramics” of the work of Richard and Charles Saar. Lauria focuses on ceramics artists that straddle the worlds of fine art and industrial art with their handmade designs. These Los Angeles-based potter/entrepreneurs use social media and online sales platforms to reach a global market. Featured artists include Ana Henton and Mel Keedle of Still Life Ceramics, Ben Medansky, Nobuhito Nishigawara of W/R/F Lab, Peter Sheldon, and Bari Ziperstein of Bzippy & Co.
When: On view April 7 – September 16. Reception on Sunday, April 8 from 2-5 pm with a presentation at 2 pm.
Where: American Museum of Ceramic Art, 399 N Garey Ave, Pomona 91767
Tickets: The reception and presentation are free and open to the public. More information here.
4) The Future of Preservation in Los Angeles: The Next 40 Years
“Los Angeles remains the most photographed and least remembered city in the world,” wrote Norman M. Klein in The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory. Our buildings live on in the movies, if not in real life. The Los Angeles Conservancy was formed in 1978 to help stop the demolition of the Los Angeles Central Library. Four decades later, the group is still fighting the good fight to save local landmarks. What do the next forty years hold in store? As the city moves away from the construction of single-family homes and towards dense multi-family housing towers, what’s worth saving? And who gets to decide?
This panel discussion includes Margaret Bach, founding president, Los Angeles Conservancy; Christopher Hawthorne, former LA Times architecture critic and newly appointed chief design officer for the City of Los Angeles; Luis Hoyos, architect and urban designer, and professor of architecture at the Cal Poly Pomona; and Michelle Magalong, executive director, APIAs in Historic Preservation (APIAHiP). Fourth-generation Angeleno Larry Mantle, host of KPCC’s AirTalk, will moderate.
When: Thursday, April 5 at 6 pm
Where: Los Angeles Public Library, 630 W 5th St, Los Angeles 90071
Tickets: Reservations are $20 for members, $25 for the general public. Get tickets here.
5) “A World Redrawn: Eisenstein and Brecht in Hollywood” at the Velaslavasay Panorama
In 1930, Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein spent six months in Los Angeles under contract with Paramount. A decade later German playwright and theater director Bertolt Brecht, a refugee from Nazi Germany, lived in LA from 1941 to 1947. Both set out to make films in Hollywood on their own terms. Working in the world’s most famous factory of dreams, they believed that artists must call into question the way we understand our world.
In “A World Redrawn,” a project that encompassed an exhibition, a book and three films, Zoe Beloff explores their unrealized film scenarios “Glass House” and “A Model Family in a Model Home” and reimagines them for today. She’ll discuss the project and screen the three films.
“Glass House” is based on Eisenstein’s scenario for a science fiction movie about a world of total visibility that also involves a ruthless robot. “A Model Family in a Model Home” is inspired by Brecht’s notes for a movie based on an article in Life Magazine, in which a farm family win a week’s stay in a model home and everything goes wrong. “Two Marxists in Hollywood” imagines interviews with Eisenstein and Brecht in contemporary Los Angeles, and was filmed in part at the Velaslavasay Panorama.
When: Friday, April 6. Doors 7:30 pm, show at 8 pm
Where: Velaslavasay Panorama, 1122 W. 24th Street, Los Angeles 90007
Tickets: $15 General Admission, $13 for VPES Members. Get tickets here.