DnA goes on the road, participating in forums featuring some fascinating design thinkers, starting with DIEM on Friday in West Hollywood, then on Sunday a conversation with DJ Waldie and others at Rancho Los Alamitos. And on Tuesday at LACMA’s DADC, design watchers and curators talk about what’s defining LA design now. All free, or nearly free to the public!
1) DIEM
You have heard Bianca Bosker, Charles Phoenix, Mallery Roberts Morgan, Marissa Gluck, Ray Azoulay and Patricia Lanza on past DnA shows. Now meet them in person at DIEM, the West Hollywood Design District’s day of panels and parties, taking place tomorrow, Friday November 8.
They will be part of a terrific line-up of guests taking part in discussions about key concerns of the art and design community, such as: What should designers do in the face of rampant copying? What makes photography art in the age of the instantaneous smartphone pic? Is LA’s art gallery scene becoming less democratic? How does Mr. Turk (AKA Jonathan Skow) “balance sexuality and tastefulness in social media?”
Weho showrooms and galleries — Rose Tarlow, Woven Accents, Niche, Poliform, Christopher Guy, Leica — are hosting the talks and the entire day is FREE to the public, but RSVPs are recommended.
By the way, the image above left is not of a shadow puppet, rather it is yours truly in full public speaker mode, snapped by reporter Abigail Stone at a preview for DIEM, held last night at the new Wall Street Gallery on Robertson Boulevard in West Hollywood. There, against a backdrop of work by Mr. Brainwash, DIEM sponsors Caesarstone showed off four art-design pieces they had commissioned, by Martyn Lawrence Bullard, Jamie Adler, Robert Kuo and DSI Entertainment Systems.
2) Rancho Los Alamitos Conversations in Place
The Olmsted Brothers – Vision, Power-Politics & Priorities over Time
D.J. Waldie is considered by many to be an unparalled voice of Los Angeles, with a deep knowledge of the region’s history and a poetic way of expressing it. Sunday at Rancho Los Alamitos near Long Beach (its Oleander Walk is shown right), he will join RLA Director of Special Projects Claudia Jurmain moderate a discussion about the future of L.A.’s built environment, based on an understanding of its past, specifically the ambitious and never built plan by the Olmsted Brothers, “to enhance Los Angeles County’s natural beauty and to also, protect its cultural assets and fragile ecologies, by linking the mountains to the beaches through scenic parkways and a necklace of open space across the region.”
I’ll be joining a line-up of speakers that includes USC History Chair William Deverell; Director, UCLA Urban Center for People & the Environment, Stephanie Pincetl; Environmental Journalist Jon Christensen; Architect Alan Pullman and Adaptive Reuse Developer Tom Gilmore.
When: Sunday November 10, 1:00-4:00 PM
Where: The Rancho is located at 6400 Bixby Hill Road in Long Beach.
Tickets: $15, click here or call 562.431.3541.
Free parking and a continuous handicap-accessible shuttle service is available nearby at California State University Long Beach’s Lot 11A located on Palo Verde Avenue at Rendina between Atherton and Anaheim Street beginning at noon. Early arrival is recommended.
3) LACMA Design and Decorative Arts Council
Cultural Crossroads—Contemporary Design in L.A.
Los Angeles is its usual hotbed of design and creativity, but if one was to define specific trends that speak to our time and place, what would they be? LACMA’s Design and Decorative Arts Council will ponder the question Tuesday, November 12, when DnA’s Frances Anderton chats with curators and arbiters of design: David A. Keeps (design journalist, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and Hearst publications), Coryander Friend (founder and curator, Parachute Market; left is an image from the first Parachute, whose theme was psychodelia), Maura Lucking (writer and publisher, RAM Publications, and frequent contributor to DnA).
When: Tuesday November 12, 7 PM
Where: Brown Auditorium, LACMA
Tickets: Free for Decorative Arts and Design Council members and students with ID; $15 LACMA members; $20 general admission | Tickets: 323 857-6010 or purchase online