Centering the music is the L.A. Phil's strategy going forward, plus reports on California missions and the latest monument controversies in our weekly arts newsletter.
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[Los Angeles Times]
Essential Arts
July 18, 2020
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Greetings from Day 10,875 of the pandemic â in which I have found joy in [television vampires]( and videos about [tamagoyaki-making](. Iâm Carolina A. Miranda, staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, with the weekâs arts and culture â and extra moody filmmaking.
Whatâs next?
Last year, the L.A. Phil was celebrating its epic centennial season. This year, itâs facing a rack of canceled concerts and $90 million in lost revenue. But as Times classical music critic Mark Swed reports, the institution remains [committed to making music](. Key is its support of the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, including the continuation of instruction via online classes; an L.A. Phil radio series on KUSC; a KCET television show of concerts from the Hollywood Bowl archives starting in August, as well as upcoming streamed events that can be accessed from anywhere.
âFor us, nothing has to stopâ says musical director Gustavo Dudamel. âYou have to re-create yourself, do things you have not done. But you also have to do the things you can do, and that means our musicians have to get back and play where it is safe.â
[Gustavo Dudamel and Youth Orchestra Los Angeles celebrate onstage after a concert in 2016.]
Gustavo Dudamel and the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles celebrate onstage after a concert in 2016. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
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Coronavirus and the arts
With some theaters set to be closed into next year, some of Broadwayâs professional organizations are [lobbying Congress for worker support]( â including an extension of Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, which grants an extra $600 a week in benefits.
Some European dance companies are making tentative comebacks â with [a heavy dose of support from the government](.
In the U.S., some dance schools have managed in the age of COVID-19 to hold recitals â [a.k.a. parking lot recitals](. The pictures and video that go with this story are just terrific.
To capture this moment, some museums are [collecting the artifacts of the pandemic](. âWhatever weâre taking to be ordinary within this abnormal moment can, in fact, serve as an extraordinary artifact to our childrenâs children,â says Tyree Boyd-Pates of the Autry Museum of the American West.
On the aesthetic side, New York Times art critic Jason Farago [breaks down the pandemic poster]( released by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo: âa lysergic imitation of a Victorian public reform campaign.â
And responding to another Cuomo initiative in which New Yorkers were asked to create PSAs against the spread of COVID-19, columnist Mary McNamara [turned to Hollywood]( asked, âhey, can we get some decent âwear the damn maskâ PSAs going already?â
A look at the missions
A devastating fire over last weekend engulfed the 215-year-old Mission San Gabriel, destroying the roof and incinerating pews. The Timesâ Gustavo Arellano [reports on the conflicting feelings it has raised](. Though the missions represent grief to indigenous communities, notes professor Deborah Miranda, a member of the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation, they are also important markers of what happened: âWithout them, we donât have this proof that human beings could do this to other people.â
Historian Richard White also grapples [with the complexity of the missionâs history](. âGabrieleños built the mission,â he writes, âand they rebelled against it.â
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Times art critic Christopher Knight has a look at [an important historic image]( of the mission by 19th century photographer Carleton Watkins. âWatkinsâ photograph asserts the essential virtue and reward of work, both for parish and parishioner â even as the backbreaking labors of the indigenous people who were likely responsible for the missionâs actual construction are erased,â he writes. âThe photograph is very much an interpretive document about the building of America.â
[Carleton Watkins sepia photograph of the Mission San Gabriel from the 19th century]
Carleton Watkins, âUntitled (Mission San Gabriel),â circa 1880. (J. Paul Getty Museum)
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Monuments update
After three hours of testimony, the Ventura City Council decided to [take down]( a bronze statue of Junipero Serra, the Franciscan friar who had a key role in developing the mission system.
Earlier this week, British artist Marc Quinn [illicitly put up a statue]( to Black Lives Matter protester Jen Reid on a plinth that once featured a statue of a slave trader. [It was removed]( after just one day.
Kriston Capps has a good piece on why Donald Trumpâs proposal for a garden of heroes is [full of contradictions]( and how it also puts Modernism in the crosshairs.
The National AIDS Memorial has [put all 48,000 panels]( of the AIDS Memorial Quilt online. Hyperallergic has [a report](.
Tuning in
Mark Swed is back with his regular series devoted to listening. This week heâs on to Frederic Rzewskiâs [hourlong variations of the Chilean protest song]( âThe People United Will Never Be Defeated!â (a piece that figured at one of the last concerts at Disney Hall in March). âAn hour spent in such musicâs presence, witnessing a pianistâs epic struggle at the jaw-dropping virtuosity of these variations, absorbing the sheer vastness of Rzewskiâs imaginative and emotional range, is a soul-stirring event,â he writes.
[An illustration of Frederic Rzewski in pink and purple]
American composer and pianist Frederic Rzewski. (Micah Fluellen / Los Angeles Times)
Find Swedâs whole series [here](. (Iâve really gotten into Guillaume de Machautâs âMesse de Notre Dame,â which [he recommended last week](
Which way, L.A.
New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz recently tweeted a query about which L.A. neighborhoods to live in: âEveryone says Silverlake, Echo Park, and Los Feliz are the best places to live in LA. But why not Santa Monica or Venice? Wouldnât u wanna be near the beach if u live in CA?â The innocuous tweet generated [a whole lot of feedback from Los Angeles Twitter](. It was also a beef, writes The Timesâ Daniel Hernandez, âthat revealed deeply entrenched stereotypes that Angelenos harbor about one another, along hard geographical lines.â
Essential happenings
Von Lintel Gallery has [an exhibition of drawings]( by Michael Waugh that centers on a series of four works showing animals plotting against human labor. (2020 does seem like the right year for the great animal uprising.) But Waughâs individual images are not quite what they seem â composed of texts from historically significant books and documents, including Rachel Carsonâs âSilent Springâ and âThe Mueller Reportâ (The showâs title is âFlow My Tears, the Mueller Report Saidâ). The show is on view through Aug. 8. You can see it online at [vonlintel.com]( or in person with an advance appointment.
[An ink drawing shows a horse and carriage approaching a bridge that has been destroyed.]
âA Fable for Tomorrow, dream sequence 1 (Silent Spring, part1),â 2020, by Michael Waugh. (Michael Waugh / Von Lintel Gallery)
Matt Cooper, as always, has [all the online goods]( including a five-episode sitcom-style retelling of Homerâs âOdysseyâ by the Troubadour Theater Company and the 23rd edition of the iPalpiti Festival, which will stream concerts on Saturday and Sunday.
You can find all his listings on The Timesâ [âThings To Do: Arts & Cultureâ]( page.
Passages
Molly Neptune Parker, a master basket maker and tribal elder â and one of the first female lieutenant governors of the Passamaquoddy Tribe â [has died at 81](. Parker was known for her artistry in producing fancy baskets, which developed as a form in the late 19th century â often featuring complex patterns.
Paul Fusco, a photographer who chronicled social issues and the mournful ride of Robert Kennedyâs funeral train, [has died at 89](. Magnum Photos has [a good collection of his work]( which includes coverage of the United Farm Workersâ organizing efforts in 1966.
In other news
â The Center Theatre Group announced this week that poet Dave Harrisâ âTambo & Bonesâ [will have its world premiere]( at the Kirk Douglas Theatre sometime in 2021.
â Gary Garrels has [resigned as senior curator of painting and sculpture]( at SFMOMA after he used the term âreverse discriminationâ in response to a stafferâs questions about the museumâs overrepresentation of work by white men. He is the museumâs fifth senior staffer to depart in recent weeks.
â The Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum at Cal State Long Beach [has acquired]( one of Millard Sheetsâ bank murals from 1977. Its bright bird pattern was inspired by a tunic that Sheets once picked up on a trip to Mexico.
â [A short video]( about what makes the Sheetsâ mural unique.
â The Getty Foundation has announced this yearâs Keeping It Modern grants, [supporting the conservation of Modernist architecture]( and it includes structures in Senegal, Kuwait City and Santiago, Chile.
â Notre Dameâs spire should be rebuilt as it was before fire destroyed it, [says Franceâs chief architect for historic monuments](.
â L.A. Taco has an interesting interview with UCLA social studies chair Eric Avila about [freeways and their troubled legacies of race](.
â David Ulin [reviews the latest]( by graphic novelist Adrian Tomine, âThe Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist,â a work that explores the âdichotomy between how we see ourselves and how we are (or are not) seenâ â and whose stories of isolation couldnât be more perfect for the moment.
And last but not least ...
Speaking of the moment: an Ingmar Bergman movie for your [every quarantine mood](.
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