Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Museums' Joint Deal Lands Robert Mapplethorpe Archive in Los Angeles

Filed under: Art

The work of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe will have a new home in Los Angeles. The J. Paul Getty Trust and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) have jointly acquired thousands of art and archival materials associated with Mapplethorpe. A release states that the vast majority of the acquisition comes in the form of a generous gift from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation while the rest was from funds provided by The David Geffen Foundation for LACMA and the J. Paul Getty Trust. The world has been rediscovering Mapplethorpe lately in the wake of the memoir "Just Kids" by rock legend Patti Smith, who recently won a National Book Award for the book which celebrates her creative and personal relationship with Mapplethorpe.

This move makes Los Angeles the center for the study of Mapplethorpe's work. The LA Times reports that the works were appraised at more than $30 million. The archives includes a print of virtually every photograph he editioned in silver gelatin, a large number of Polaroid works and unique works, artworks by Mapplethorpe's contemporaries and personal correspondence. Among the treasures is Mapplethorpe's 1978 film Still Moving featuring Patti Smith. The archive also documents the debate surrounding the homerotic nature of some of his work with media materials covering the NEA, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, and The Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center controversies that arose shortly after the artist died in 1989. Those dramatic news events were part of what has become an ongoing discussion on the role of artistic freedom in publicly funded exhibits.

Tags: art photography, Getty museum, lacma, lifestyle, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, patti smith, RObert Mapplethorpe

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BMW Art Cars go on tour to LA, New York and Mexico

by Noah Joseph (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos, Events, Art

In 1975, BMW racing driver Hervé Poulain got the idea to invite an artist to paint his car. American artist Alexander Calder answered the call, giving birth to the BMW Art Car project, which has attracted the participation of some 16 renowned artists from around the world to use BMW automobiles as their canvas. The vehicles are housed in BMW's museum in Munich, but have been known to travel sporadically; their latest tour brings four of the most famous examples to North America. The Art Car creations of Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein (pictured above), and Robert Rauschenberg are on display now at the BP Entrance to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art until February 24, before they head to the east coast to be displayed at New York's Grand Central Terminal from March 24 until April 6 and then southward to three locations in Mexico. The rolling works of art will be accompanied by a video documenting the history of the project and the artists at work, which you can view after the jump along with the images in the gallery below.

Gallery: BMW Art Cars

Andy Warhol, Art Car, 1979 - BMW M1 group 4 racing version

Roy Lichtenstein, Art Car, 1977 - BMW 320i group 5 racing version

Frank Stella, Art Car, 1976 - BMW 3.0 CSL

Robert Rauschenberg, Art Car, 1986 - BMW 635 CSi

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Tags: Andy Warhol, AndyWarhol, art car, ArtCar, automotive art, AutomotiveArt, bmw, bmw art car, BmwArtCar, Frank Stella, FrankStella, lacma, los angeles county museum of art, LosAngelesCountyMuseumOfArt, Robert Rauschenberg, RobertRauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, RoyLichtenstein

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100 Years of Vanity Fair Portraits

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Books

Graydon Carter and the editors of Vanity Fair have just published a book of photographs spanning 100 years of the magazine: Vanity Fair: The Portraits, A Century of Iconic Images (Abrams, $65). At 348 pages, the book contains over 100 color and 200 black-and-white photos of personalities ranging from Picasso, Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn to Julia Roberts, Giorgio Armani and Brad Pitt, by the world's most famous photographers. An accompanying exhibition will open at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Oct. 26 and will run through the 1st of March.

Tags: Celebrities, Giorgio Armani, GiorgioArmani, Graydon Carter, GraydonCarter, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LosAngelesCountyMuseumOfArt, Magazines, Photography, Vanity Fair, VanityFair

Big Givers: Lynda and Stewart Resnick at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art, Big Givers

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has been the recipient of some big gifts lately by people eager to get their name on the door. First we had the Eli Broad's new building now comes the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion. The Resnicks, who own both the Fiji Water and Pom Wonderful brands will give $45 million for new LACMA pavilion designed by architect Renzo Piano. They will also give about $10 million more in artwork. The LA Times notes that Lynda Resnick has a long history with the museum, she has served on LACMA's board of trustees since 1992 and is chair of the museum's acquisitions committee. The new pavilion is expected to open in mid-2010.

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Tags: fiji water, FijiWater, lacma, los angeles county museum of art, LosAngelesCountyMuseumOfArt, lynda resnick, LyndaResnick, pom wonderful, PomWonderful, stewart renick, StewartRenick