Past
Join us for special kid-friendly activities all day on Sunday, February 17. Program materials and supplies are free!
Join us for the opening reception of the exhibitions Crumbling Empire: The Power of Dissident Voices and Upside-Down Propaganda: The Art of North Korean Defector Sun Mu.
The Wende Museum will be participating in the SoCal Museums 14th Annual Museums Free-for-All with free admission to a sneak peak of our two upcoming exhibitions.
Music at the Wende: HEAR NOW presents "Civil Disobedience."
This exhibition will address the various layers of mutual suspicion, fear and mistrust between the Soviet Bloc and the Western world, and its impact on the lives of everyday people.
Ballet was part of the high drama of the “culture wars,” as the US and USSR jockeyed for position during the Cold War. The Soviet Union produced some of the greatest dancers the world has ever known, with the Bolshoi and Kirov companies as standard bearers. But there were also painful losses, such as the defections of star dancers Nureyev, Makarova, and Baryshnikov, and the stifling of dance innovation during a time of great creativity in the West. How did the culture wars fit into the larger context of Soviet and American ballet, and the place of dance in Soviet life?
Ella Fitzgerald can be heard singing “Someone to Watch Over Me” as multi-colored acrylic plates display shimmering images of migrant children that change depending on the viewer’s perspective. The portraits are drawn from the series Crossing Identities, a public commission by the Berlin Senate, based on German-Turkish artist. Semra Sevin’s interviews and photographs of children of immigrants in Los Angeles and Berlin.
Come celebrate the exhibitions "War of Nerves: Psychological Landscapes of the Cold War" and "Red Shoes: Love, Politics, and Dance During the Cold War" with remarks by Red Shoes curator and Wende Museum Board Member Thomas E. Backer, PhD. Then, learn about the Wende's exhibitions philosophy in an interactive discussion with Joes Segal (Chief Curator and Director of Programming), Anna Rose Canzano (Exhibition and Programming Associate), and Dany Naierman (Gallery and Special Projects Manager).
Historian and psychoanalyst Daniel Pick will offer a brief A-Z of the "brainwashing" fears and theories that first crystallized during the Cold War. He will also reflect on the continuing relevance of those stories, ideas, and models of the mind in our present dark circumstances.
Please join us on Friday, December 21 for drinks in the garden and an artist flash talk Not My Holiday.
A Holiday Family Screening of "DAS SINGENDE KLINGENDE BÄUMCHEN (The Singing, Ringing Tree)," presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles and the DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Music at the Wende: DELIRIUM MUSICUM Presents "Humor through Turmoil."
In a dynamic discussion, Dagmar Hovestädt, spokesperson for the Stasi Records archive, and historian John Connelly (UC Berkeley) will explore the legacy of the Berlin Wall and the changing role of institutions in addressing and shaping the memory of the “Wende.”
"Every Man Has His Breaking Point": Reagan, Brainwashing, and the Movies (2017) tells the story of Hollywood’s attempt to capture the realities of North Korean indoctrination techniques in the almost-forgotten movie Prisoner of War (1954), featuring future President Ronald Reagan.
During the second half of the twentieth century, one could stumble upon a Marx bust almost anywhere in the world. By the turn of the millennium, when the vast majority of communist nations had given way to capitalism, thousands of these monuments were destroyed, vandalized, or sold. So what remains of Karl Marx in popular representation today? Which monuments are still around, even if completely reinterpreted? How is Marx depicted in today’s films, comics, street art, social media, and even consumer products? And how do these discussions relate to current debates regarding monuments in the United States?
Join scholars Sina Rahmani and Choi Chatterjee, artist Farrah Karapetian, and Wende Museum Chief Curator and Director of Programming Joes Segal for an illuminating discussion of the never-ending story of Karl Marx in the public eye.