Past
In response to the increased infection rates of COVID-19 and out of an abundance of caution, we have decided to transition this Friday evening's (January 7) Music at the Wende concert from an in person program to a virtual format.
The planned performance by the San Julian Consort will now be live-streamed via Zoom, beginning at 8 p.m. PST. There will be no in-person viewing options.
Join us this Sunday for the final Family Day at the Wende of 2021. Printed creative sketching activity handouts will be made available at the front desk for young visitors to engage with the exhibitions as they explore.
A program of experimental music from the United States and Eastern Europe will draw a connection between the near-miss nuclear apocalypse of the Cold War era and the present threat of environmental apocalypse.
Join the Wende Museum and USC Annenberg School of Journalism for a screening of the documentary film on GI resistance to the Vietnam War Sir! No Sir! The program will include a discussion and Q&A with David Zeiger, the film’s director; William Short, U.S. Army combat veteran, photographer, and author of A Matter of Conscience; and John Kent, graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and Vietnam combat veteran. The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Kelly Kent, a two-term elected school board member in Culver City and faculty member in the clinical psychology graduate school at Antioch University Los Angeles.
Please join us to celebrate the opening of our two new exhibitions Questionable History and Soviet Jewish Life: Bill Aron and Yevgeniy Fiks with refreshments, programs, and tours of the exhibition!
In conjunction with the opening of the exhibition Soviet Jewish Life: Bill Aron and Yevgeniy Fiks, join us for a special conversation on the Soviet Jewry movement with views from both sides of the Iron Curtain.
The series of (mostly) peaceful revolutions that took down the Berlin Wall effectively ended state socialism in Eastern Europe, and brought not just a political but also a material transformation. Countless people who lived through socialism discarded the household and consumer items they had lived with and loved or hated for many years, as they finally had access to higher-standard goods. This exhibition presents the metamorphosis of household and consumer goods from objects of everyday life to items in a museum collection, by way of flea markets, and invites contemporary artists to position them in the here and now.
Proving that photography is no more “objective” than any other medium, two photographers with the same mission offer very different views of East Germany. Through reports published by Stern, unpublished photographs, and documents and photos from the Stasi archives (both photographers were closely monitored by the East German secret police), this exhibition highlights Thomas Hoepker and Harald Schmitt’s very different approaches to East German life, culture, and society.
Celebrate the closing of our current exhibitions Transformations and See Thy Neighbor by joining the final guided tour led by Joes Segal, the Wende Museum's Chief Curator and Director of Programming, and Michael Balot-Garza, the Wende Museum's Education Manager. The tour will be followed by a reception in the garden.
Join us in the Wende Garden for a DIY Matryoshka doll painting activity prior to the closing of the current exhibitions.
What Happens Next is a play created with, for, and about veterans and their loved ones, inspired by stories shared by the military community in San Diego. Written by Naomi Iizuka and directed by Michael John Garcés, the play explores the complexities of sacrifice and resilience of people who have served and sheds light on what they carry into their civilian lives. The cast combines Cornerstone and guest artist actors with military veterans onstage. This performance will be presented outside in the garden of the Wende Museum.
Why does The New York Times describe Everything Now as "the perfect book about Los Angeles"? Find out directly, during an in-person talk with Rosecrans Baldwin, the author of this exhilaratingly new understanding of the United States' most confounding metropolis. This conversation with Baldwin and Gustavo Arellano is a must for Angelenos and urban thinkers interested in new perspectives of the city they inhabit and work in.
This event is in partnership with the AIALA. RSVP required for this event, along with proof of vaccination.
POSTPONED: The 50th Cold War Spaces lunchtime talk with Hilke Wagner, Director of the Albertinum, Dresden, Kathleen Reinhardt, Curator of Contemporary Art, Albertinum, Dresden, and Joes Segal, the Wende’s Chief Curator and Director of Programming.
Join us in the Wende Garden for the latest Family Day artmaking activity: Woven Ideas. Taking inspiration from the concept that hopes and wishes have greater strength in numbers, Woven Ideas invites participants to contribute to an outdoor, collaborative art installation by weaving fabric strips decorated with calls for a better future.
Top Secret! is a 1984 action comedy film that parodies various film styles such as musicals starring Elvis Presley, spy films of the Cold War era, and World War II films. This screening is presented as part of the summer screening series, Seeing Red: Cold War Blockbusters of the 1980s.