Upcoming
The Polyphony Quartet is composed of Arab and Jewish musicians from Israel whose work aims to promote cultural exchange and understanding through music. They will perform pieces representing Israel’s diverse communities as well as a composition by Dmitri Shostakovich, whose works transcended the political division of the Cold War.
Inna Faliks, a renowned pianist and the head of UCLA's piano department, presents a program that explores, through music, Mikhail Bulgakov's iconic Soviet novel of art, irony, love, religion, and Faustian legend, The Master and Margarita. Faliks will perform the world premiere of two compositions that celebrate the novel and have been composed especially for this evening: Maya Miro Johnson's Satan's Ball, and The Master and Margarita suite for piano by Veronika Krausas. The premieres also reflect on a painting by Stanislav Molodykh in the Wende Museum’s collection that references the famous Soviet novel. The program will also include Liszt's Piano Sonata in B Minor, an epic Faustian work.
We can only learn from history if we remember it. But how do we decide what to remember? What materials are ignored by museums, archives, and libraries, and get lost forever? When does memory become an unbearable burden, weighing us down instead of enriching our perspective?
wasteLAnd presents music driven by collective action and creation, both in the act of composition and in community-based realization. The program features world premieres by Richard Barrett and Nicholas Deyoe in addition to radical works by Raven Chacon, George Lewis, Pauline Oliveros, Sarah Reid, and Wilfrido Terrazas. These works explore degrees of improvisation, highlighting the necessity of communal action and negotiation in these collective creations while also reflecting on grassroots political collectivism.
Nueva Canción: Songs of Protest and Resistance is a new, music-based multimedia event created by Sandra Powers and Timur, and performed by the glam rock band Timur and the Dime Museum. Produced by Beth Morrison Projects, the concert is rooted in the Latin American song movement that began in the 1960s and criticized political oppression and spurred sociopolitical change. These songs told multilayered stories about unequal distribution of wealth, corrupt politics, and abuses of power, evolving from folk to incorporate electronic, classical, and rock influences. Nueva Canción focuses on the songbook of Mercedes Sosa, the driving force behind the movement. In addition, Timur’s memories of being raised under communism and then witnessing the collapse of the Soviet Union will provide a personal perspective on the complexity of political regimes.
The twentieth century has seen the devastating effects of a blind belief in ideological blueprints, from fascism and national socialism to “real existing” socialism. But can we survive without utopian ideas? How much dreaming is needed to shape our world?
Dog Star Orchestra is an ensemble and a once-a-year festival of experimental music, started in 2005 by composer Michael Pisaro as a way of playing recent experimental music by young composers and classic pieces from the experimental tradition. Described as “messily exceptional” by the Los Angeles Times, Dog Star events happen throughout the Los Angeles area and often feature offbeat performances in out-of-the-way places, alongside more traditional concert settings. Dog Star Orchestra is one of the main presenters fostering and documenting the strong local experimental music scene, as well as presenting work that would otherwise not be heard in the U.S.
Medea: controversial archetype of female strength and passion from the East. In the years before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, East European writers and painters often turned to ancient mythology to express their discontent with authoritarian rule. Their interpretations of mythological figures like Medea, Cassandra, and Penthesilea were crucial in shaping contemporary images for women, and sometimes they were straight-up punk. Working under the radar of the accepted art establishment, the artists in this exhibition provoked, protested, played with fire, and experimented while refusing socialist and bourgeois stereotypes. The Medea Insurrection pairs countercultural women artists from Cold War-era Eastern Europe with contemporary subversive women artists from Southern California. Organized in collaboration with the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, and guest curator Susanne Altmann.
The twentieth century saw a constant struggle between media propaganda and media disclosures, top-down and bottom-up counter-narratives. How does twenty-first-century social media fit in this pattern? Has it contributed to the democratization of knowledge or to a stronger filtering and framing of reality? Why has “fake news” become a serious competitor to “real” news? And how to differentiate between the two? In Search of Our Times is a six panel discussions presented as part of Wende Conversations: A Discussion Series Supported by Susan Horowitz and Rick Feldman.
Globalization is all about the free flow of people, goods, capital, and ideas, but more than ever states are encapsulating themselves, closing their borders and hesitant to recognize immigrants as part of the nation. Why are border crossings, both physically and culturally, conceived as a threat? What motivates the current worldwide tendency toward exclusion? In Search of Our Times is a six panel discussions presented as part of Wende Conversations: A Discussion Series Supported by Susan Horowitz and Rick Feldman.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. What is its current role and status? Is it still possible to believe in universal human rights, even if they are constantly challenged at home and abroad? Has postmodernism eroded the belief in universal ethics? How could we restore ethics in politics? The six-panel discussions are presented as part of Wende Conversations: A Discussion Series Supported by Susan Horowitz and Rick Feldman.
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 Höpker and Harald Schmitt’s very different approaches to East German life, culture, and society.
With their colorful surfaces and clear-cut symbols and images, flags and banners are effective carriers of unambiguous messages. At parades, party conventions, and demonstrations they convey a sense of political purpose and group identity. In the communist countries, flags symbolically represented the various organizations, institutions, and collectives that were considered the pillars of society. However, flags and banners can take on other, countercultural meanings as well. In the late 1980s, political dissidents cut out the socialist symbols at the center of the East German, Hungarian, and Romanian national flags. In this exhibition, the Wende Museum’s unique collection of Soviet Bloc flags will be paired with contemporary artwork, showcasing a wide range of uses for this medium.