Past
The historic memory of the Soviet Empire, its art and its heroes, ends with the generation born in the mid-1970s. Educated by a generation of teachers who established themselves in the Soviet system, the last generation of Soviet artists process the complex histories of their country. The artist Victoria Lomasko will
Join us for a screening of the documentary film I Am Sun Mu, followed by a Q & A with the filmmaker Adam Sjöberg.
From the 1960s to 1980s, a boom in modernist architecture in the Soviet Union was accompanied by one of the grandest public-art efforts the world has ever seen, with thousands of large-scale mosaics, murals, relief sculptures, and other forms of “monumental art” erected on civic buildings. Specially trained “monumentalists” were sent to the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan to develop a local cadre of artists. Far from the watchful eyes of Moscow, they were able to create fascinating artworks with a touch of the avant-garde. Now, 27 years after the collapse of the USSR, Kazakhstanis are reckoning with a legacy that many associate with a troubled past, while others fight for its preservation.
Music at the Wende: MAYME A. CLAYTON LIBRARY AND MUSEUM Presets Kamau Daáood and A Band of Griots: "Through Walls of Thought and Feeling."
Please join us on Friday, February 22 for drinks and a curator's talk on Humor and Irony in Art.
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.