The museum presents programming and examines conservation issues from around the world
Performances and Film
The rich performance and film schedule includes dance, music, film, video, and spoken word. Friday nights at the Getty is free. Contemporary performance series feature an eclectic mix of music. Selected Shorts presents actors from stage, screen, and television reading classic and new short fiction.
Gordon Getty Concerts feature world class musicians in performances that complement exhibitions at the Getty Center. Sounds of L.A. celebrates the work of masters and up-and-coming musicians reflecting L.A.'s cultural mix and world music fills the courtyards at the Getty Center. Throughout the year, the film series present forgotten classics, crowd favorites, and new discoveries. Occasional screenings of experimental films and videos by 20th-century artists round out the program.
Family Activities
Family festivals, art-making workshops, gallery activities, storytelling and more are offered year-round at the Getty Center. Every summer, hear some of the best children's musicians from across the nation in their free garden concerts for kids series in the Central Garden.
Lectures and Conferences
Free lectures and scholarly programs at the Getty Center explore topics related to the collections and current exhibitions. Conferences, panel discussions, roundtables and symposia cover a range of topics, including 20th-century art and the Los Angeles art scene. Conservation Matters, an occasional lecture series, focuses on conservation issues from around the world.
Gallery Talks and Point-of View Talks
Curator's Gallery Talks are explorations of special exhibitions through the curator's eyes. Point-of-View Talks are an intimate forum for artists, filmmakers and others to share their perspectives on current exhibitions.
Courses and Demonstrations
Gallery courses explore works of art through lectures, close looking and discussion. Studio courses focus on special techniques, such as botanical illustration or manuscript illumination.
Twice a month, the Getty Drawing hour provides guided drawing practice in the galleries or outdoors. Professional artists reveal the secrets of complex techniques at the drop in artist-at-work demonstrations.
Readings and book signings poets, artists and other creative writers offer readings of their work in this occasional series.
About the Getty
The J. Paul Getty Trust is an international cultural and philanthropic institution devoted to the visual arts that includes the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Research Institute, the Getty Conservation Institute, and the Getty Foundation. The Getty Trust and the Getty programs are located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.
Visiting the Getty
The Getty Center is open Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. It is closed Mondays and major holidays.
Admission to the Getty Center is always free. Parking is $7 per car; no reservation required. reservations are required for event seating and groups of 15 or more. Please call (310) 440-7300 (English or Spanish) for reservations and information. The TTY line for callers who are deaf or hearing impaired is (310) 440-7305.
Additional information is available on the Getty Web site at www.getty.edu.
Music Performance and Film
All events are free unless otherwise noted. Seating reservations required; call (310) 440-7300. Reservations currently being taken for all events listed in this schedule except as noted. Notice of cancellation is appreciated. Seating is general admission and reservations for free events are honored until 15 minutes before the start of the program. Doors open 30 minutes prior to the start of the program. Unless otherwise noted, all events take place in the Harold M. Williams Auditorium.
Sounds of L.A.
The celebrated new voice in world music, Colombian-born singer/songwriter Marta Gómez performs original songs and Spanish-language standards that combine the rhythms of Latin America with jazz and pop elements. Limit of four seats per reservation.
Marking Time
Visually arresting and often humorous film and video art from the 1970s to the present is screened in conjunction with the Getty Research Institute’s research theme “Duration” and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions’ “Marking Time” exhibition.
Friday Nights at the Getty “Suspending Time: Sound and Image” (Screening) Preeminent structural filmmakers appear at a screening of their films to discuss how they have developed a cinematic language using motion, space, light and the tensions of the fixed frame; presented in collaboration with the Skirball Cultural Center to complement its “Einstein” exhibition.
“Suspending Time: Sound and Image” (Concert). Filmmakers and musicians Michael Snow and Tony Conrad perform solo concerts exploring aspects of “spontaneous composition” and sonic environments. Presented in collaboration with the Skirball Cultural Center to complement its “Einstein” exhibition.
Family Activities
Explore the arts of the East at this day of merriment and imagination featuring Japanese “taiko,” folk music of China, classical Indian dance, and hands-on workshops. Complements the exhibition “Imagining the Orient.”
Storytelling
A Storyteller presents a gripping tale of one man’s journey from his homeland in Africa to Europe, inspired by Francis Harwood’s “Bust of a Man.” Sign up at the museum information desk the day of the program.
Art Adventures for Families
Their one-hour tours for children (ages five and up) and adults to enjoy together feature a fun, activity filled visit to the galleries. Sign up at the museum information desk beginning at 1:30 p.m. Offered in English and Spanish.
Every Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m., museum galleries
Lectures and Conferences
Thomas Crow, director, the Getty Research Institute, discusses the grand public canvases on which Jacques-Louis David built his reputation and the later, more intimate works of his exile period. Complements the “David” exhibition, which will be open until 9 p.m. for this event.
“The Power and the Glory: David and the Arts of Fashion from Empire to Exile.”
“Leonardo da Vinci: Studies of the Brain and Soul.”
Urban designer Rahul Mehrotra discusses the challenges of conservation in a bewildering urban landscape, where modernity and tradition co-inhabit the same space.
“Global Icons” Lydia Haustein of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin lectures in connection with the Getty Research Institute research theme, “Duration,” to investigate new cultural representations in the context of what she calls “visual globalization.”
Gallery Talks and Programs
Artist-at-Work Demonstrations
Drop by as artist explores painting techniques used by Jacques-Louis David, from his foundation in the French Academy to the distillment of his own artistic vision. Complements the “David” exhibition.
Curator’s Gallery Talks Point-of-View Talks
Leo Braudy, author of “Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History” and Bing Professor of English, University of Southern California, discusses heroes and fame in relation to the “David” exhibition. Sign up at the Museum Information desk, beginning at 4:30 p.m. the day of the talks.
Getty Drawing Hour
Enjoy the tradition of sketching from original works of art. An art instructor provides general guidance; all you need to bring are drawing pads and pencils. All experience levels welcome.
Museum Galleries
This premiere presentation is the first major survey of the work of Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748-1825) in America, and the first to concentrate on his career after the French Revolution, a period marked by a move away from radical politics, his association with Napoleon and the Empire, and his exile, in Belgium from 1816 until his death in 1825. This international loan exhibition, co-organized by the Getty and the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, features some 60 paintings and drawings.
Drawn from the special collections of the Research Library at the Getty Research Institute, this exhibition surveys sketchbooks and related prints that young artists produced at the French Academy in Rome between 1750 and 1800. It considers the methods by which these students, including architects and painters Marie-Joseph Peyre, Jacques-Louis David, Louis Gauffier, and Charles Percier, attempted to generate a new classical aesthetic based on their interpretations of the city’s ancient, Renaissance, and Baroque art and architecture complements the exhibition “Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile.”
“All the Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852-1860.”
This international touring exhibition is the first American survey of the work of one of the most important 19th-century photographers, Roger Fenton (British, 1819-1869).
In a career that lasted only 10 years, he produced a body of work that, with its diversity of subject, poetic content, and polished execution, represents one of the greatest achievements in the history of photography. Featuring about 90 works from the Getty and other collections, the exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the J. Paul Getty Museum, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
“A Revolutionary Age: Drawing in Europe, 1770-1820”
From 1770 to 1820 artists responded to the social, political, and intellectual currents of the day by reinterpreting classical subjects in a variety of styles, from the spare and sculptural manner of Neoclassicism to the energetic drama of Romanticism. This exhibition highlights drawings by Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Benjamin West, and Francisco José de Goyay Lucientes, exploring their efforts to reinvigorate the classical tradition. Complements the exhibition “Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile.”
“The Making of Furniture” Ongoing
Illustrates the design and craftsmanship involved in the production of an 18th-century French marquetry table, intricately veneered with elaborate floral patterns and framed with gilt bronze mounts.
The original table is displayed with three copies in different stages of construction to illustrate the process.
