At dusk on October 31, Halloween night, SMMoA and hosts Susan and Leonard Nimoy welcomed hundreds of fantastically-attired party-goers to The Halla Gala. SMMoA Trustees, donors, artists and featured designers, dressed as their secret selves and enjoyed the magical setting.

Halla Gala event photos by Stefanie Keenan

Susan and Leonard Nimoy
Photo by Brian Cahn/ ZUMA Press

Artists Edgar Arceneaux and Alexandra Grant with designer Mike Niemann discuss their collaboration on the Love House for the Watts House Project (WHP). WHP is an artist-driven, collaborative redevelopment project between residents, artists, and architects to find creative solutions to everyday problems facing te Watts Towers community. 

Audio by artist Nicole Cherubini.

In her first West Coast Museum exhibition, artist Nicole Cherubini presents new sculptures that reference the history of clay as a medium and feature forms made of terracotta, earthenware, and porcelain and surfaces arrived at through various hand-built, thrown and molded processes. New forms are accompanied and supported by materials such as wood, MDF, 2x3s, digital photographs, metal, glaze, enamel, and drawing materials.

Introduction by Kim Schoenstadt to Tell Me Something Good: A Collaboration between Kim Schoenstadt and Rita McBride.  

Inspired by the conceptual art exhibition Art By Telephone (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1969), in which participants phoned in their specifications for their works of art, artists Kim Schoenstadt and Rita McBride exchanged instructions to create their respective artworks in their first two-person U.S. Museum exhibition. 

 

Introduction by Rita McBride to Tell Me Something Good: A Collaboration between Kim Schoenstadt and Rita McBride.  

Inspired by the conceptual art exhibition Art By Telephone (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1969), in which participants phoned in their specifications for their works of art, artists Kim Schoenstadt and Rita McBride exchanged instructions to create their respective artworks in their first two-person U.S. Museum exhibition. 

Audio by Kim Schoenstadt: Instructions to Rita McBride

McBride was asked by Schoenstadt to choose a discarded drawing from her studio and load it into a fax machine, then ask the Gallery to fax the floor plans of their proposed exhibition space. The combination of interposed drawing and architectural plan provided the final composition.

 

 

Audio by Rita McBride: Instructions to Kim Schoenstadt.

McBride instructed Schoenstadt to photograph all of the gas stations along California Highway 1 between Los Angeles International Airport and Point Dume.

Allen Ruppersberg: a short film on the SMMoA exhibition, You and Me or The Art of Give and Take. Featuring the artist and guest curator Constance Lewallen.

Film by Footnote Pictures

A conversation between Allen Ruppersberg and Christophe Cherix, curator of prints and illustrated books at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Introduction by Constance Lewallen, guest curator of Allen Ruppersberg: You and Me or The Art of Give and Take and Adjunct Curator at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

Audio by Allen Ruppersberg about creating new work.

Audio by Allen Ruppersberg about creating posters using Colby Printing Company. Colby posters are distinctive in look and often used to promote concerts in and around Los Angeles.

Audio by Allen Ruppersberg about collecting ephemera.

Audio by Allen Ruppersberg about where he finds his ephemera.

Audio by Allen Ruppersberg about drawing for The Gift and the Inheritance.

Audio by Allen Ruppersberg answering the question "Who is Al Reed?"

Audio by Allen Ruppersberg about humor in his work.

Audio by Allen Ruppersberg about interactivity in his work.

Audio by Allen Ruppersberg about The Never Ending Story, Part 2.

SMMoA's annual fundraiser Incognito (filmed in 2008)

Incognito 2009: Saturday, May 2

 

Introduction by Khalif Kelly about his work, his experiences, and his exhibition at the Santa Monica Museum of Art.

Introduction by Jeni Spota about her work, her experiences, and her exhibition at the Santa Monica Museum of Art.

Trevor Schoonmaker, curator of Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool, Paintings 1964-2007, talks about the artist and his work.

Audio courtesy of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

Richard J. Powell, writer, historian, and John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University, talks about the artist and his work.

Audio courtesy of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

Audio by Barkley L. Hendricks.

Audio courtesy of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

Audio by Trevor Schoonmaker, curator of Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool, Paintings 1964-2007.

Audio courtesy of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

Audio by Richard J. Powell, writer, historian, and John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University.

Audio courtesy of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

Audio by Thelma Golden, curator and executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Audio courtesy of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

Audio by Richard J. Powell, writer, historian, and John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University.

Audio courtesy of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

Audio by Barkley L. Hendricks.

Audio courtesy of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

Writer and historian Richard J. Powell explores the history of portraits of people of African descent in paintings, photographs, graphic arts, and cinema as it relates to the work of Barkley L. Hendricks. Powell is the John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University. He is the author of Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture (2008, University of Chicago Press).

Artist Mickalene Thomas in conversation with Lisa Melandri, SMMoA Deputy Director of Exhibitions and Programs. 

The High School for Recording Arts (HSRA) in St. Paul, Minnesota was established in 1996 by acclaimed rap artist and music producer David (T.C.) Ellis and Tony Simmons. The extraordinary success of the HSRA education model is a testament to how the arts can be a catalyst for transformation, and even save lives.

Oedipus in Ethiopia: Further Reflections on the Sacred Stravinsky Across an 18-year Collaboration

Esa-Pekka Salonen and Peter Sellars in conversation.

Introduction by Arnold Mesches about his work, his experiences, and his exhibition at the Santa Monica Museum of Art.

left: Coming Attractions 5, acrylic on canvas, 2006

Introduction by curator Meskerem Assegued.

 

Introduction by curator Meskerem Assegued.

Artist Elias Sime, Ethiopian anthropologist and curator Meskerem Assegued, and visionary artist Peter Sellars discuss Eye of the Needle, Eye of the Heart and the process and poetry of Sime's work. 

Co-curator of Elias Sime: Eye of the Needle, Eye of the Heart, Meskerem Assegued, translates "Meet Elias Sime."

From left to right: Meskerem Assegued, Elias Sime, Peter Sellars

Artist Elias Sime introduces himself in Amharic

 

Elias Sime describes his process for making art and his use of a variety of materials.

Translation by Meskerem Assegued.

Elias sime describes his process for making art and his use of a variety of materials.

Elias Sime talks about the use of selechas (goat skins) in his work.

Translation by Meskerem Assegued.

Elias Sime talks about the use of selechas (goat skins) in his work.

Elias Sime talks about the use of mud and straw in his work.

Translation by Meskerem Assegued.

Elias Sime talks about the use of mud and straw in his work.

 

Elias Sime talks about the practice of stitching in his work.

Translation by Meskerem Assegued. 

Elias Sime talks about the practice of stitching in his work.

Elias Sime talks about the use of wood and the practice of carving in his work.

Translation by Meskerem Assegued

Elias Sime talks about the use of wood and the practice of carving in his work.