Getty continues its online-accessible series of exhibits and art exploration. Explore the range of online events, podcasts, and articles below.
How are artists' perspectives different across time and place?
In Dialogue, an on-going series of installations in the Getty Museum’s galleries, juxtaposes historical paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts with modern and contemporary photographs to reveal surprising connections. The first iteration places photographs made during the last 50 years by five women from Japan, Mexico, and the United States in conversation with European artworks created before 1900, predominantly by men.
La Surprise: Watteau in Los Angeles
Scenes of courtship, music and dance, strolling lovers, and characters from the commedia dell’arte (the Italian comic theater) were favorite subjects of French painter Jean Antoine Watteau (1684–1721). And his paintings always set a mood, whether playful, wistful, or nostalgic. La Surprise: Watteau in Los Angeles brings together a dozen paintings and drawings from public and private collections in celebration of a recent Getty acquisition, La Surprise.
How many conservators does it take to change a lightbulb?
The Getty Research Institute acquired Flux Light Kit, created in the 1970s by Robert Watts, in 1985; but the piece wouldn't go on view for another 30 years (in the current exhibition Fluxus Means Change: Jean Brown’s Avant-Garde Archive). To get its bulbs working again, Getty conservator Rachel Rivenc embarked on an unexpected journey through a small but enthusiastic community of lightbulb enthusiasts.
Becoming Artsy episode 5: How to Cultivate a Garden
Join host Jessie Hendricks as she tours the Central Garden with Brian Houck, head of grounds and gardens at Getty, and other staff. She learns how to plant a mixed perennial garden bed (consider colors, textures, heights, blooming times, sun and watering needs), and contemplates the garden as a metaphor for life and unexpected change.
A new way to experience art online
Launching this week: MESOPOTAMIA, an immersive digital experience that offers an intimate look at highlights from a recent exhibition at the Getty Villa. Now anyone, anywhere, can explore objects up to 5,000 years old in lifelike detail—close enough, in one instance, to see the bubbles in the glaze of a lion relief that once lined Babylon’s Ishtar Gate.
Crossing the ocean
In this interview, artist Kyungmi Shin talks about the history of cultural hybridity, as well as the visibility and resilience of being a Korean artist. “As an Asian American, I think a lot about dealing with identity in my work, and sometimes I would like to just, as a poet said, ‘write about flowers instead of books,’” she says. “But now I feel an urgency to talk about my heritage and myself in a poetic manner as well.”
Tripping over art history with Tacita Dean
In the vaults of the Getty Research Institute is a lock of sculptor Auguste Rodin’s hair: a thin brown snippet, tied with a white string. It was one of the first things British visual artist Tacita Dean stumbled upon in the Institute’s special collections, prompting a journey that led to her recent artist’s edition and related book, Monet Hates Me. What else did Dean discover during her adventure in the archives?
A recent acquisition adds to the story of medieval Spain
Getty has acquired two leaves from the 13th-century “Pink Qur’an.” Probably produced for a royal or noble patron in either Granada or Valencia, the manuscript’s paper is tinted pink, indicating the attention and cost lavished on a manuscript. “[Dyed paper] made it more sumptuous and more worthy of the divine revelation,” says Linda Komaroff, Curator of Islamic Art at LACMA, where a page from the pink Qur’an is also held.
Our travertine makes music
Did you know that you can “play” the travertine walls at the Getty Center? Becoming Artsy host Jessie Hendricks explains why in this “Secret Musical Stones” extra. Figure out "Jingle Bells" next time you're here?