Getty continues its online-accessible series of exhibits and art exploration. Explore the range of online events, podcasts, and articles below.
Celebrate Black History Month with art!
Read: Rediscover Black portraiture through opera singer Peter Brathwaite's modern-day recreations
Learn: Find out about abolitionist history through the Google Arts & Culture presentation A Historic Black Rights Protest (story below)
Listen: Explore the legacy of architect Paul Williams in this interview with his granddaughter.
Watch: See photographs documenting protests in the 1960s and other demonstrations of dissent
Poussin and the Dance
Nicolas Poussin was the most influential French painter of the 17th century, and an artist fascinated by dance. Poussin and the Dance (opening February 15 at the Getty Center) will present a selection of the artist’s dancing pictures alongside the antiquities that inspired him. You'll also experience contemporary dance: original films by L.A.-based choreographers Micaela Taylor, Chris Emile, and Ana María Alvarez will play in the galleries and online.
Browse through the accompanying book
L.A. Graffiti Black Book: Petal & Blosm
Meet L.A.-based graffiti artists Petal & Blosm. In this video, Petal tells us how she started writing on walls when she was 13 years old and was only “one girl for every hundred boys” doing graffiti art. “Which is a reflection of society, of what girls are told they can and cannot do.” The artists share other experiences as women in the arts and describe what motivates them.
The dancer who turned everyday life into art
Closing soon: the first-ever retrospective on postmodern dancer and video artist Blondell Cummings. On view through February 19 at Art+Practice, the exhibition (initiated and developed as part of Getty's African American Art History Initiative) presents Cummings’s video archive of both celebrated and rarely seen works, along with interviews and photographs from her life and career.
Learn more about Blondell Cummings
See Cummings in motion: Chicken Soup
A Black lives matter protest, 1850-style
In this presentation on Google Arts & Culture, learn about the extraordinary people who assembled in an apple orchard in 1850, hoping to foster opposition to the proposed Fugitive Slave Act. A daguerreotype photograph small enough to fit in your hand documents the important moment in history and the event's attendees—among them fiery speaker Frederick Douglass, Mary and Emily Edmonson (who had just escaped slavery), and political activist Gerrit Smith.
More about these activists and this pivotal time in U.S. history
Do we know what ancient Romans looked like?
Visit the Getty Villa, and you’ll see a vast collection of portraits: artfully carved busts of ancient Romans. Each portrait was carved for a person who lived 2,000 years ago. But is this really what people looked like? We talked to Jens Daehner, associate curator of Antiquities at Getty, about the visages in the Getty collection and what they tell us about ancient Romans.
Was emperor Augustus here really this young and handsome? The truth about Roman portraits
How a 17th-century woman artist succeeded in a world dominated by men
Artemisia Gentileschi was an acclaimed Baroque painter whose life proved as compelling as her art. She produced several renowned masterpieces, including the painting Lucretia, recently rediscovered and acquired by the Getty Museum. In this podcast episode, scholar Sheila Barker discusses the artist’s extraordinary work and enduring legacy.
Read about how Gentileschi broke the "dark ceiling" for women artists
Meet Fishe
L.A.-based artist Fishe works in secret, painting walls like a masked superhero. While he’s out at night, creating his clandestine work, "it’s a dialogue between, hey, look at me, but don’t look at my face, just look at my work,” he says. Back in his studio, he draws from his Mexican American culture, using sacred geometry, Op art, and more.
Discover Fishe's story and see his work
How African American cemeteries are lost, found, and protected
Centuries-old African American cemeteries are at risk from climate change, urban development, and more. But documenting and recording gravesites increases their chances of survival. Here's how archaeologists, technologists, and trained volunteers are using Arches, an open-source software platform developed by the Getty Conservation Institute and World Monuments Fund, to restore dignity to the deceased.
Collaborating to conserve Indigenous heritage
Indigenous histories and objects are part of thousands of museum collections around the world. Ceremonial garments, everyday household tools, and religious objects are just some of the items that museums, collaborating with members of Indigenous tribes and communities, work to identify, contextualize, and conserve. But what are the best ways to conserve these objects? Do museum conservation practices ever run counter to the wishes of Indigenous communities?