Getty continues its online-accessible series of exhibits and art exploration. Explore the range of online events, podcasts, and articles below.
Our favourite Getty demons
Ghouls, goblins, and ghosts have populated the human imagination since time immemorial. So, this Halloween Getty staffers share their favorite demons in art. See satanic creatures decked out like a “demonic Power Rangers squad”; demons making a possible overcorrection to inhospitable behavior; a scene described as “the 15th-century version of Stephen King”; and more!
Celebrate the scarier characters in the Getty collection
The man who photographed ghosts
William Mumler, a jeweler’s engraver by trade, was goofing around in his friend’s photography studio one day in 1861 when he decided to sneak a selfie using a plate already exposed. The result was a ghostly image so haunting, Mumler circulated it as a gag. When someone at a spiritualist journal considered it proof of the spirit world, demand for his "ghost photographs" exploded and Mumler stumbled into a new career as a medium, taking portraits of living people and “capturing” the spirits of their lost loved ones. The story doesn’t end well, though.
How Mumler duped the rich, profited, and got punished
Why are the galleries so dark?
There’s a reason Getty’s galleries are often dim, and it’s not to give your eyes a break from the bright California sun! Simply put, light can damage art and cause it to deteriorate faster. Colors fade, paper darkens and becomes brittle, and textile fibers degrade. By adjusting the light in the galleries, we can minimize the amount of light exposure each object receives and prolong its life.
Learn how we, and you, can fight the light that hurts artworks
LIZASTRATA ONLINE!
Monday, November 1–Sunday, November 28
If you missed the Getty Villa’s sold-out performances of LIZASTRATA—the Troubadour Theater Company’s mash-up of Liza Minnelli tunes set to a raunchy retelling of Aristophanes’s Lysistrata—watch the show online! Let Halloween’s scary vibe continue as you witness the horror that befalls the long-warring men of Athens and Sparta: their women, sick and tired of all the fighting, go on a sex strike.