The Getty: A world of art, research, conservation, and philanthropy

Labor Is Entitled to All It Creates (detail of photograph of book), Andrea Bowers, 2012. The Getty Research Institute, 3023-849. Courtesy of the artist and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. © Andrea Bowers

ANNOUNCEMENT

Photo by John Atherton, Yale West Campus

Dr. Mary Miller Selected as Next Director of the GRI

Art historian Mary Miller of Yale University has been appointed as the next director of the GRI and will assume her role in January 2019 from Professor Thomas Gaehtgens, who is retiring in May after 11 years at the Getty. Miller was the first woman to serve as dean of Yale College and is currently senior director of the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, a multidisciplinary research center dedicated to uniting scholarship and conservation work. A specialist in the art of the ancient New World, she has also curated exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art and written pioneering texts on ancient Maya art and architecture.

Learn more about Dr. Miller and her distinguished career.

OPENING NEXT MONTH

Artists and Their Books/Books and Their Artists

Opens June 26, 2018 | The Getty Center

This highly visual and experiential presentation of artists' books challenges the idea of what a book can be. Highlighting some of the most lively and surprising artists' books from the GRI's extensive collections, Artists and Their Books/Books and Their Artists focuses on artists' books that can be unpacked, unfolded, unfurled, or disassembled, and emphasizes the essential role books play in contemporary culture as a creative space between traditional books and works of art.

The GRI also recently acquired a number of artists' books that will be featured in this exhibition, including Hollow House (2015) by Timothy Ely, DOC/UNDOC (2017) by Felicia Rice and Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and Farbwechsel (ca. 2013) by Ines von Ketelhodt.

Learn more about all exhibitions and events at the GRI.

CLOSING THIS MONTH

Oase No. 7 (Oasis No. 7), Haus-Rucker-Co (Laurids Ortner, Manfred Ortner, Klaus Pinter, and Günter Zamp Kelp), 1972. Part of documenta 5: Questioning Reality—Image Worlds Today. The Getty Research Institute, 2011.M.30. Photo: Balthasar Burkhard

Harald Szeemann:
Museum of Obsessions

Through May 6, 2018 | The Getty Center

Organized by Swiss curator Harald Szeemann, the fifth iteration of the international art exposition documenta is widely regarded as one of the most significant and ambitious exhibitions of the 1970s. Szeemann included over 200 artists in documenta 5: Questioning Reality—Image Worlds Today, with genres ranging from conceptual and performance art to photorealism, pop art, and light art and space. Szeemann devoted the largest section of the exhibition to what he called "Individual Mythologies," a phrase denoting the visual worlds beyond the confines of styles and movements created by artists featured in the show.

Learn more about Szeemann's work on documenta 5 in the GRI's current exhibition, Harald Szeemann: Museum of Obsessions.

NEW ACQUISITION

LACE 4th Annual St. Valentine's Day flyer (detail), Jeffrey Vallance, 1984. The Getty Research Institute, 2018.M.2. Courtesy of LACE

Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) Records

The records of Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE)—the longest-running contemporary artists' space in the city—paint a dynamic portrait of an institution central to the development of contemporary art in Southern California, from its early days downtown to its more recent years at its current home in Hollywood. The space was instrumental in supporting many artists who later gained wider recognition, including Mike Kelley, Suzanne Lacy, Paul McCarthy, Rachel Rosenthal, and Bruce and Norman Yonemoto, as well as the Chicano artist collective ASCO.

Learn more about this acquisition.

EVENT

Still from Bástyasétány hetvennégy (Singing on the Treadmill), 1974

Gyula Gazdag and Cold War Hungarian Cinema

Film Screenings and Conversation | June 2, 2018 | 7:00 p.m. | The Getty Center

Vera Mijojlic, director of the South East European Film Festival, is joined by award-winning documentary filmmakers Gabor Kalman and Endre Hules to screen and discuss two seminal films by renowned Hungarian film director Gyula Gazdag, A válogatás (1970) and Bástyasétány hetvennégy (1974). The films, which were banned for years due to their hidden provocative messages, feature Gazdag's sharp observation and subtle satire of the regime that ruled Hungary at the time.

These screenings and conversation complement Promote, Tolerate, Ban: Art and Culture in Cold War Hungary, a collaborative exhibition with the GRI at the Wende Museum of the Cold War, on display from May 20 to August 26, 2018.

Reserve a free ticket.

PUBLICATION

Reims on Fire: War and Reconciliation between France and Germany

Thomas W. Gaehtgens

The bombing of Reims Cathedral during World War I caused all social, scientific, artistic, and cultural ties between Germany and France to be severed for decades. What was once a monument to French national history and identity took on new meaning as a martyr of civilization and a symbol of rupture between the warring states, with the resulting battle of words and images stressing the differences between German Kultur and French civilisation. In this book, Professor Thomas W. Gaehtgens, director of the GRI, explores the cathedral's breadth of symbolism; highlights the vulnerability of art during war; and discusses how the destruction of national monuments can set the tone for international conflict, and over time, become a site of reconciliation.

Pre-order this title.