Events on Friday, December 12

Radars to the Sky w/ Wildbirds & Peacedrums

Music

Radars to the Sky

Friday 12/12 @ Spaceland

Andrew Spitser, the leading force behind Radars to the Sky, follows closely in the footsteps of old-school Cali rockers, walking the... 

Detrimental Disco Wibble Tour feat. Venetian Snares w/ Otto von Schirach, Cyrusrex, NAHA, Schlage, Anon, Baseck, and Binary Field

Music: Electronic

Detrimental Disco

Friday 12/12 @ Knitting Factory

In the world of glitchy electronic experimentalism, Aphex Twin, Luke Vibert, and Autechre tend to garner the lion's share of accolades.... 

Ongoing Events

<em>Xanadu</em>

Theatre

Xanadu

Friday 12/12 @ La Jolla Playhouse

When it comes to '80s nostalgia, Olivia Newton-John guilty-pleasure juggernaut Xanadu has it all: leg-warmers, roller skates, blue eye shadow, men... 

<em>War as a Way of Life</em>

Art: Photography

War as a Way of Life

Friday 12/12 @ 18th Street Arts Center

18th Street wraps up its yearlong, four-part examination of sociopolitical issues with War as a Way of Life. The exhibit includes... 

Mark Bradford: <em>Help Us</em>

Art

Mark Bradford

Friday 12/12 @ Steve Turner Contemporary

Los Angeles painter, installation artist, and (most recently) video artist Mark Bradford has exhibited in some of the world's most prestigious... 

Deborah Aschheim and Lisa Mezzacappa: <em>Earworms</em>

Special Event

Earworms

Friday 12/12 @ Pasadena Museum of California Art

PMCA's Project Room is transformed into a beguiling labyrinth, addressing the elusiveness of memory and the neurobiological basis of thought, via... 

Hans Burkhardt: Paintings of the 1960s

Art

Hans Burkhardt

Friday 12/12 @ Jack Rutberg Fine Arts

In the years bracketing WWII, a great many artists were among those fleeing to US shores from the specter of Nazi... 

Black Market at Black Maria: Skip the Mall

Art

Skip the Mall

Friday 12/12 @ Black Maria Gallery

For the fourth year in a row, Atwater's Black Maria Gallery pursues a simple but powerful idea for the holiday season,... 

William Hundley: <em>Draco</em>

Art: Photography

William Hundley

Friday 12/12 @ Kinsey/DesForges Gallery

Austin-based photographer William Hundley's work intervenes in reality, harnessing his inner trickster with the yoke of labor-intensive production. His staged and... 

2008 California Biennial

Art

2008 California Biennial

Friday 12/12 @ Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach

The 2008 installment of the California Biennial should come with an anxiety-attack warning label. In a way, it does, with Patrick... 

<em>All of This is Melting Away</em>

Art

All of This is Melting Away

Friday 12/12 @ Royal/T

Director of New York's Greene Naftali Gallery, Jay Sanders steps into cafe/shop/gallery Royal/T to curate this group show of works from... 

Ken Roht's 99&cent; Only Calendar Girl Competition

Theatre

99¢ Only Calendar Girl Competition

Friday 12/12 @ Bootleg Theater

Bargain-hunting beauty queens and dollar store Don Juans convene as Bootleg Theatre pays homage to LA's kitschy holiday headquarters. The 99¢... 

<em>Mexican Calendar Girls</em>

Art

Mexican Calendar Girls

Friday 12/12 @ California Heritage Museum

Glamor gets deep and classic at the California Heritage Museum's Mexican Calendar Girls, opening with a Cinco de Mayo reception. The... 

<em>Were the World Mine</em>

Film

Were the World Mine

Friday 12/12 @ Laemmle's Sunset 5

If High School Musical graduated its teenage actors from cliché-school scenarios, it could look a lot like Were the World Mine.... 

ARMSROCK & ELBOW-TOE: <em>Mostly Memory</em> and Jon Todd: <em>Life Sentence</em>

Art

ARMSROCK & ELBOW-TOE

Friday 12/12 @ Thinkspace Gallery

Thinkspace Gallery presents new works by artists whose street-based achievements reveal impassioned stratagems on top of fundamental creative impulses. Conceived in... 

Cindy Wright

Art

Cindy Wright

Friday 12/12 @ Mark Moore Gallery

Influenced by Dutch vanitas of the 16th and 17th centuries, Belgian artist Cindy Wright creates excruciatingly detailed, large-scale portraits and still-lifes... 

<em>Human Resources</em>

Art

Human Resources

Friday 12/12 @ The Company

The economy be damned: amid a spate of gallery closings, it's still full speed ahead for the fearless founders of the... 

<em>Plush</em>

Art

Plush

Friday 12/12 @ Eagle Rock Center for the Arts

Eagle Rock Center for the Arts' new group show, Plush, uses sculpture, video, and drawing to explore the excesses of the... 

George Stoll: <em>sacred and profane</em>

Art

George Stoll

Friday 12/12 @ Lightbox Gallery

In sacred and profane, Los Angeles-based artist George Stoll expands upon his traditional examination of everyday Americana. Objects such as his... 

Nicole Cohen: <em>Please Be Seated</em>

Special Event

Nicole Cohen

Friday 12/12 @ The Getty Center

Nicole Cohen engineers recombinant layers of still and video imagery, investigating the network of associations that interior spaces contain. Also, she... 

Ed Templeton: <em>Map of the Inner War</em> and Matt Leines: <em>The Great Gates of Zenith</em>

Art

Ed Templeton and Matt Leines

Friday 12/12 @ Roberts & Tilton Gallery

In this pairing of one-man exhibitions, Roberts + Tilton's new Culver City digs unleashes an ocean of dense artistic detail. Matt... 

Eddy Sykes: <em>Yakuza Lou</em>

Art

Eddy Sykes

Friday 12/12 @ Materials & Applications

First, there were robot maids, robot pets, and robot vacuums. Now, there are robot gardens. The technical specifications for Materials &... 

<em>Song of Extinction</em>

Theatre

Song of Extinction

Friday 12/12 @ The Ford Theater

[Inside] the Ford's New Plays Series makes use of the intimate theatre under the venue's more familiar outdoor setting during the... 

<em>Within Four Miles: The World of Josh Dorman</em>

Art

Josh Dorman

Friday 12/12 @ Craft and Folk Art Museum

Traditional paper and canvas simply won't do for New York artist Josh Dorman, who employs vintage maps and textbook diagrams as... 

1st Los Angeles Taiwanese Film Festival

Festival: Performing Arts

LA Taiwanese Film Fest

Friday 12/12 @ James Bridges Theater

In a city beset on all fronts by micro film festivals, the organizers of the newly minted Taiwanese Film Festival hit... 

<em>Silver Seduction: The Art of Mexican Modernist Antonio Pineda</em>

Fashion/Style

Antonio Pineda

Friday 12/12 @ Fowler Museum, UCLA

World-renowned Mexican silversmith Antonio Pineda brings more than 200 of his masterpieces up the coast to UCLA's Fowler Museum, to show... 

Linda Besemer: <em>Sine, Sine, Everywhere a Sine</em>

Art

Linda Besemer

Friday 12/12 @ Angles Gallery

Linda Besemer produces the kind of art that provokes people to solve the mystery of how she does it. Without divulging... 

David McDonald: <em>Minor Monuments</em>, Annie Wharton: <em>Pungent Glimmer</em>, and Jason David: <em>Hubris Cream</em>

Art

David McDonald, Annie Wharton, and Jason David

Friday 12/12 @ Jail Gallery

Essentially three concurrent solo shows, this trio of installations by LA artists shares impulses ranging from gentle mockery to intellectualized deconstruction,... 

Enrique Mart&iacute;nez Celaya: <em>Daybreak</em>

Art

Enrique Martínez Celaya

Friday 12/12 @ LA Louver Gallery

Cuban-born artist Enrique Martinez Celaya's oil-and-wax paintings and mixed-media sculptures offer a rare combination of vigorous, pre-Raphaelite style and pensive, academic... 

Ismail Farouk: <em>Cancelled Without Prejudice</em>

Art

Ismail Farouk

Friday 12/12 @ MAK Center for Art and Architecture

Johannesburg-based urban geographer and artist Ismail Farouk offers a multimedia overview of his recent work in the second installment of the... 

Art

Human Rights: Student Voices

Friday 12/12 @ Pasadena Central Library

Art Center College of Design students direct their communications prowess towards human rights, presenting 25 emotionally-charged pieces that straddle the line... 

A Grand Guignol Children's Show *not for children

Performing Arts

Grand Guignol

Friday 12/12 @ Art/Works Theatre

For the first half of the 20th century, Le Theatre du Grand Guignol in Paris reigned as the predominant purveyor of... 

Cole Case: <em>When We Did Believe in Magic and We Didn't Die</em>

Art

Cole Case

Friday 12/12 @ Western Project

A new series of paintings by LA-based Cole Case, When We Did Believe in Magic and We Didn't Die is best... 

<em>The Little Dog Laughed</em>

Theatre

The Little Dog Laughed

Friday 12/12 @ Kirk Douglas Theatre

Hollywood and homophobia share the bill in The Little Dog Laughed, a comedy about Tinseltown hypocrisy and the veil of lies... 

<em>Scrooge Must Die!</em>

Theatre

Scrooge Must Die!

Friday 12/12 @ The Actors' Gang Theatre

Written and directed by the Actors' Gang's own Angela Berliner, Scrooge Must Die! offers an X-rated reading of Charles Dickens' classic... 

The Bob Baker Marionette Theater presents <em>The Nutcracker</em>

Performing Arts: Puppetry

Bob Baker presents The Nutcracker

Friday 12/12 @ Bob Baker Marionette Theater

In the early '60s, Bob Baker and partner Alton Wood founded a marionette theater, establishing what has become the longest-running children's... 

Vermeer's <em>A Lady Writing</em>

Art

Vermeer's A Lady Writing

Friday 12/12 @ Norton Simon Museum

It's not often that Angelenos have the chance to examine an original painting by Dutch Baroque master Johannes Vermeer. His surviving... 

<em>Tango with Cows: Book Art of the Russian Avant-Garde</em>

Art

Tango with Cows: Book Art of the Russian Avant-Garde

Friday 12/12 @ The Getty Center

In Tango with Cows, the Getty Research Institute presents a concentrated display of unabridged books published in Russia between 1910 and... 

Sasha Bezzubov & Jessica Sucher: <em>The Searchers</em>

Art

Sasha Bezzubov & Jessica Sucher

Friday 12/12 @ Taylor De Cordoba Gallery

In the '60s and '70s, the Beatles led an exuberant parade East, inspiring throngs of Westerners to follow in a search... 

City Gems

Scribble Press

Friday 12/12 @ Scribble Press

Technically, Scribble Press is for children, but if you behave yourself, you can use the impressive bookmaking emporium — complete with... 

Louise Bourgeois

Art

Louise Bourgeois

Friday 12/12 @ Museum of Contemporary Art

Louise Bourgeois' deeply personal art combines an in-your-face sexuality with disturbing, even terrifying, imagery of trespassed flesh and violated privacy. Yet... 

Face of the World Festival 2008

Festival: Performing Arts

FOTW 08

Friday 12/12 @ Los Angeles Theatre Center

For the second year in a row, the New LATC concocts an enthralling admixture of theatre, dance, and performance that brings... 

<em>The School of Night</em>

Theatre

The School of Night

Friday 12/12 @ Mark Taper Forum

Peter Whelan's latest work, The School of Night, cleverly glides between the modes of traditional murder mystery and avant-garde theatre. As... 

Martin Kersels: <em>Heavyweight Champion</em>

Art

Martin Kersels

Friday 12/12 @ Santa Monica Museum of Art

The Santa Monica Museum of Art hosts LA artist Martin Kersels' first retrospective, Heavyweight Champion, drawing from 13 years of his... 

GOOD December

Festival: Performing Arts

GOOD December

Friday 12/12 @ GOOD Space

Everyone wants to be a better person, but no one wants to forgo art, music, or great food in the process.... 

<em>The Art of War: American Posters from WWI and WWII</em>

Art

The Art of War

Friday 12/12 @ Norton Simon Museum

When searching for a means of drumming up support for World War I, officials in Washington didn't have to look much... 

Hernan Bas

Art

Hernan Bas

Friday 12/12 @ Sandroni Rey

Fascinated by homo-eroticism and inspired by mythology and classic fiction, Miami painter Hernan Bas' tableaux present an enchanted world of roaming... 

At the Brewery Project 1993-2007: the Finale

Art

At the Brewery Project

Friday 12/12 @ Armory Center for the Arts

With At the Brewery Project: 1993-2007: the Finale, the Armory pays its respects to an LA art mainstay. For the past... 

Michael Kenna: <em>Recent Photographs</em> and Pam Posey: <em>Timber</em>

Art: Photography

Michael Kenna and Pam Posey

Friday 12/12 @ Craig Krull Gallery

Photographer Michael Kenna is a technical whiz, a classicist with a flair for the dramatic. His sweeping black-and-white landscapes depict vistas... 

Holly Coulis:<em> Men</em>

Art

Holly Coulis

Friday 12/12 @ Cherry and Martin

Whatever outfit they sport, leisurely activity they pursue, or unearthly landscape they inhabit, Coulis' men are never revealed as themselves (and... 

<em>In Focus: The Landscape</em>

Art: Photography

In Focus: The Landscape

Friday 12/12 @ The Getty Center

Art's love affair with landscapes was captured with brush strokes until technology gave way to the click of the shutter. In... 

Evan B. Harris: <em>Maritime & Mythology</em> and Catherine Ryan

Art

Evan B. Harris and Catherine Ryan

Friday 12/12 @ Cerasoli-LeBasse Gallery

This month, Cerasoli-LeBasse Gallery presents a pair of exhibitions depicting imaginary lands, pairing the work by Evan Harris in the main... 

<em>Fortuna Rising: Gordy Grundy is the Messenger</em>

Art

Gordy Grundy

Friday 12/12 @ Western Project

The Fellowship of Fortuna (and its "messenger," LA painter and media artist Gordy Grundy) takes up residence on Western Project's website...