PST

Hilton Kramer

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 04:41:00 GMT

Museum director and educator Henry Hopkins speaks with art critic and essayist Hilton Kramer.

This interview originally aired April 18, 1987 on KUSC.

John Cage biographer Franz van Ossum

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:56:00 GMT

Dorothy Crawford speaks with John Cage biographer Franz van Ossum about the composer's life in Los Angeles in the 1930s. Cage was born in Los Angeles in 1912.

Rachel Rosenthal and Elyse Grinstein

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:11:00 GMT

Rachel Rosenthal (b. 1926) is an interdisciplinary performer who developed a revolutionary performance technique that integrates text, movement, voice, choreography, improvisation, inventive costuming, dramatic lighting and wildly imaginative sets into an unforgettable "total theater" experience. In the last twenty-five years of her performing career she presented over 40 full-scale pieces nationally & internationally.

Born in Paris of Russian parents, Rosenthal studied art, theatre and dance in Paris and N.Y. after the war with such teachers as Hans Hoffmann, Merce Cunningham, Erwin Piscator and Jean-Louis Barrault. She moved to California in 1955 where she created the experimental Instant Theatre, performing in and guiding it for ten years. She was a leading figure in the L.A. Women's Art Movement in the 1970's, co-founding WomanSpace, among other projects. During that period, her focus split between the performing and visual art world, she created and exhibited her ceramic sculptures.

In 1989, she founded The Rachel Rosenthal Company, a non-profit organization, to work collaboratively with artists from other disciplines and pass on the legacy of her pioneering form of spontaneous collaboration (the DbD "Doing by Doing" technique) through her Company's theatrical productions and performance workshops.

She has toured extensively in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia. Rosenthal has taught classes and workshops in performance since 1979, in her LA studio as well as around North America and Europe.

In 2000 she was honored by the City of Los Angeles as "a Living Cultural Treasure of Los Angeles" and, in 2001, was the recipient of the Award of Merit for Achievement in the Performing Arts from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP). Retired from the stage in 2000, Rosenthal resumed a long dormant career in visual art and is currently working in oil and watercolor. In addition to her work in the visual arts, Rosenthal is Artistic Director of a new ensemble of performers who present evenings of Total Improvisation one weekend a month in her studio space, along with guest artists from the world of visual art and music.

Elyse Grinstein is an architect and owner of Gemini GEL, a publisher of limited edition art prints based in Los Angeles.

This interview originally aired on KUSC on July 4, 1987

Mel Powell

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:07:00 GMT

Mel Powell (1923 - 1988) began his musical life as a prodigious jazz artist, working as pianist and arranger with the Benny Goodman Orchestra and later, the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band. Soon, however, a strong compositional instinct prompted his matriculation at Yale University, where he studied with Paul Hindemith. Under Hindemith, and throughout the late 1940s and 1950s, Powell composed primarily in a neoclassic style producing such works as the Cantilena Concertante for English horn and orchestra, Divertimento for violin and harp, and Trio for piano, violin and cello.

In 1959, Powell's musical personality blossomed and the influence of Webern was manifested in a brevity of forms and transparency of textures. An innovative and consistently adventurous musical style embraced experimentation with extended string techniques and invented notations (as in the Filigree Setting for string quartet), musical blocks of chords, pitch sequences, rhythms, and colors (represented in Modules: An Intermezzo for chamber orchestra), and tape and electronics (such as in the song cycle Strand Settings: Darker). Duplicates: A Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1990 and illustrates Powell's meticulous craftsmanship and singular skill at assembling richly expressive yet intricately complex musical structures.

Powell was one of the instrumental founders of the California Institute of the Arts. He served as dean of the music school from 1969 to 1978, and, at the time of his death on 24 April 1998, he held the Roy E. Disney endowed chair in music composition. Powell received awards and commissions from Sigma Alpha Iota, the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the NEA. Among his final works were: the Piano Trio '94; the Sonatina (for solo flute) and the Sextet, premiered in 1996 by the California EAR Unit; the song cycle, Levertov Breviary, premiered in 1997 by soprano Judith Bettina and pianist James Goldsworthy for Harvard University's Fromm Foundation; and Seven Miniatures -- Women Poets of China, a work for harp and voice premiered at New York's Merkin Concert Hall in October 1998 by Susan Allen and Anne-Lise Berntsen. (from G. Schirmer)

Interview originally aired January 5, 1992 on KUSC

Bella Lewitzsky

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:58:00 GMT

Bella Lewitzsky (1916 - 2004) was a modern dancer, choreographer and noted teacher.

The interviewer, Irene Borger, is a writer, teacher, and director of the Alpert Award in the Arts.

Lewitzky was born to Russian immigrant parents in Llano del Rio, California. Her family later moved to San Bernardino, where Lewitzsky studied ballet. In 1934, she joined Lester Horton's company, later becoming its lead dancer, and where she was instrumental in the development of the Horton Technique.

In 1946, Lewitzky founded Dance Theater of Los Angeles with Horton. Dance Theater of Los Angeles was one of the few institutions in the United States to house both a dance school and theater under the same roof. She left the company in 1950 to pursue an independent career.

She choreographed several films, and in 1966, founded the Lewitzky Dance Company (later renamed Bella Lewitzky Dance Theatre). Under her artistic guidance, the company became one of the leading international modern dance companies. She received many awards including honorary doctorates from the California Institute of Arts (1981), Occidental College (1984), Otis Parsons College (1989), and the Juilliard School (1993).

Ms. Lewitzky served on the dance panel of the National Endowment for the Arts and on the California Arts Council and was the recipient of the Dance Magazine Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Tiffany Award, the National Medal of Arts, the Capezio Award and, in 1989, the first California Governor's Award for Lifetime Achievement.

This interview originally aired on KUSC on October 1, 1988

Peter Shire

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:19:00 GMT

Peter Shire (b. 1947) is an artist. He was born in the Echo Park district of Los Angeles, where he currently lives and works. His sculpture, furniture and ceramics have been exhibited in the United States, Italy, France, Japan and Poland; Shire has been associated with the Memphis Group of designers, has worked on the Design Team for the XXIII Olympiad with the American Institute of Architects, and has designed public sculptures in Los Angeles and other California cities. Shire has been honored by awards for his contribution to the cultural life of the City of Los Angeles.

Hunter Drohojowska-Philp writes about art, architecture, and design. Her book Rebels in Paradise: The Los Angeles Art Scene and the 1960s was published by Henry Holt in July 2011.

Interview originally aired August 6, 1988 on KUSC

Terry Wolverton, Betty Ann Brown and Cheri Gaulke

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:58:00 GMT

Woman's Building - 15th Anniversary Celebration, hosted by Ruth Weisberg, artist and professor at USC.

Terry Wolverton is a literary artist and author. In 1976, she moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman's Building. Terry spent the next thirteen years working and creating at the Woman's Building where, in addition to producing performance and literary art, she was also instrumental in the Lesbian Art Project, the Incest Awareness Project, the Great American Lesbian Art Show (GALAS), and a White Women's Anti-Racism Consciousness-Raising Group. At the time of this interview, she served as the nonprofit organization's Executive Director. She is currently adjunct faculty in the M.A. in Arts Management program at Claremont Graduate University.

Betty Ann Brown is an art historian, critic and curator. After moving to Los Angeles in the late 1970s, her interest shifted from ancient Latin American art to Chicano art and, ultimately, to contemporary art in general. She was president of the board of the Los Angeles Woman's Building in 1985-86. Brown has curated several major exhibitions, including “Fierce Beauty: The Art of Linda Vallejo,” Plaza de la Raza, Los Angeles, Summer 2010; “Brilliant Paintings & Amazing Ceramics,” Sylvia White Gallery, Ventura, Spring 2010; “Hans Burkhardt,” Cal State Northridge in Fall 2008; “Echoes,” an exhibition of twelve women artists who address environmental issues. She is currently working on a retrospective exhibition for performance artist and painter John White (Pasadena Armory Center for the Arts, Spring 2011.) Brown is a Professor of Art History at California State University, Northridge.

Cheri Gaulke is an artist who works in a variety of media. In 1975, she moved to Los Angeles to be involved with the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman’s Building. There she embraced the notion that feminist art could raise consciousness, invite dialogue, and transform culture. She worked primarily in performance art from 1974-1992, addressing themes such as religion, sexual identity, and the environment. In addition to her solo work, she cofounded collaborative performance groups Feminist Art Workers (1976-81), which merged feminist art and education techniques into interactive performances; and Sisters Of Survival (1981-85), who wore nun’s habits in the spectrum of the rainbow and presented their anti-nuclear performances in Europe and the U.S. Though Gaulke has moved away from performance, the feminist art strategies that she helped to innovate in the 1970s in Southern California continue in her work. Her art continues to be a vehicle for social commentary and as a way to tell the stories of individuals and groups under-represented in society.

Interview recorded 3/4/1989

Beatrice Wood

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:20:00 GMT

Beatrice Wood (1893-1998) was not only a prominent, studio potter, artist, and writer, but also a key figure in the modernist movement, whose nickname was the “Mama of Dada”. Her rich and colorful life spanned the course of the 20th century, and included many of its most innovative figures: Edgar Varese, Man Ray, and Marcel Duchamp were all close friends during her years in Paris and New York, when she did some professional acting. She moved to Ojai in 1948 to be near the Indian philosopher, Krishnamurti, and was a member of the Theosophical Society for the rest of her life. Not long before her death in 1998, nine days after her 105th birthday, Beatrice Wood liked to say that she owed her longevity to "chocolate and young men." This KUSC interview, a part of USC’s Sheila Tepper Archive, was recorded in 1993, in honor of her centenary. An exhibit entitled “Beatrice Wood: Career Woman—Drawings, Paintings, Vessels and Objects” is running at the Santa Monica Museum of Heart through March 12, as part of Pacific Standard Time.

Interview Recorded on 3/7/1993

Walter Hopps

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:18:00 GMT

A native of Eagle Rock, California, maverick gallery owner, curator, and museum director Walter Hopps (1932-2005) founded the groundbreaking Ferus Gallery in West Hollywood in 1957, creating a vibrant hub for those who made and collected modern art. They included Hopps’s business partner, Ed Kienholz, whose “assemblage art” used pieces of used cars and even garbage. Also Ed Ruscha, who created a stir by painting words and signs on canvas. Hopps went on to become the first director of the Pasadena Museum of Art, now the Norton Simon, where he mounted the first overview of American Pop Art. He later helmed Washington’s Corcoran Gallery and served as curator of the Smithsonian National Collection of 20th Century American Art. But he disdained the federal bureaucracy and returned to Los Angeles, telling a friend that working at the Smithsonian “was like moving through an atmosphere of Seconal.”

Interview Recorded on 12/26/1987

Ray Eames

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:16:00 GMT

Bernice Alexandra "Ray" Eames was born in Sacramento in 1912. In 1933 she graduated from Bennett Women's College in Millbrook, New York, and moved to New York City, where she studied abstract expressionist painting with Hans Hofmann. She was a founder of the American Abstract Artists group in 1936 and displayed paintings in their first show a year later at Riverside Museum in Manhattan. Eames met her future husband Charles Eames at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan in 1940 and they married the next year. Ray and Charles settled in Los Angeles, opened a design office where they worked designing furniture, houses, monuments, exhibitions, textiles and toys. The couple took advantage of the newest materials and technology to create cost-effective production. In Ray’s words, “what works is better than what looks good. The looks good can change, but what works, works.” Ray Eames died in Los Angeles in 1988.

Interview Recorded on 8/27/1988