Woody Woodpecker & The Avant-Garde
September 22 - November 20, 2016
Amidst the turbulence of the Second World War, fine artists, animators, filmmakers and musicians found a sense of freedom and unexpected sources of inspiration in Los Angeles. The American Contemporary Gallery in Hollywood was a gathering place for a creative community that came to see the latest art exhibition and attend weekly screenings of classic and avant-garde films. Among the attendees was a young director named Shamus Culhane, who began to experiment at Walter Lantz Productions, bringing surprising avant-garde artistic references and film techniques into mainstream animated Woody Woodpecker films. The results brought Woody Woodpecker to his peak as a brazen character, embodying the shifting tenor of early 1940s cartoons.
Young Contemporaries 2016
April 14 - May 7, 2016
Each spring, current LMU art students are invited to enter Young Contemporaries and to have their work judged by two professionals from Los Angeles' art world. The Laband's annual juried student show features works of art in all the disciplines taught in LMU's art program including drawing, printmaking, photography, sculpture, painting, ceramics, graphic design, and new media. The exhibition provides an excellent professional experience for students and celebrates the amazing creativity brewing in LMU's art department. Generous support for the exhibition is provided by The Friedman Family in memory of Andrea Kingaard Friedman '66 and by the Souther California Metal Arts Society.
From Clay to the Cloud: The Internet Archive & Our Digital Legacy
January 23 - March 20, 2016
From Clay to the Cloud explored the basic human impetus to preserve our cultural heritage. Using the Internet Archive as a case study the exhibition asked questions about the past, present, and future of archiving. Twenty years ago, the Internet Archive took on the challenge of creating a digital repository-a 21st-century Libarary of Alexandrea-where swaths of our lives from the Internet and other sources will be stored for generations to come. Featured in the exhibition were Nuala Creed's ceramic portraits of many of the archivists working at the Internet Archive. Hands-on displays offered visitors the opportunity to dive into the vast "storerooms" of the Internet Archive. The exhibitions asks what do we lose and gain from digitizing materials that were originally in a different format and what will our cultural legacy be for the future?