performance - SMDP (Page 12)

Music that is mostly missing

Whenever I visit another country, I seek out church concerts. The acoustics are amazing and the settings are inspiring. Santa Monica’s First Presbyterian Church on Second Street rivals any city’s cathedral with its stunning stained glass art, welcoming brick courtyard and architecturally contemporar

By Sarah A. Spitz

/ 22 Mar 2012

Leveling the playing field for purchasing art

BERGAMOT STATION — Incognito, now in its eighth year at Santa Monica Museum of Art (SMMOA), is recognized as one of the most innovative and successful museum fundraiser/art sales anywhere in the art world.

By Sarah A. Spitz

/ 17 Mar 2012

Leveling the playing field for purchasing art

Art walks, crawls and even rolls

It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime moment. There I was at 4:30 a.m. on Saturday as the 340-ton boulder — soon to be installed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as land artist Michael Heizer’s “Levitated Mass” — rolled down Wilshire Boulevard and posed for its photo opp in front of the museum.

By Sarah A. Spitz

/ 15 Mar 2012

Meeting up at the market

THIRD STREET — Michael McCarty is a man on a mission. It’s not enough that he’s one of the leading progenitors of contemporary cuisine, that he’s a great art collector, that he has not one but two of America’s most celebrated restaurants (Michael’s Santa Monica, Michael’s New York), that he received

By Sarah A. Spitz

/ 10 Mar 2012

When food becomes art

“If music be the food of love, play on!” — William Shakespeare L.A. Chamber Orchestra (LACO) is always thinking of ingenious new ways to get audiences interested in chamber music.

By Sarah A. Spitz

/ 8 Mar 2012

Ocean Park art in Orange County

Richard Diebenkorn put Santa Monica’s Ocean Park on the map the world over. Every major museum owns at least one of the iconic paintings in his “Ocean Park Series” — only two own more than one.

By Sarah A. Spitz

/ 1 Mar 2012

Placido goes baritone

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the 1960s, but there’s a peace, love and reconciliation theme, though bittersweet, that resonates as I continue to think about “Simon Boccanegra,” the current Los Angeles Opera production at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

By Sarah A. Spitz

/ 23 Feb 2012

Meditation on art and motherhood

Women artists are finally getting some due lately (better lately than never?), with surrealists at LACMA, L.A. artists Claire Falkenstein and Ruth Weisberg opening this Saturday at Jack Rutberg Gallery on La Brea (Weisberg will be present); and earth artist/cosmic conceptualist Lita Albuquerque’s ga

By Sarah A. Spitz

/ 16 Feb 2012

Discovering the arts

In January, Santa Monica Daily Press editor Kevin Herrera reported that, “The League of California Cities and the California City Manager Foundation are featuring Santa Monica in their ongoing ‘Strong Cities | Strong State’ campaign highlighting local government success stories across California.

By Sarah A. Spitz

/ 10 Feb 2012

Playing the chutzpah card

Alan Dershowitz, the controversial Harvard professor, wrote a best-selling book in 1991 entitled “Chutzpah.” In Yiddish, chutzpah is defined as “insolence, gall and effrontery.

By Jack Neworth

/ 30 Oct 2009