I'm senior Web writer/editor at the J. Paul Getty Trust and editor of The Iris. What does a Web editor do all day? She writes, creates, revises, and nitpicks text, photos, videos, and other stuff so that it's as interesting, accurate, and easy to find as possible, for The Iris as well as our online exhibitions, visitor section, e-Getty newsletter (sign up!), Flickr stream, Museum Facebook page, and wherever else you might be looking for it.
Do artworks have an inner life? You might think so when you visit a new exhibition opening today at the Getty Center. The Life of Art: Context, Collecting, and Display presents the life stories of four objects made to serve beauty and function, offering you the chance to examine them closely to understand how they [...]
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Do you picture archaeological sites as dry, dusty piles of stones? Meet Peirene, an ancient Greek ruin so tantalizing that archaeologists have literally died for it. Dry and dusty this place is not. The story of the alluring ruin is told in the book Peirene: A Corinthian Fountain in Three Millennia, recently published by the [...]
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Just in time for New Year’s Eve, the unruly figures in James Ensor’s massive painting Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889 have sneaked off the canvas and into bottles across Los Angeles. They’re the cast of characters in a new performance work by French artist Mathis Collins. Mathis was in L.A. last month to exhibit [...]
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Starting tomorrow, a golden Virgin and Child from Duccio di Buoninsegna’s workshop will be adorning the Getty Center paintings galleries (North Pavilion, Gallery 201). Paintings by Duccio are astoundingly rare—there are fewer than 15 in existence, the Maestà in Siena being the most magisterial. Much in demand even in his own day, Duccio had to [...]
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If you’re a parent, you might be wondering whether Pacific Standard Time is safe for tender eyes. It’s true that several PSTinLA shows tear into grown-up themes, from feminist protest to LGBTQ aesethetics, but there are also plenty of ways for pint-sized Baldessaris and Saars to get in on the action. Here at the Getty, [...]
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All of us who work at the Getty are pretty lucky; after all, we spend our days around great art and great people. For Thanksgiving, I asked several folks who’ve blogged on the Iris over the past year to name one thing (or maybe two) they’re grateful for about their work. Here’s what they shared. [...]
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In March, one of the most elegant women at the Museum was forcibly escorted out of the galleries. I was there and saw the whole thing. Princess Leonilla, who’d been on constant view since the Getty Center opened in 1997, was wheeled away (very gently—here is evidence) to make room for a new arrival, J.M.W. [...]
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Accompanying you as you wander the gardens at the Getty Villa are 44 beings in bronze—animals, gods, satyrs, troubled philosophers, athletic youths crouched for action, wild-eyed old men with scraggly beards. These are replicas of ancient Roman sculptures commissioned by J. Paul Getty in the 197os from the Chiurazzi foundry in Naples, Italy, one of [...]
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In ancient Rome, togas were no laughing matter. They were the fashion must-have for all male citizens, but men hated them: they were heavy, made your left arm as useful as a T. Rex’s, and required a team of highly trained slaves to put on and take off. Also, they were made of wool, which [...]
Read more...In the 1960s and ‘70s, L.A.’s art scene arrived. How this came about, and what it was like to be part of the big shift, was the focus of a recent conversation with curators Barbara Haskell, Jane Livingston, and Helene Winer, moderated by Andrew Perchuk, at the Getty Center. (You can see a video of [...]
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