Explore the Era

Delve into the postwar Los Angeles art world in this online archive, which provides additional material related to the exhibitions on view at the Getty Center. Learn about hipsters and happenings, and the venues across the city where all the action took place through images from the archives and first-hand accounts with the artists.

From the Archive

Announcement, "The Violent Tapes of 1975"

Announcement for The Violent Tapes of 1975, a David Lamelas exhibition at Claire Copley Gallery, in Los Angeles, 1976. © David Lamelas. The Getty Research Institute, Gift of Hal Glicksman, 2009.M.5.3

Though open for only five years—from 1973–1977—the Claire Copley Gallery made a name for itself as an outpost for conceptual artists such as Bas Jan Ader, Daniel Buren, David Lamelas, and Allan Ruppersberg. It remains famous as the site for Michael Asher’s 1974 installation, in which he exposed the gallery’s office spaces by removing the partition wall. For his 1976 exhibition, Lamelas exhibited a series of imagined film stills from a nonexistent film that interrogated the cinematic language of spy and action films.

Historic Map Locations

Explore the Archive

  • Video: the postwar L.A. gallery scene

    Video: Making the Scene—find out about the L.A. gallery scene during the postwar years