An Evening in Focus: Plugged In
- DATE:
- TIME:
- 4:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Enjoy an electrifying evening celebrating the opening of Plugged In: Art and Electric Light, an exhibition showcasing 20th-century artists who used electric light in their practice. Explore the galleries and experience live music and interactives by Lance Hill of the Vintage Synthesizer Museum, spotlight tours and collaborative art-making activities, as we illuminate how artists experimented with technology and electricity in their work.
EVENT DETAILS
- Fee:
- Free with museum admission. Recommended for visitors of all ages.
- Details:
- No reservations needed.
- Location:
- Meets in Entrance Gallery
Related Events
Special Events:
PST Eastside Weekend
In conjunction with NELA + Pasadena PST Art Weekend, join us for an afternoon spotlighting Plugged In: Art and Electric Light, enhanced by live music and art-making activities. As part of this regional event, ponder questions concerning the intersections of art and science and illuminate how each can draw out the other’s potential. Details on participating organizations can be found at pst.art. MORE INFO
Lectures:
Blinding or Beautiful? Modern Art and Artificial Illumination
Interest in the aesthetics of light shaped the work of countless visual artists on both sides of the Atlantic in the modern era. The bond between innovative art and light was especially pronounced in France starting in the mid- to late 1800s, when different kinds of lighting (oil, gas and then electric) competed in Paris, the so-called “City of Light.” In this lecture, Clayson looks closely at paintings and graphic works by both European and American artists that grappled with the effects of both natural light and artificial illumination in surprising ways. Were the new lights beautiful or blinding? Did they belong in art or not? MORE INFO
Lectures:
Plugged In: Art and Electric Light
In conjunction with the exhibition Plugged In: Art and Electric Light, the Norton Simon Museum and the Visual Culture program at the California Institute of Technology present a jointly organized symposium that considers the rich intersections between art and electric light. Held on Friday, October 11 at the Norton Simon Museum, and Saturday, October 12 at Caltech, the symposium is organized into four thematic sessions featuring talks by distinguished international scholars. MORE INFO
Tours & Talks:
Plugged In: Art and Electric Light
Look closely at the exhibition Plugged In: Art and Electric Light, and discuss how artists experimented with emerging technologies to create works that harness the potential of electricity. MORE INFO
Films & Performances:
The Prestige (2006), PG-13
In this fantasy thriller, two friends and magicians just starting to learn their art become bitter rivals after a sudden tragedy. Trick by trick, show by show, and now enemies for life, their ferocious competition builds until it knows no bounds, even utilizing the fantastical new powers of electricity and the brilliance of inventor Nikola Tesla, while the lives of everyone around them hang in the balance. MORE INFO
Films & Performances:
Kiss Me Deadly (1955), NR
On a dark and lonely night, Los Angeles private eye Mike Hammer picks up a hitchhiking woman who sends him down terrifying byways. Brazen and bleak, Kiss Me Deadly is a film noir masterwork as well as an essential piece of Cold War paranoia, and it features as nervy an ending as has ever been seen in American cinema. MORE INFO
Tours & Talks:
Plugged In: Art and Electric Light
Look closely at the exhibition Plugged In: Art and Electric Light, and discuss how artists experimented with emerging technologies to create works that harness the potential of electricity. MORE INFO
Films & Performances:
The War of the Worlds (1953), NR
A mysterious, meteorlike object has landed in a small California town. All clocks have stopped. A fleet of glowing green UFOs hovers menacingly over the entire globe. The Martian invasion of Earth has begun, and it seems that nothing—neither military might nor the scientific know-how of nuclear physicist Dr. Clayton Forrester—can stop it. H. G. Wells’s end-of-civilization classic receives a chilling Cold War–era update, complete with hallucinatory Technicolor and visionary, Oscar-winning special effects. MORE INFO
Films & Performances:
Frankenstein (1931), NR
Boris Karloff plays the screen’s most memorable Creature in the story of Dr. Frankenstein, who tampers with life itself when he pieces together salvaged body parts and employs electricity to create a humanlike monster. MORE INFO
Tours & Talks:
Green Shirt
Join Education and Public Programs Manager Genevieve Hulley for a closer look at and conversation about Robert Rauschenberg's sculpture Green Shirt (1965–67). MORE INFO