“Contemplating a Blockbuster” with Elizabeth Smith
In-person and Zoom salon
Saturday, May 18,2024, 11:00 AM
Join SAH/SCC for the Second in the new salon
series, “Visual World with Victoria Lautman.” For this event, “Contemplating a
Blockbuster its Curator and the Aftermath,” Lautman will be joined by Elizabeth
Smith, author and curator of the 1989 MOCA exhibition, Blueprints for Modern
Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses. The series is held at
the historic Neutra Office Building, 2379 Glendale Boulevard in Silver Lake.
The exhibition Blueprints for Modern Living:
History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses opened at MOCA in 1989 and the Los Angeles Times soon proclaimed it “by
all odds the most impressive and ambitious project of its kind ever seen in
these parts”. Two and a half full-scale
houses were recreated within the still-new Temporary Contemporary galleries,
and the impressive catalog (with essays by revered writers Esther McCoy and
Reyner Banham among others) quickly sold out. Elizabeth Smith was the young
associate curator tasked with organizing what became a blockbuster show that
required five years of preparation as she tracked down architects, owners, and
archival material for a group of designs that altered the course of
architectural history. Thirty-five years on, the ripples continue to be felt in
our ongoing obsession with Mid-Century Modernism.
Elizabeth Smith joined the Helen Frankenthaler
Foundation as its first Executive Director in 2013. Previously she held
curatorial positions at Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Chicago; and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los
Angeles. While at MOCA, Smith curated the exhibition Blueprints
for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses (1989)
and authored subsequent publications on the Case Study Houses for
Taschen. As well, she curated and co-organized such MOCA exhibitions
as The Architecture of R.M. Schindler,At the End of the
Century: One Hundred Years of Architecture, and Urban Revisions:
Current Projects for the Public Realm. During her tenure in Chicago,
she curated monographic exhibitions of artists Jenny Holzer, Lee Bontecou,
Kerry James Marshall, Catherine Opie, Roberto Matta, and Donald Moffett, among
others. Her writings have appeared in numerous publications.
Visual World with Victoria Lautman is hosted by former Chicago Public Radio’s arts journalist, Victoria Lautman. In it, she explores the constructed environment in its various forms: architecture, design, fashion, art, landscape, or the intersection of several.
Lautman is a longtime SAH/SCC member and
journalist who wrote the groundbreaking book, The Vanishing Stepwells
of India (Merrell, London, 2017). Her photographs of these
little-known marvels have been featured in several exhibitions, including at the
UCLA’s Fowler Museum in 2018. Besides her long-running radio programs in
Chicago dedicated to art, literature, architecture, and design, she contributed
to dozens of international newspapers and magazines including Architectural
Digest, Architectural Record, Metropolitan Home, Elle Décor,
and many others.
“Contemplating a Blockbuster its Curator and the Aftermath,” Saturday, May 18th at 11AM.
2379 Glendale Boulevard, Silver Lake, also available via Zoom. SAH/SCC members
and non-members $5 per ticket. Light refreshments will be served. Zoom link
will be sent upon purchase. We regret that this venue is not ADA accessible.
Street parking only.
