Veranstaltungen Thomas Mann House
Exhibition "Democracy Will Win!" at University of Nevada
University of Nevada
Information
Join the Department of World Languages and Cultures at University of Nevada for the traveling exhibition "Thomas Mann: Democracy Will Win!"
The exhibition commemorates the series of lecture tours that the Nobel Laureate conducted throughout the Unites States from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s. The first of these tours began at Northwestern University, where more than 4000 people came to hear him speak about the fundamental reasons for liberal democracy. “It is a terrible spectacle when the irrational becomes popular,” Mann said in a speech at the Library of Congress in 1943, and he drew on his considerable powers of thought and expression to counter the sources of this spectacle through his confident motto: “Democracy will win.”
The like-named exhibit is divided into two parts: the first charts the changes in Mann’s political views, while the second connects Mann’s lectures tours to current political situations in both Europe and the United States.
Partner
Die Wanderausstellung Thomas Mann: Democracy Will Win! findet in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Department of World Languages and Cultures der Universität in Nevada statt.
"Sliced Realities"- Einzelausstellung der Ukrainischen Künstlerin Zhanna Kadyrova
Thomas Mann House (1550 N San Remo Drive, CA 90272)
Language: English ・ By Invitation Only
Info
In collaboration with Kyiv to LA, the Thomas Mann House presents Sliced Realities, a solo exhibition by Ukrainian artist-in-residence Zhanna Kadyrova. As part of an ongoing partnership supporting Ukrainian artists through a Los Angeles-based residency, this exhibition marks Kadyrova’s first solo presentation in the United States and coincides with the four-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Sliced Realities brings Kadyrova’s anti-war practice in dialogue with Thomas Mann, whose history of political resistance raises enduring questions about the role of art in times of crisis. Centered around the artist's fundraising project Palianytsia, the exhibition features artworks from her Anxiety, Refugee, and Russian Rocket series, which reveal the surreal experience of encountering the unfamiliar within the familiar. Presented one year after the devastating fires that ravaged the surrounding Pacific Palisades and neighboring Altadena, and four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this exhibition invites viewers to consider how art and resilience are intimately intertwined. Linking Mann’s anti-fascist radio addresses to Kadyrova’s recent bodies of work, Sliced Realities foregrounds the asterisks and annotations that emerge when creative practices are restructured as forms of resistance.
About the Artist & Curator
Zhanna Kadyrova (b.1981, Brovary, Ukraine) is an interdisciplinary artist and member of “R.E.P.” group (Revolution Experimental Space). After graduating from the Taras Shevchenko State Art School in 1999, she received the Kazimir Malevich Artist Award and the Grand Prix of the Kyiv Sculpture Project (both 2012). She was awarded the Special Prize (2011), Main Prize (2013), and Special Prize – Future Generation International (2014), all from PinchukArtCentre.
Kadyrova’s practice engages various disciplines including sculpture, photo, video, and performance. In her work, the issue of context unravels to reveal the rhythm of History on the move - that of a world whose multiple layers disappear behind their immediacy. Often diverting the aesthetic canons of the socialist ideal still present in the heritage of contemporary Ukraine, Kadyrova’s perspective is partially informed by the plastic and symbolic values of urban building materials. Thus ceramics, glass, stone, and concrete enter the spotlight of her work.
Asha Bukojemsky is an independent curator and public programmer based in Los Angeles. Since 2017 she has produced Marathon Screenings, and in 2022 she initiated Kyiv to LA in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She has worked for a range of organisations including the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles; The Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK; PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal (formerly DHC/ART), and currently holds the position of Senior Art Program Specialist at LA Metro.
Partner
This exhibition is part of an ongoing collaboration with Kyiv to LA. Kyiv to LA is made possible by a generous grant from Nora McNeely Hurley and the Manitou Fund.
Exhibition Curator: Asha Bukojemsky
Exhibition Assistant: Marina Shishkina
Gallery support managed by Snisarenko Gallery
Oliver Polak & Friends: One Night Only
Belly Room at the The Comedy Store (8433 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069)
Sprache: English ・ Dies ist eine öffentliche Veranstaltung.
Info
For this one-night-only event at the iconic Comedy Store, Polak will be joined by an international lineup of guest performers, including Robby Hoffmann, Amir K, and additional surprise guests. Together, they explore themes of migration, identity, memory, and contemporary politics through the distinct lens of stand-up comedy.
A multiple award winner, bestselling author, and host of his own Netflix series, Polak is widely regarded as one of Germany’s most original and provocative comedic voices. As Germany’s most prominent Jewish stand-up comedian, his work moves beyond conventional “cultural exchange,” confronting audiences instead with sharp wit, vulnerability, and what he himself describes as “emotional damage with punchlines.”
Find more information here!
Teilnehmer:innen
Oliver Polak is a stand-up comedian and writer. Half-German, half-Russian and Jewish: he certainly has all the ingredients needed for a third world war.
Oliver Polak’s fellowship project at the Thomas Mann House is titled "Stand Up For Comedy Across Borders." He aims to develop a show for comedy clubs in Los Angeles. In this show, he intends to make himself the subject, share his story, and perform his narrative night after night. Through his stand-up, Oliver seeks to engage in meaningful dialogue with Americans and challenge prejudices—including his own. He aims to explore both the humorous similarities and differences between cultures. His observations, reflections, and dialogues, along with the ups and downs of his journey, will be recorded like a diary, forming an experiential account that can lead to deeper insights.
Partner
Eine Veranstaltung von The Comedy Store und dem Thomas Mann House Los Angeles.
Émigré vs Exile Modernism and Architecture in L.A.
Thomas Mann House (1550 N San Remo Drive, CA 90272)
Sprache: Englisch ・ Teilnahme nur auf Einladung.
Info
Join us in the living room of the Thomas Mann House for an insightful conversation between Volker M. Welter, an architectural historian specializing in modern architecture at UC Santa Barbara, and The New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, whose research explores German-speaking émigrés and exiles in California and their influence on music, literature, architecture, and the arts in Los Angeles.
When influential German Studies scholar Erhard Bahr remarked in his seminal book Weimar on the Pacific: German Exile Culture in Los Angeles and the Crisis of Modernism, that the architects Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra “were, strictly speaking, immigrants rather than exiles,” the historian established the year 1933 as a significant caesura separating “immigrant modernism” from “exile modernism” in California. Many German-speaking professionals already immigrated to California in the 1920s and earlier to pursue careers and progressive ideas of modernism before the Nazis even came into power. The exiles, such as Thomas Mann, Theodor Adorno, or Bertolt Brecht, who arrived in California as refugees after 1933, often had a much different and less enthusiastic understanding of modernism after their traumatic experience in Germany.
When architectural history ponders the works and influence of German-speaking, Central European architects in Southern California, a much simpler trajectory is often discussed: Schindler and Neutra brought modernist architecture to California when the two came to the U.S. Subsequently, other German-speaking architects working in architecture in the Los Angeles area are evaluated in comparison with the two “masters.“ In sharp contrast, the works of those exiled architects who fled to California after 1933 are rarely considered at all. Recent scholarship on these architects suggests that distinguishing, analogous to Bahr, between immigrant architects and exile architects allows an astonishingly differentiated picture of the impact of German-speaking architects on Southern California to emerge.
In their conversation, Welter and Ross will explore the nuances around different concepts of modernism in California before 1945, as these transatlantic currents and theoretical frameworks did not only leave their mark on architecture, but can also be seen, discussed, and exemplified in film, music, literature, and the visual arts.
Participants
