Villa Aurora Events Archive
September 2014
Re-Construction
VILLA AURORA (520 Paseo Miramar, Los Angeles, CA 90272)
Participants
Veronika Kellndorfer utilizes photographs of architecture taken in Los Angeles, Rome, Paris and most recently São Paulo, choosing sections, details, and perspectives to print as silkscreens on glass. Her works are substitutes for reality, recurring in public spaces and museums, linking and overlapping different spaces and times, a hunt for traces. Her publication, case studies, layers of light and reflection, alludes to eminent architectural books from the 1960s and 70s, while, at the same time, showing how the artist uses various techniques to bring to light the disturbing potential and aesthetic externals of these architectural icons. Kellndorfer’s process presents retro-utopianism as a projection machine, figuring memory as future.
Merry Norris, Hon.AIA/LA, is a longtime art collector, art consultant and art curator. She was instrumental in founding and funding the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (1979-1984) and years later, the Pasadena Museum of California Art, where she served on the Board of Directors from 2002-2013. Norris has served on many important Boards of Directors in the city of Los Angeles, and for 27 years has continued to be a very involved Trustee at SCI-Arc, Southern California Institute of Architecture. Her Public Art compositions have received high acclaim, and she delights in maintaining a strong curatorial relationship with “her hotel,” the ANDAZ West Hollywood (Hyatt) on the Sunset Strip. Maintaining her beautiful house in the Bird Streets of Los Angeles occupies endless devotion and time, although the pine needles remain an annoying component.
Mark Lee is an architect and co-founder of one of California’s most internationally regarded architectural offices. Recently, JohnstonMarklee won the competition for the Drawing Center of the Menil Collection and received the Next LA Honor Award for its Chile House. With deep knowledge of both architectural history and contemporary discourse and construction practices, Mark directs design teams through critical research while striving for efficiency and precision in production. He has written and lectured widely on his research regarding culture specific landscapes and new strategies in material form and technology. He teaches at Harvard University, and has taught at UCLA, Rice University in Houston, the ETH in Zurich, and the Technical University of Berlin.
Sommerfest
Los Angeles
The SOMMERFEST is cancelled.
Due to circumstances beyond our control, we have to cancel this Saturday's Sommerfest.
Ticket holders will find their charges refunded to their credit cards automatically.
We apologize for the inconvenience and are looking forward to seeing you at one of our upcoming events.
Poet Gerhard Falkner on Franz Kafka
VILLA AURORA (520 Paseo Miramar, Los Angeles, CA 90272)
Information
Villa Aurora fellow GERHARD FALKNER will discuss the life and work of FRANZ KAFKA, regarded by many as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. The program will include film clips, performance and readings in both English and German.
This event is part of the MUTUAL INSPIRATIONS FESTIVAL, an annual initiative spearheaded by the Embassy of the Czech Republic, focusing on the mutual inspirations between Czech and American cultures and -each year- featuring an extraordinary Czech personality who has greatly influenced and inspired others through his or her work.
Gerhard Falkner ranks among the most important poets of today. He is the recipient of numerous awards and received fellowships of renown international recidences, such as Villa Massimo (Casa Baldi) Rome, Schloss Solitude Stuttgart, Spycher Preis Schloss Leuk Swiss, Kulturakademie Tarabya Istanbul and upcoming, Villa Aurora California. His latest book, the „Pergamon Poems“, was a work for the Pergamon Museum in Berlin and was turned into five video-clips, in cooperation with actors from the Berlin Schaubühne.
Jan Brandt
1818 North Vermont Ave (L.A., 90027)
Information
A village on the furthest outskirts of northwest Lower Saxony, only a few kilometres from the Dutch border: Cows are grazing on the meadows, farmers are tilling their fields, every once in a while the din of a low-lying aircraft disturbs the tranquility. Flowers are blossoming behind the trimmed cedar hedges, shiny, freshly waxed new cars stand in the driveways.
This is the world into which Daniel Kuper was born in the mid 1970s, a lanky, withdrawn boy with much too much imagination and much too little opportunity to live out only a fraction of it. Strange things soon start taking place and Kuper is held responsible. The more he tries to rebut the accusations, the deeper he gets enmeshed in them. Kuper takes up the fight against the village, its inhabitants, its traditions, its narrowness and its closeness.
Jan Brandt, born in Leer (Eastern Frisia) in 1974, studied history and literature in Cologne, London and Berlin and graduated from the German Journalism School in Munich. Amongst others his short stories have been published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the Süddeutsche Zeitung. He was awarded numerous fellowships and residences such as to Ledig House and Yaddo in New York. Brandt’s first novel Against The World was a finalist for the 2011 German Book Award and won the Nicolas-Born-First-Novel-Award. It’s going to be published in English by Seagull Books in 2015. At Villa Aurora Jan Brandt is working on a novel about Germans who emigrated into the U.S.
POETRY. ENTRANCES AND EXITS
Doheny Memorial Library Room 241 @ USC
Information
The event will feature readings and several short poetry video clips by Gerhard Falkner.
Reception with refreshments to follow.
POETRY. ENTRANCES AND EXITS II
Calstate Longbeach (German Department, Room AS 122)
Information
Internationally acclaimed poet, playwright, essayist, and translator Gerhard Falkner describes himself as a flâneur or pilgrim. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and has received fellowships from renowned international residences, such as Villa Massimo (Casa Baldi) Rome, Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Spycher Preis Schloss, Leuk Switzerland, and Kulturakademie Tarabya, Istanbul.
Cities, nature and contrasts are among the main sources of Falkner’s inspiration. He defines himself as a poet between modernity and post-modernity, a poet interpreting the world around him.
The event will feature readings and several short poetry video clips by Gerhard Falkner.
Films will be presented in German with English subtitles. Poetry will be presented in German; discussions and workshop will take place in English.
Reception to follow.