JOIN US FOR A COMMUNITY OPEN HOUSE

Sunday, November 19, 2017, 12:00-5:00 p.m.
Explore The Wende Museum‘s new campus and view the inaugural exhibitions. Director Justin Jampol and Chief Curator Joes Segal will provide a special introduction to the new space.

Admission is free.

12 to 5 p.m. Museum and exhibitions open to the public
1 p.m. Kids’ tour (all ages welcome)
2:30 p.m. Exhibition opening remarks

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ABOUT THE EXHIBITIONS:

COLD WAR SPACES: November 19, 2017 – April 29, 2018

Political power relations, economic structures, and cultural ideas impact the way we experience, envision, and structure our environment. The Cold War, with its strict division between ‘East’ and ‘West’ both in physical and ideological terms, is a case in point. To a certain extent, Cold War history can be read as a history of spatial relations. This exhibition explores the spatial characteristics of Cold War era Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in ten sections: public space; private space; work space; border space; secret space; ideological space; alternative space; outer space; shared space; and changing space.

THE RUSSIANS: November 19, 2017 – April 29, 2018

“The Russians” is a photography exhibition by Nathan Farb, based on a trip he took in 1977 to Novosibirsk as a host of the American exhibition Photography USA, part of a cultural exchange program under President Carter’s administration. Farb photographed a number of visitors to this exhibition. He used a Polaroid camera and gave them the resulting photo. However, unknown to his subjects and to the Soviet authorities, Farb kept a negative of each Polaroid. He managed to smuggle the negatives out of the country with a diplomatic pouch at the US Embassy. The portraits show a diversity of people. Some are dressed according to Western trends of the late 1970s; others are wearing more traditional clothing. In this series, Farb gave the Cold War enemy a human face.

VESSEL OF CHANGE: November 19, 2017 – April 29, 2018

“Vessel of Change” is a video installation by artist and filmmaker Bill Ferehawk, who also edited The Wende Museum documentary “Collecting Fragments”, and multimedia designer David Hartwell. Ferehawk and Hartwell developed their video for the museum, which playfully reinterprets the Malta Summit of December 1989 between Presidents George Bush Sr. and Mikhail Gorbachev, symbolically sealing the end of the Cold War. The summit took place on a ship in wild waters in front of the harbor of Marsaxlokk. In this case, the museum becomes the ship that metaphorically anchors the end of the Cold War in Los Angeles.

ABOUT THE WENDE MUSEUM

The Wende Museum was founded in 2002 by Justinian Jampol, a native of Los Angeles and scholar of modern European history, with a mission to preserve the art, culture, and history from the Soviet Bloc countries, inspire a broad understanding of the period (1945–1991), and explore its enduring legacy. The Wende’s new campus, opening in November 2017, will be located at 10808 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230. For more information, call 310-216-1600 or visit www.wendemuseum.org.