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When times get challenging, Los Angeles gets

creative. As ’09 shifts into gear, it’s clear that

no downturn is going to dull the constantly

evolving forces that make this city one of

the most stimulating places on earth. And

we should know. We’ve spent the last few

months scouting the best of the best: the idea

generators, hotspot instigators, under-the-

radar scenes and over-the-top happenings that

are keeping the worlds of fashion, interiors,

culture, nightlife and food ahead of the curve.

From downtown’s new Grammy Museum

and La Brea’s revamped décor drag to Santa

Monica’s surprising hotbed of nightlife cool

and L.A.’s fashion designers on the rise, we’ve

got our eyes on the prize. Viva la evolution!

By Alexandria Abramian-Mott, Lesley Balla, James Bartlett, Gary Baum, Jade Chang, Alexis Johnson and Brad A. Johnson

Photography by Edward Duarte, Peden + Munk, Ji Shin and David Waldorf

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One of the Grammy Museum’s

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The four-story, 30,000-square-foot Grammy Museum in the middle of L.A. Live has been 20 years in the making. And while its halls are strewn with more than 300 pieces of genre-spanning paraphernalia (from Elvis’ guitar to Pavarotti’s tuxedo), its exhibition lineup has already been slated for the next several years, beginning with the musical-cum-political show, Songs of Conscience, Sounds of Freedom. Says museum director Robert Santelli: “With the music industry in a major state of flux, the Grammy Museum is a vibrant reminder that great music is still being made.”

Tuned In!The Grammys go for goldwith a first-ever museum

High-Brow WowMark these not-to-be-missed dates on your calendar 1. REDCAT GAlA REDCAT’s fifth anniversary bash on March 14 will honor philanthropist Robert Egelston, artist Barry McGee and Steven Lavine’s 20 years helming CalArts. redcat.org.

2. lOs AnGElEs BAllETThroughout March, the Los Angeles Ballet has three performance premieres: two George Balanchine-choreographed pieces—Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto and Prokofiev’s Prodigal Son—and World Premiere, a work by choreographer and SoCal native Jennifer Backhaus. losangelesballet.org.

3. l.A. ART WEEkEnDForYourArt welcomes Storefront for Art and Architecture back for the Los Angeles Art Weekend, April 2–5. The Storefront will once again host “Postopolis! L.A.”, a four-day, blogger-fueled “conversation” on urbanism, architecture and design. Also highlighted: the opening of Eric Owen Moss’ new SCI-Arc exhibit. laartweekend.org.

4. sAlOnEn’s finAl BOWThe final LA Phil concerts conducted by outgoing music director Esa-Pekka Salonen, starting April 16, are sure to sell out, so get your tickets soon. The last four will feature works by Stravinsky, culminating with Oedipus Rex, directed by Peter Sellars on April 19. laphil.com.

5. HeddatronThe much-anticipated play Heddatron features live robots that speak using text-to-speech software. Director Alex Timbers (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) brings back to life playwright Henrik Ibsen and explores contemporary issues in a hilariously complicated plot line. July 5–August 2. centertheatregroup.org.

From top: Outpost artist-in-residence Olexander Gnilitsky’s lA, freeway, 02.21.2008; a work from Yuriy kruchak and Yuliya kostevera’s Untitled (Chairs) series, part of a new, Outpost-organized exhibit at the Glendale College Art Gallery.

Open (Art) HouseAs the art market becomes more and more renegade, artists are adding curator/gallerist to their job descriptions, turning their studios into ad hoc exhibition spaces. Downtown’s Five Thirty Three (fivethirtythree.org) is a defunct bikini factory now partitioned into 15 studios, many of which function as bedrooms. The common area is host to group shows of the residents, other artists and even one-offs for the recent California Biennial. Lincoln Heights’ Workspace (workspace2601.com) is a similar studio/gallery outfit, taking mostly outside proposals for its shows. But it’s Highland Park’s five-year-old Outpost for Contemporary Art (outpost-art.org) that has evolved the concept into a global exchange, shacking up foreign artists and curators in an onsite apartment for its artist-in-residence program.

feb 2009 | Angeleno | 81

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Nerd Mentality Taking a cue from the TED conference, which has turned eggheads into lecture-circuit stars, Mindshare (mindshare.la) brings together a crew of 20- and 30-something entrepreneurs, Caltech grads and even a few musicians, says co-founder Douglas Campbell. The “enlightened debauchery”—science and tech talks followed by art and more experiential presentations like Tantric breathing, all lubed with liquor, natch—happens every third Thursday at various locations downtown. “When you’re playing games, you’re lowering your guard and facilitating interaction with others. It’s almost like you’re back in kindergarten,” says Campbell.

A Mindshare project, this acoustic painting by David Guttman uses ambient sounds to paint unique pieces.

C.C. sheffield and Ana Calderon

AiRWAVE MAkER from top: kCRW’s new music director Jason Bentley; one of his local picks for ’09, Autolux.

GlOW-MEnTuM!To celebrate the first anniversary of Chris

Burden’s already iconic Urban Light

streetlamp installation, LACMA photo curator

Charlotte Cotton has assembled an online

exhibit of patron-made work—photos, video,

writing—inspired by the piece. Check for

updates on the museum’s blog (lacma.org).

Or, if digital is too intangible, order a print-on-

demand tome commemorating the project.

“Los Angeles doesn’t have the same hegemony

as New York, so unex-pected things can hap-pen here—young artists

don’t have the same constraints. ”

– Artist Mary Kelly

Well-Versed?

METER MAiDs Model/singer C.C. Sheffield and Dim Mak DJ Ana Calderon have turned the early part of their Wednesday-night Bardot residency, La Boum, into Subterranean Poetry Society, a parlor party where rockers, waitresses, et al come to play the Surrealist-era game Exquisite Corpse, in which everyone writes a few lines of a poem as it’s passed around the table. 1735 N. Vine St., L.A., 323.462.1307.

Now that one of the city’s longtime mix-mastering night owls is situated in his new gig as decision-making early bird at KCRW, Jason Bentley—the station’s latest music director and new host of “Morning Sounds Eclectic”—is redefining the nonprofit’s signature “eclectic programming.” The Santa Monica native is fusing his interests in club and electronic music with tunes that have more mass appeal, like the burgeoning genre of electro-rock. “It’s part dance, part electronic, part punk and part hip-hop. It takes measured doses of a number of different genres and jumbles them all up.” He also touts the city’s vibrant live music and loves local bands like The Little Ones and Soko: “There’s a really genuine, diverse club scene here. I’d like to think KCRW plays a role in that.”

Spin Doctor