Kevin Scanlon

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here.

The art world sometimes takes itself too seriously. Franklin Sirmans doesn't. But that doesn't mean he isn't a serious player. He just knows how to have fun, even while doing significant work.

The proof in Sirmans' pudding are shows such as "The Beautiful Game: Contemporary Art and Fútbol," organized to coincide with the 2006 World Cup, and "One Planet Under a Groove" from 2001, examining the influence of hip-hop on contemporary art.

Jean-Michel Basquiat "was making music in the late '70s, doing hip-hop before you could really call it that, and was with all of those graffiti artists," Sirmans says. "It was about all of those things coming together."

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Courtesy of the artist

Daido Moriyama's photograph Untitled (2011)

This week, artist and sunglasses designer Alex Israel debuts the talk show he shot in the Pacific Design Center, trombonists perform in a downtown art space, and fringe physicists reinvent gravity.

5. They're a collective, not a choir
The trombone is purportedly the brass instrument with a range closest to the human voice -- it's like a Southern preacher, only "with greater amplitude," said poet James Weldon Johnson. It's also one of the oldest instruments. "Trombone choirs" are old things, too, with centuries' worth of arrangements made just for them. But because the Los Angeles Trombone Collective is expressly not a choir, it avoids all of this. Its members favor retooled trombone solos or music not meant for trombone at all. This weekend, at alt-art space the Wulf, the collective will interpret John Cage and debut new live trombone electronica. 1026 S. Sante Fe Ave., #203, dwntwn.; Sat., May 19, 7:30 p.m. (213) 488-1182, thewulf.org.

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Terry Richardson's James Franco in Drag, Courtesy of the artist and OHWOW Gallery

Franco poses in drag for fashion photographer Terry Richardson, as part of the "Rebel" exhibit currently on display at JF Chen.

"There's just a lot of dicks in there. A lot of porno," painter Ty Williams says, shaking his head. "But I get it, though. I understand the prevalence of penises."

We're standing in the alleyway behind JF Chen, a collectible-furniture showroom and exhibit space, at the opening party for "Rebel," an off-site MOCA multimedia extravaganza produced by the world's most famous grad student, James Franco, in collaboration with an all-star cast of contemporary artists, including Ed Ruscha, Aaron Young, Terry Richardson, Paul McCarthy and Douglas Gordon.

Though Franco was somehow involved in all of the projects shown here, and his ongoing obsession with the sexual secrets and adolescent turmoil behind James Dean and Rebel Without a Cause drives the exhibit, the lineup of bigwigs confers an air of legitimacy lacking at some of Franco's previous shows and stunts.

The exhibit itself has been impressively built-out, looking like a soundstage resembling the Chateau Marmont, with videos playing in individual bungalows and shrubbery strewn with blow-up sex dolls and other detritus referencing the art.

And yes, there were a number of penises on display inside, as Franco and his partners grappled with the pent-up, feverish sexuality of adolescence by exploring, among other themes, the homoerotic tension on-screen in the 1955 film, Dean's real-life bisexuality and a smattering of behind-the-scenes affairs that reportedly took place before and during the shooting of the movie.

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Photo by Vincent Gallardo

Caine's Arcade

A homeless seven-year-old in Russia named Pjotr is addicted to cigarettes. He must navigate the streets of St. Petersburg, doing whatever he can for a smoke -- steal liquor to give to his prostitute mother for a few bucks and trade Mercedes hood ornaments to black market dealers for a spare stoge. If he goes for a minute without nicotine, he falls to the ground shivering and then dies.

The storyline becomes a little less messed up when you realize that it forms the narrative backbone for a video game called Ultitsa Dimitrova, designed by Lea Schönfelder. The sad part is that it was inspired by a real anecdote she heard from her brother, a social worker in St. Petersburg, Florida. But in real life, it is oddly cute -- maybe because of the plot's absurdity, but also because there's an airy flute playing in the background and all the characters are drawn with blue pen ink. Ultitsa is one of dozens of new, offbeat games featured at the 2012 Game Art Festival, which took place this past Wednesday and Thursday nights, at the Hammer Museum and UCLA's Broad Art Center respectively.

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L.A. philanthropist Eli Broad joined Twitter using the handle @UnreasonableEli to help publicize his new book The Art of Being Unreasonable: Lessons in Unconventional Thinking, which is being released by Wiley on May 8. He also started blogging at elibroad.com/blog.

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Photo by Lynton Gardiner, courtesy of the Mingei International Museum, San Diego

Herman Van Goubergen's origami Skull (2010), made of elephant hide, paper and mirror

What do cutting-edge developments in heart stents, air bag logistics and space telescope lenses have in common with a folded paper frog? These advances in technological design all are based on the principles of origami -- an ancient sculptural art form with strong links to mathematics, engineering and science.

Origami once was dismissed as a simple children's craft, and for many of us the word still brings to mind images of folded paper toys and those little cootie catchers used to tell fortunes in elementary school. A major new exhibition, "Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami" at the Japanese American National Museum, rapidly disabuses us of this simplistic image, showing origami to be a highly sophisticated and significant contemporary art form.

Featuring 150 works by 40 international artists from 16 countries, the exhibition demonstrates that not only can origami be exquisitely beautiful but it's also capable of inspiring engineers, conveying complex political commentary and acting as a conduit for spiritual expression.

"Many of the folders who have elevated origami to its new place in the art world are not only accomplished artists but also respected mathematicians or scientists," says exhibition curator Meher McArthur.

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Susan Vielmetter Projects

Karl Haendel's drawing Tired Dylan (2008)

[Update: This article previously referred to the MOCA festival curated by Mike D as a fundraiser for the museum. Mercedes sponsored the exhibit, but it was not intended as a fundraiser. The item has been corrected below.]

A festival run by a rapper, a Cadillac in a gallery, a soap opera cast with women in white, "taking account of oneself" taken to its extremes: It feels like spring.

5. So what'cha what'cha what'cha want
Until May 6, the Beastie Boy's Mike D is moonlighting as a MOCA curator. He's organized a festival of audio-video art at MOCA. Backed by Mercedes Benz, the festival has no admissions charge and will, MOCA hopes, bring in several thousand visitors. The artist line-up includes Public Fiction, which is the name of the experimental space Lauren Mackler runs in Highland Park. Mackler has orchestrated her own, quirky festival-within-a-festival at the Geffen. She'll present a panel on cults, a set by electronic improvisers NGUZUNGUZU and a broadcast by homeless, artist-run radio station KChung. 152 N. Central Ave., Little Tokyo; events daily through May 6. (213) 626-6222, moca.org.

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Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens

Alfred A. Hart's photo entitled Locomotive "Gov. Stanford," circa 1865

Long before studios, hippies, method actors and reality-show wannabes headed out west, the Pacific Coast was a destination for farmers, miners, prospectors and other wagon-wheeling homesteaders who were looking for a new way of life. Two years after California struck gold in 1848, it became a part of the United States in 1850, and along with the Gold Rush, there was another rush to build a railroad linking the country's growing network of cities together.

"Visions of Empire: The Quest for a Railroad Across America, 1840-1880," on view through July 23, chronicles the construction of America's transcontinental railroad through original paintings, lithographs, magazines and other prints and ephemera from the permanent collection at the Huntington Library in San Marino.

Curator of the exhibition and the Huntington's H. Russell Smith Foundation Curator of Western Historical Manuscripts Peter Blodgett explains: "As much as the exhibition will cover the technological marvels, engineering feats and entrepreneurial audacity of the railroad age, it also tells the story of how the vision of American continental expansion evolved through a range of historical contexts -- from the age of Andrew Jackson through the Gold Rush, Civil War and Gilded Age of the late 19th century."

Here is a selection of images from the exhibition, with a few nuggets of valuable historical info sprinkled throughout.

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Adam Friedman

The new Tree of Testimony exhibit at the L.A. Museum of the Holocaust

Last week was Yom HaShoah, the official day of Holocaust remembrance, a commemoration with good intentions that nonetheless brings up feelings of ambivalence in many Jews I know.

One friend remarked, "Every day is Holocaust remembrance day at my house," indicating she does not share her parents' passion for the subject. Another friend claimed it had been discussed at her Jewish middle school so often that she didn't engage with the subject or talk about it for nearly 10 years afterwards. Though we want to remember the Holocaust, sometimes you can't help feeling desensitized if you talk about it too often.

But no matter how frequently you'd like to deeply consider the Holocaust, a particularly meaningful way to do it is by visiting the L.A. Museum of the Holocaust's new Tree of Testimony exhibit, which opened this past weekend.

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Joe Termini

Mike D

Mike D, Beastie Boy, recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, mad collector of modern furniture and, in general, the man with all the fly juice, has now found the time to curate his own museum show.

"Transmission L.A.: AV Club" is a free, 17-day festival of art, music and food, opening to the public Friday, April 20, at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. In keeping with the museum's recent pattern of splashy, nontraditional events, Mike and Mercedes Benz's avantgardediaries.com bring together a heavy-hitting roster of L.A. and New York artists, including painters Sage Vaughn and Will Fowler, sculptor/installation builder Tom Sachs and designer/director Mike Mills, as well as DJs (Peanut Butter Wolf, Z-Trip) and musicians (Santigold plays the VIP party Thursday night). Throw in superstar Kogi and A-Frame chef Roy Choi, who does a pop-up restaurant on-site every Thursday, and you've got a party worth fighting for.

L.A. Weekly got the opportunity to do an interview with Mike D, aka Michael Diamond, over email on the new show, the hall of fame and what exactly is the proper way to do the Jerry Lewis (a dance move not to be confused with the Brass Monkey).

Mr. Diamond's concept for "Transmission LA: AV Club" doesn't take an all-out academic approach, but encompasses everything that inspires him -- good music, design, food and even coffee. Going to MOCA will be like visiting him at home -- whether that's in Brooklyn or L.A.

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