Courtesy of the artist and Santa Monica Museum of Art

Joyce Pensato's Batman (2012)

This week, one artist turns pop icons into haunting, dripping messes and another visits a burning volcano again and again.

5. Do architects believe in truth?
"I've been told to tell you that the slides are out of focus intentionally," said architect Tom Mayne in 1976, introducing a lecture by his colleague Coy Howard. After Howard got up in front of the audience at SCI-Arc, he began by addressing Pico Boulevard: "You consist of asphalt, cement and largely cheapish small buildings. ... You jerk through the city, stoplight to stoplight, like a blunt knife through an unfeeling body." Then a woman interrupted, telling Howard to raise his right hand and swear to tell nothing but the whole truth before he went on to talk about his fellow architects, whom he said probably didn't really believe in truth. Mayne, who won the Pritzker Prize for architecture in 2005, and Howard will give the keynote lecture at SCI-Arc's symposium on architecture's past and future this weekend. 960 E. Third St., dwntwn.; Fri., June 14, 3-9 p.m., and Sat., June 15, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. (213) 613-2200, sciarc.edu.

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By claudiadayanna

You came, you saw, you Instagrammed. Here are some of the coolest photos we found tagged #LAWeeklyArtopia from last night's event in Chinatown. If for some reason you changed your mind and don't want your photo included here, drop us a line.

See also: Artopia 2013, The Slideshow

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Courtesy photo Venice Art Walk & Auctions

Google's Venice offices, in Frank Gehry's "binoculars" building

See also:
*5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week
*10 Best L.A. Art Galleries For Partying

(Correction: This post originally stated that Google reached out to the Venice Family Clinic about sponsoring the Venice Art Walk & Auctions. While Google did reach out to the VFC to invite its reps to a gathering for community groups and begin a relationship with VFC, it was the VFC that reached out to Google specifically about sponsoring the Venice Art Walk & Auctions.)

Google...It's everywhere. And in late 2010, Google set up camp in Frank Gehry's cherished "binoculars" building in Venice Beach amidst the marijuana clinics, fire-eaters, and snake charmers.

Last year, the Venice Family Clinic reached out to Google about sponsoring the annual Venice Art Walk & Auctions benefit and hosting the silent auction at the landmark building. Many Venetians were wary of the corporate presence and its involvement, while others welcomed the imminent nouveau regime.

At this year's 34th annual event, on Sunday, May 19, Google has taken center stage, providing not only the gallery for the auction but also hosting the "family fun day." "The Venice area is home to a lot of Google employees who are happy to be involved for the second year in a row," says Thomas Williams, engineering director and Google L.A. site lead.

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Courtesy Michael Benevento

A still from Wu Tsang and Alexandro Segade's Mishima in Mexico (2012)

This week, an artist makes deadpan jokes in vintage photographs, whistlers convene in Glendale and a Japanese novelist's tragedy of frustrated love is re-staged in Mexico.

5. Crowd of copycats
It's not yet certain how many people will participate in artist Sara Roberts' Clump and Whistle, a group performance at Glendale's Civic Center, but it shouldn't be more than 100, the number Roberts chose as her cut-off point. Clump and Whistle will work in the way the wave works at a football game, only with whistles. One person blows out a quick tune on one of the multitone whistles Roberts has provided, then the person next to him or her mimics the tune and so on until this tune has spread -- like a wave -- through the crowd. Two rehearsals precede this weekend's event, which means the effect will be at least slightly honed. Glendale Civic Center Plaza, Broadway and Glendale Boulevard; Sun., May 19, 1 p.m.; RSVP requested. machineproject.org.

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Anna Jones

Camille and Kennerly Kitt, the Harp Twins, perform at ACE Gallery in Beverly Hills on Saturday

See also:
*5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week
*10 Best L.A. Art Galleries For Partying

Martin Schoeller's new show "Identical: Portraits of Twins" at ACE gallery in Beverly Hills is interesting enough on its own, but the opening this past Saturday was an unusual and memorable experience that, quite literally, made this L.A. Weekly reporter do more than a few double takes.

The party featured a rare Los Angeles appearance by the sublimely beautiful and exceptionally talented duo known as the Harp Twins, Camille and Kennerly Kitt. Also in attendance were dozens of pairs of identical twins. Twins of all ages, ethnicities, and professions crowded the lofty space, mingling and sipping cocktails as the strains of such tunes as Metallica's "Enter Sandman" and Rihanna's "Disturbia" lilted from the two golden concert grand harps and collective 20 fingers of Camille and Kennerly, transformed from gritty rock and pop into something that sounds downright angelic.

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Courtesy Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND)

One of Liz Craft's "hairy guys" in West Hollywood Park

This week, two artists dance with hula-hoops, another uses graffiti to obscure paintings of high-heeled, made-up models and a third installs hairy bronze statues in WeHo.

5. Just say no
In 1962, Judson Dance Theater started at the Judson Church in Greenwich Village. Programming was informal; writers and artists contributed as much as dancers and choreographers did. Trisha Brown worked at Judson, as did Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer, who developed her No Manifesto there. ("No to spectacle. No to virtuosity," it started, then continued to list all the tropes of performance Rainer wished to reject.) Rainer and Forti will be at the Hammer this weekend, along with a number of other artists, dancers, theorists and historians, talking about where the dance world and art world meet. 10899 Wilshire Blvd.; Fri., April 26, 5-9 p.m.; Sat., April 27, 10-2 p.m. (310) 443-7000, hammer.ucla.edu.

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Tanja M. Laden

As early as 15 years ago, if you wanted to take a picture, you'd need to bring your film into a lab and wait to see how the images developed. A semi-working knowledge of film speed helped, as did a bit of familiarity with shutter speed, aperture settings, and other variables required to produce a decent image. The whole process was prolonged and tedious, yet it was rewarding, too -- not only because of the anticipation involved, but also because you'd have something to hold in your hands after it was over.

Obviously, this all changed with the advent of digital photography in the late 1990s, but if old-school camera-makers like Lomography are any indication, film isn't going away anytime soon. The hipster-driven manufacturer thrives in the face of digital photography while former film giants such as Kodak and Polaroid have struggled. But even though Lomo believes that "the future is analog," it's definitely not brick-and-mortar. On March 24, the Lomography Gallery Store Los Angeles closed its doors, a little more than three years after its grand opening. The Lomo Gallery Store in Santa Monica also shut down, on January 26, just 15 months after it first opened. Today, the only Lomography Gallery Store on the west coast is in San Francisco.

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Courtesy the artist

A still from Kelly Sears's film Once It Started It Could Not End Otherwise (2011)

This week, haunting films about cold-war America play for 15 hours straight on Alvarado and an artist sells cellphone holders that make your phone as unwieldy as one from landline days.

5. Holes in the walls
Urs Fischer, the Swiss artist who stuck a fake tongue out of a hole in the New Museum's wall five years ago, does iconoclastic things in an almost-too-smooth way. He will cut into the Geffen Contemporary's walls for his new show at MOCA and display rough clay sculptures made onsite with the help of about 1,000 local volunteers. The show's opening day will be a multipart affair. Curator Jessica Morgan will speak about working with Fischer, KCHUNG radio will broadcast live and artist Morrisa Maltz, a kind of smooth iconoclast herself, will invite people to have "Mofone Emotional Moments." She'll let them call family or friends using her "Mofones," smartphone holders that look like old-school rotary phone handsets, seashells or tree trunks. 152 N. Central Ave.; Sunday, April 21, noon-5 p.m. (213) 626-6222, moca.org.

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Eva Recinos

Diane Arbus' photo of a couple in the park

See also:
*Catherine Opie Discusses Her Three L.A. Art Exhibits
*Five Artsy Things to Do in L.A. this week, Including '90s Flashbacks
*A Set of Andy Warhol's Polaroids, Revealed for the First Time

New York-born photographer Diane Arbus did not foresee the fame she would garner after her signature style cemented her as one of the most important figures in American photography.

In fact, most reports describe the photographer as shying away from fame. She preferred shooting photographs by herself, lugging multiple cameras and equipment around the city. Not one to draw boundaries, she possessed a knack for gaining her subjects' trust and taking intimate photos of them in their homes. She even stripped down to take photos at nudist camps and beaches.

This attitude gave her portraits a genuine quality that is still relevant today. Decades after she began photographing, her work keeps her name well-known. On Thursday, Fahey/Klein Gallery here in L.A. launched an exhibit of a few of her pieces never seen by the public. The rare photographs can from two private collectors, some signed by Arbus' daughter Doon.

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Courtesy of LACMA

View into the second gallery of "Ends and Exits"

This week, it's all about looking back: One artist revisits 1993 L.A., another borrows the palette of teen pop from 20-some years ago and a museum show features graphically bold, grittily political art of the '80s.

5. What art even is
When the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston changed its name from Institute of Modern Art in 1948, controversy erupted. One publication said the name change signaled the institute's rejection of the "cult of bewilderment" that abstract modernism represented. A group of artists, the iconic Jackson Pollock among them, went to New York to protest the institute soon after. Art historian Richard Meyer tells this story and others about the birth of "contemporary art," a designation no less bewildering than "modern art" ever was, in his new book What Was Contemporary Art? He'll talk about the book and that question with MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch in the museum's Ahmanson Auditorium. 250 S. Grand Ave., dwntwn.; Sat., March 30, 3 p.m.; free. (213) 626-6222, moca.org.

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