Please join us for two exciting tours of the current photography exhibitions at the Skirball: Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs and El Sueño Americano, The American Dream: Photographs by Tom Kiefer.
Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999), the American filmmaker known for such classics as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971) and The Shining, (1980), was just seventeen years old when he sold his first photograph to the pictorial magazine Look in 1945. In his photographs, many unpublished, Kubrick draws inspiration from nightclubs, street scenes, and sporting events producing work that was far ahead of his time and showed a sophistication that belied his young age. His early photography laid the foundations for his cinematography: he learned through the camera’s lens to be an acute observer of human interactions and to tell stories through images in dynamic sequences. Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs was organized by the Museum of the City of New York in collaboration with the SK Film Archives LLC.
El Sueño Americano, The American Dream: Photographs by Tom Kiefer asks us to consider how we treat migrants as a reflection of who we are and who we want to be as Americans. Responding to the dehumanizing treatment migrants face in detention, Kiefer carefully arranged and photographed objects seized and discarded by border officials—objects deemed “potentially lethal” or “non-essential” among a variety of belongings crucial for sustenance, hygiene, protection, comfort, and emotional strength. Kiefer found these items in the garbage while working as a janitor at a Customs and Border Protection station from 2003 through 2014. Moved by the untold stories they embody, Kiefer commemorates them in photographs akin to portraits, salvaging and preserving traces of human journeys cut short.
The tours will be conducted by Laura Mart, Assistant Curator at the Skirball and curator of both exhibitions. Tom Kiefer will be joining us from Arizona and will participate in the tour of his exhibition. While the Skirball café is closed for a remodel, lunch can be purchased following the tours at the Skirball’s to-go cart with plenty of seating available.
Attendance is limited to 20 PAC members.