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PAC LA PRESENTS: YEAR OF THE WOMAN
In honor of the powerful women who helped to shape PAC LA's first decade, we are launching Year of the Woman, a series of flagship public educational events celebrating notable women in fine art photography. The organization is building an entire year of programming around this central theme and will offer free, in-person events, held quarterly at venues across the city in 2025 and early 2026.
This groundbreaking programming initiative is made possible through the generous sponsorship of Eastman Museum Los Angeles.
Empire Falling 8 © Elena Dorfman
UPCOMING EVENT: WHY A PHOTOBOOK?
Our second Year of the Woman event, Why A Photobook? is a dynamic panel discussion featuring photographers Mona Kuhn and Elena Dorfman, Getty Library photography curator Isotta Poggi and photography collector and former PAC LA board member Marjorie Ornston.
The Getty Library is currently hosting What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women 1843–1999. Why A Photobook? will expand the discussion on this popular medium and explore many of the questions that photo artists face today:
Why choose to publish vs. exhibit?
What themes do I want to uncover, and why?
Who and what has been an important influence to help me shape my viewpoint?
How much of myself do I want to include in this book?
The panelists look forward to engaging the audience in conversation about photobooks and the role they play in the development of an artist’s career and legacy.
Saturday, May 17 | 1 PM PST
FREE | Sponsored by Eastman Museum Los Angeles
Generously hosted by Los Angeles Modern Auctions | RSVP Here
© Arlene Mejorado
UPCOMING ONLINE EVENT: ARTIST CONVERSATION WITH ARLENE MEJORADO
Our Year of the Woman programming continues with a brand new online conversation: PAC LA host Hannah Sloan in dialog with Arlene Mejorado, a lens-based artists from Los Angeles.
Says Mejorado, "My photographic images consider the relationship between memory, landscape, and placemaking. Through a lens-based practice, I contemplate how our inner lives extend into the urban and suburban exterior and how land is a deposit and holder of personal and collective sentiment."
Friday May 30 | 3 PM PST
FREE | Sponsored by the Herb Ritts Foundation
Online via Zoom | RSVP Here
Public Event Highlight: Photo Forward
In 2023, PAC LA organized and hosted Photo Forward, a brand new, 100% free Photography Fair at Bergamont Station in Santa Monica. Over the course of a weekend, thousands of visitors experienced the excitement of discovering new work, meeting notable gallerists, and learning from PAC LA presenters on topics ranging from the creation of photo books to starting a photo collection.
PAC LA for Members
Member Opportunities
© Diane Arbus
Cataclysm: The 1972 Diane Arbus Retrospective Revisited
Join us for a private curator-led walkthrough of this co-presentation organized by David Zwirner Gallery and San Francisco's Fraenkel Gallery. Cataclysm: The 1972 Diane Arbus Retrospective Revisited re-creates the photographer’s posthumous retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The 113 images in the show underscore the subversive poignancy of Arbus’s work even today while highlighting the popular and critical upheaval the original exhibition precipitated. This will be the first major survey of the artist’s work in Los Angeles since Diane Arbus: Revelations at LACMA over twenty years ago.
David Zwirner Gallery Director Robert Goff has kindly agreed to guide our members through the exhibit and offer his insights about the photographs and thoughts about the lasting relevance of the original 1972 exhibition.
Saturday, May 10 | 11 AM PST
Member Event Highlight: The Lapis Press
In March 2024, PAC LA members were invited to The Lapis Press for a special curatorial walkthrough of the studio–visiting works from newly released editions by Stephen Shore and Daido Moriyama, as well as projects on view by Ed Ruscha, Kehinde Wiley, Matthew Brandt, Analia Saban and others.
PAC LA Online
Since early 2020, PAC LA has presented conversations with artists, curators, collectors and experts from all corners of the photography and lens-based art world. Visit our YouTube Channel to enjoy our full archive.
Production of new PAC LA online talks and our free public archive is made possible by the generous financial support of the Herb Ritts Foundation.
Recent Conversations
PAC LA Online Hightlight: A Conversation with John Simmons
Our June 2023 artist talk and discussion with acclaimed photographer and cinematographer John Simmons. The artist presented works from his archive of early photographs and from his current practice, and shared his background and stories of his multi-disciplinary career as a documentarian of social and visual culture, as well as his passion for working within the mediums of photography and film.
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