Los Angeles: The Cultural Capital of the 21st Century

[Westsidelife]

Cultural Capital of the 21st Century

LOS ANGELES – LA is the land of inspired visionaries, where imagination rules. Nowhere on earth is originality prized more than here in the City of Angels. “What Paris was to art in the 19th century and New York was to the 20th century, LA is to the 21st century,” said Michael McDowell, senior director, cultural tourism for LA INC. The Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau. “Today, LA is widely considered the most important art making destination in the US—if not the world.” And visitors are taking notice.

According to the most current American Traveler Survey, nearly half of all domestic leisure travelers include a cultural event in their itineraries. The survey examined the behavior of visitors to six U.S. cities: Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. According to the study, the percentage of LA’s leisure visitors who seek out live theater and historic sites surpassed that of visitors to all other cities surveyed. Perhaps more surprisingly, LA surpasses New York in the percentage of visitors who attend museums and art galleries, symphony concerts and jazz concerts, as well as historic sites and live theater. The American Traveler Survey is an annual survey of American travel. The report is unique in that it provides a holistic view of travelers’ habits from the prior year, incorporating both psychographics and visitor behavior.

Cultural visitors to LA spend an average of $5,862 while staying in the city – that is more money spent by visitors than that which is spent on cultural attractions in the other major U.S. cities surveyed. LA also ranks as the top city in visitor satisfaction ratings. Here’s why…

Theater and Performing Arts

Thirty-eight percent of LA’s cultural visitors attend at least one theater performance during their visit, the highest percentage among the six cities in the survey. LA has more live theater than any city, including New York, with nearly 375 professional theaters showing more than 1,500 theatrical productions annually. Needless to say, LA is also the home of more professional actors than anywhere else in the world.

REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/Cal Arts Theatre) - located in Walt Disney Concert Hall on the Music Center campus - is LA's new home for cutting edge performing arts. One of the most technologically advanced presentation spaces in the world, REDCAT's mission is to challenge artistic convention and foster a spirit of inquiry with live performances, screenings and exhibitions by artists from LA and around the world.

The Music Center is the most important Performing Arts Center on the West Coast, the bookend to New York’s Lincoln Center. The Music Center is home to the LA Opera, the LA Philharmonic, Center Theatre Group (winner of the most Tony Awards outside of Manhattan) and the LA Master Chorale, as well as an award-winning dance program and an outstanding speakers series, which attracts heads of state and legendary artists to packed houses at Walt Disney Concert Hall – the Music Center’s fourth venue.

The Geffen Playhouse in Westwood has a reputation for presenting the best in classic and contemporary plays as well as provocative new works and musicals. As with Center Theatre Group, the Geffen frequently casts film and television stars in leading roles.

UCLA Live, which performs at several venues on the campus (including iconic Royce Hall), maintains its reputation as one of the most progressive performing arts programs in the country. They present and produce U.S. premieres, debuts, commissions and exclusive presentations in contemporary dance, spoken word, experimental theater, jazz, roots, pop and classical music. Across town, USC hosts concerts and talks in the new Galen Center, as well as in Bovard Auditorium and the Alfred Newman Recital Hall.

And no place has the dazzling array of outdoor concerts that LA enjoys. This summer’s top choices feature the LA Philharmonic (which the New York Times proclaims “tops the list of America’s premier orchestras”) at the legendary Hollywood Bowl. Recent renovations to the world's most famous bandshell were able to preserve the classic 1920 modern lines and greatly improve the Bowl’s acoustics. The balance of the Bowl’s schedule is filled with world music, jazz and pop. A treasure for visitors and residents alike, the Hollywood Bowl offers tickets for as low as $1 in the 18,000 seat amphitheater.

Other nights-under-the-stars series include the free Grand Performances at Downtown LA’s California Plaza, the Ford Amphitheatre Summer Season in Hollywood (June 1 - Oct. 14), Concerts in the Park at Warner Park in Woodland Hills and LACMA’s Friday Night Jazz concerts on the plaza (through Nov. 23).

In fall 2007, the NOKIA Theatre will be opening at the LA Live complex in Downtown. The 7,100-seat, 235,000-square-foot theatre will be the premier mid-sized live performance/award show/special event/music venue for LA. The theater will be the first venue to open at LA Live and will be followed by Club Nokia, a 40,000-square-foot outdoor plaza, movie theaters, two hotels and luxury condominiums.

Film

LA is the film festival capital of the world, with close to 50 annual festivals -- that's equivalent to almost one per week - built to satisfy nearly every interest. Major festivals include the Pan African Film & Art Festival (February), the Hollywood Black Film Festival (June 5-10), the Los Angeles Film Festival (June 21 - July 1), OUTFEST, the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (July 12 - 23), the Latino International Film Festival (October) and AFI Fest (Nov. 1 -11). These festivals bring together film fans, actors and directors, and give movie lovers an opportunity to preview hot new movies as well as independent features and classics.

Art Galleries

Nearly two out of three cultural visitors to LA go to art galleries and museums. LA boasts the largest contemporary art market on the West Coast with more than 150 galleries. Chinatown, San Pedro, Leimert Park, Little Tokyo and NoHo (North Hollywood) are all thriving art neighborhoods where emerging artists work and live. And Downtown LA’s gallery scene is buzzing with new openings. LA has a variety of artists, from world-renowned painters to Disney imagineers to those who spend their days designing cars of the future. The world comes to LA for inspiration and they find it everywhere, from the city’s design schools to its streets.

Architecture

LA has emerged as an international hub of architecture. The magnificent Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by LA’s own Frank Gehry, is only one of many breathtaking new structures in the city. The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, designed by José Raphael Moneo, is the third largest cathedral in the world, with stunning austere lines soaring high above the city.

LA’s newest architectural wonders are Renzo Piano’s Broad Contemporary Museum at LACMA (opening in early 2008) and the expansion of the Colburn School of Performing Arts (opening fall 2007). Other post-modern masterpieces include Richard Meier's Getty Center in Brentwood, I.M. Pei's U.S. Bank Tower in Downtown LA, Michael Graves' Team Disney Building in Burbank, Arata Isozaki’s MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), Thomas Mayne’s California Department of Transportation building in Downtown LA and Moshe Safdie’s Skirball Cultural Center in West LA.

Museums

Within its incredible array of museums, LA has some of the most famous masterpieces in the world. The Getty Center in Brentwood, a post-modern acropolis set among gardens on a hilltop overlooking the city, is one of the most comprehensive art exhibition, conservation and education institutions in the world. Another hilltop location, the Getty Villa in Malibu has opened after an extensive 10-year renovation. The Villa overlooks the Pacific and is a faithful recreation of a 2,000-year-old Roman hill town that focuses on collecting, preserving and exhibiting ancient Roman, Greek and Etruscan arts.

With its three facilities in Downtown LA and in West Hollywood, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) owns one of the U.S.'s most comprehensive collections of American and European art created since 1940, with more than 5,000 objects in its permanent collection.

LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) is transforming its campus buildings and gardens to accompany the early 2008 opening of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum in the heart of the campus. The most comprehensive American museum west of Chicago, LACMA boasts a collection of more than 110,000 works of art and strong permanent collections in American, Chinese, Korean, Islamic, Southeast Asian, European and Contemporary art as well as photography, decorative arts and costumes.

The Hammer Museum in Westwood owns an important permanent collection of Old Masters paintings and drawings, but it’s real strength is in exhibiting works by new and emerging artists - especially LA artists.

The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena owns several hundred works of art, including pieces from Picasso, Rembrandt and Goya. The museum’s collection of paintings, sculptures, pastels and prints by the French Impressionist Degas is one of the finest in the world.

The Skirball Cultural Center in West LA has opened the very innovative Noah's Ark permanent exhibit. Visitors can interact with pairs of whimsical life-size puppets made from found objects, representing animals from elephants to hedgehogs. With the completion of this phase, the Skirball has become the largest Jewish-oriented cultural institution in North America and the third largest in the world.

The Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach will double the size of its gallery space in June and maintains its place as one of the most important presenters in the U.S. of contemporary art from Latin America.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino preserves treasures such as an original Gutenberg Bible on vellum and a collection of the early editions of Shakespeare's works, as well as world famous paintings such as The Blue Boy and Pinkie.

[BEATSLIM]

Great read.

I love LA!

Grammy museum coming soon!

[milquetoast]

Cultcha cultcha cultcha by chodta on Flickr

[Westsidelife]

I think it's quite clear at this point that Los Angeles is one of the world's top cultural powerhouses, on par with the likes of NYC, London, and Paris. Historically, those three cities have always been the traditional cultural capitals of the world, and therefore garner more respect among social institutions and conventions and the general public. Who knows if LA will ever reach that level, especially when considering it's not a favorite destination among "sophisticated" urbanists and travelers (). But that is where LA comes into play. It's young, fresh, and up-and-coming; it's just being discovered. You have the largest net migration of artists of any metropolitan area in the country and hence a burgeoning arts scene, where dozens of galleries have splashed onto the scene in various parts of the city. Even the NY Times has taken notice of our vibrant arts scene. It dedicated a whole article to us last year on how we've got an amazing arts scene going on here, but are failing to attract cultural visitors (the article I posted seems to disagree). LA's emergence as a legitimate cultural capital over the last decade is truly impressive. Its influences in film, television, music, video games, art, architecture, media, fashion, and the performing arts is of a truly global reach, one that is surpassed only by NYC, London, and Paris. It's that cultural endowment that really distinguishes LA from cities such as Singapore and Frankfurt, which operate primarily as business/financial hubs, but have little to no cultural export. It's assets like those that really comprise a truly global, vibrant, and cutting edge metropolis. The emergence of LACMA (with the new BCAM) and LA Opera, imminent revitalization of Broadway, and opening of LAUSD High School #9 and the Grammy Museum will be the icing to what is an already yummy cake.

[milquetoast]

Future cultcha Courtesy LUC

[milquetoast]

Disney cultcha Getty Images

[ArchiTennis]

very interesting read. although i think that some of these claims are exagerated. 3rd largest cathedral in the world?

[VZN]

“What Paris was to art in the 19th century and New York was to the 20th century, LA is to the 21st century,”

I can agree with this. If we're making that much of a buzz with the venues and exhibits we have right now, just wait until we get the Grammy Museum built and all of Broadway back up and running. If NYC, London and Paris are considered worldwide cultural "must-sees", they're going to have to raise that bar and make room for us in the next decade. L.A. is poised to become the undisputed culutral giant on this side of the pacific.

[milquetoast]

Chinese cultcha. 4 million people come here every year. That's 11,000 people a day Floyd B. Bariscale Flickr

[future_trance011]

Originally Posted by VZN

I can agree with this. If we're making that much of a buzz with the venues and exhibits we have right now, just wait until we get the Grammy Museum built and all of Broadway back up and running. If NYC, London and Paris are considered worldwide cultural "must-sees", they're going to have to raise that bar and make room for us in the next decade. L.A. is poised to become the undisputed culutral giant on this side of the pacific.

That's exactly why it's such an exciting time to live in L.A. While all the aformentioned cities above are already culturally developed. Los Angeles hardly put much effort and energy into it and BAM!!! we're an Alpha world city already. We're in the middle of this impetus of dramatic change happening city-wide, while we're still a work in progress and imagine how amazing this place will be when we get all our shit together. The future looks bright my friends!!!......

[milquetoast]

Beach cultcha Getty images

[milquetoast]

Car cultcha autoblog.com

[milquetoast]

Inter-galactic cultcha visitingdc.com

[Depotmaster]

It's that cultural endowment that really distinguishes LA from cities such as Singapore and Frankfurt, which operate primarily as business/financial hubs, but have little to no cultural export.

I respect that if you don't know Frankfurt very well, but your opinion is very far from the truth. It is, apart from Munich, the place with the biggest cultural density in Germany. Nowhere else in Germany it is such a common activity in the weekends to go to the opera, theater or museum so often like the Frankfurters do. There is also lots of sports infrastructure. No comparison to L.A. of course, but yes, there is a lot of cultural export from Frft.

Is it possible at all to quantify culture? There are quality differences, it's also a matter of society's taste, and every place on earth has it's own culture...

[Westsidelife]

^ Of course Frankfurt has tons of culture. I never meant to imply otherwise. I was touching more upon it not being an exporter of culture, at least not globally. Maybe it is in Germany, but I wouldn't know. Berlin, on the other hand, is a major exporter of culture. I think even you would agree that Berlin's influences in cutting edge art and architecture are recognized around the world.

[milquetoast]

Sports cultcha QATD Internet Ventures

[milquetoast]

Does anybody remember this moment, voted one of the 100 most memorable events in baseball history. It was created at Dodger Stadium by a Chicago Cub one year before he became a Dodger himself Courtesy of the late Jim Roark

[Westsidelife]

Milk, I know you have more to add to this thread than just photos.

[milquetoast]

Popular cultcha legendsofamerica.com

[milquetoast]

I'm tired of talking, I wanna post pictures. I'll let you do the talkin'