museum

The Autry’s current exhibition, “Life, Liberty, and Los Angeles” is an excellent show that takes a deep regional dive pegged to its 250th American anniversary programming. Of all the pieces, See Lee’s meticulously stitched “Hmong Story Cloth” (circa 1980) is a poignant chronicle of making the journey to an unknown future in the United States. Utilizing the traditional paj ntaub embroidery format, the textile documents Lee’s family fleeing war-torn Laos and resettling in Long Beach during the 1970s. The narrative unfolds in sequential sections depicting military violence at a chaotic crossing of the Mekong River; lower panels remember Thai refugee camps, a rescue airplane and a Greyhound bus. This visual testimony shares striking cross-currents with Latin American arpilleras and paños Chicanos, linking disparate diasporic traditions through the shared language of quietly political, deeply personal needlework — in this case, preserving a crucial chapter of Southeast Asian migration to Southern California.

🗓️ On view through Jan. 31, 2027

WASHINGTON — Small towns across America had big plans to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial this weekend. Local historical societies scheduled town square readings of the Declaration of Independence, hired bands to play patriotic tunes, organized parades and set up themed baking contests.

But many of their most ambitious plans were scrapped after the Trump administration cut $100 million in federal funding for humanities nonprofits and state councils at the start of its term. The decision severely hampered local planning for America’s 250th anniversary, disrupting history projects, museums and educational programs nationwide.

Instead, the Trump administration funneled tens of millions in federal dollars to Event Strategies, the firm behind Trump’s infamous rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, to organize anniversary events throughout the nation’s capital centered on President Trump.

The result, historians say, has become a centralized, more politicized spectacle, marking the national milestone as a celebration of an imperial presidency rather than a revolution from kingly rule.

The spectacular show that Americans will see features Trump at its center, culminating a year of concerted efforts by the president to put his face on passports and currency, national park passes and government buildings.

Yet, beyond the noise of the nation’s capital, historians and teachers, docents and curators, archivists, tour guides and reenactors have sustained the messy, organic discourse of the American story, less funded but no less vocal in their patriotism.

“The way history has been argued since Trump returned to office has been a reminder that governments and political figures have remarkable power to shape a society’s historical memory,” said David Ekbladh, a history professor at Tufts University and author of “Look at the World: The Rise of an American Globalism in the 1930s.”

Trump’s effort to control the anniversary narrative has reminded Ekbladh of one of George Orwell’s most famous quotes: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

“The administration’s clear signals that it can and will restrict funding to institutions seems to have muted the way many institutions, like museums and universities, have approached the anniversary,” Ekbladh added. “With this said, Trump’s own direct, personal use of the 250th has been less about articulating a clear view of the nation’s history than using the moment itself to keep attention on him.”

The White House has taken a more active role in the festivities than initially planned, setting up its own Freedom 250 project to supplement America250, a bipartisan congressional effort to celebrate the occasion.

The Trump administration has directed funding to events centered on the president’s attendance, primarily around Washington, and partnered with conservative organizations such as PragerU and Hillsdale College to present the country’s founding story through a conservative Christian lens.

Historians are in broad agreement that this year’s celebration has garnered far less attention than the bicentennial, marked in 1976, which generated blanket media coverage and widespread national excitement.

Andrew Rudalevige, a professor of government at Bowdoin College and author of “The New Imperial Presidency,” attributed the lack of enthusiasm this time in part due to a more fragmented media landscape than existed 50 years ago, denying the country a “core curriculum” and a shared story.

“I don’t think it’s a lack of patriotism, so much as a determination that no presidential administration should be able to center itself as the focus of that patriotism,” Rudalevige said.

“There’s a lot to celebrate in the text of the declaration. But that’s not where the focus of the Freedom 250 efforts has been,” Rudalevige said. “It would have been interesting to see what the bipartisan America250 initiative could have come up with if its funding and energies had not been diverted.”

Trump has scheduled little national travel around the anniversary, visiting North Dakota this week for an event that allowed him to debut a new version of Air Force One, donated by Qatar and outfitted to the president’s tastes. Trump intends to keep the plane after leaving office for his personal use.

The jet will fly over the National Mall alongside the Defense Department’s most impressive equipment on Saturday, before the president delivers a speech in what is forecast to be a blistering heat wave. The evening will end, according to administration officials, with the largest fireworks display in U.S. history.

“The fundamental challenge that we face now is the fight between the historians — people who have been studying the past and who have been thinking about how to tell that story to the public — and government leaders over who gets to control that story,” said Peter Kastor, chair of the history department at Washington University in St. Louis.

“The people who are really on the front lines are museum professionals, the operators of historic sites and schoolteachers,” he said. “They face the responsibility for explaining the past to a general audience on a day-to-day basis, and they are the ones who most often face the backlash from people who want the story to be told differently.”

p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”>

A dull yellow light peeks through a brooding sky looming over rolling Southern California hills. The oil painting “Approaching Storm” captures the kind of picturesque scene that would get fine artist Paul Grimm work in early Hollywood. Known for his plein air landscapes and masterful depictions of clouds, he turned to studio work to make money during the Great Depression.

He is one of many artists on display at a new UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art exhibition about set painters whose work would go uncredited or overlooked.

“They weren’t making their living selling their paintings, but they were making their living working for the studios,” said museum director Kathryn Kanjo. “The artist would lose their individual credit and recognition, to be at the service of what was needed by the studio.”

Elsewhere in the “Staging California in Early Hollywood” exhibition, hangs an 18-by-25-foot painted backing for “The Sound of Music” (1965), a project led by the then-art director of 20th Century Pictures’ special effects department, Emil J. Kosa Jr. He’d be the only one to get credit at the time, not the five other contributing artists, including celebrated plein air artist Arthur Grover Rider, who are also noted in the museum description.

“In general, at the studios, they systematized the production design, so that it was fast,” Kanjo said, describing the rigid process as militaristic. “Five artists at a time work day after day to get these things done.”

It’s the museum’s first exhibition since UC Irvine acquired the Orange County Museum of Art last September, building a 9,000-piece collection dating back to the 19th century.

The exhibition, with about 50 pieces, is the first since Kanjo’s appointment in December. It’s a love letter to the film industry’s anonymous and little-known artists, whose works were vital to movies.

Take two of the most prolific set artists of the mid-20th century: Warren Newcombe and George Gibson. Newcombe was a Massachusetts-born, well-educated artist who started working on sets as early as 1920. He’d eventually join the MGM art department, where he perfected a visual effect technique called “matte painting.” For a time, it was simply referred to as the “Newcombe shot.”

Gibson was also at MGM around the same time. When the studio first hired the Scottish artist, he’d routinely miss shifts to paint plein air in Southern California. He and Newcombe would help craft “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), but when the credits rolled, both their names were missing.

Newcombe and Gibson would go on to be recognized and celebrated for their work. About a decade after “The Wizard of Oz,” Newcombe won two Oscars for special effects, for “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” (1944) and “Green Dolphin Street” (1947).

“He was really instrumental in the professionalization of artists at MGM,” assistant curator Michaëla Mohrmann said of Gibson. “His insistence on color saturation is something that really informs his work for ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ and it’s really that movie that cements his reputation as one of the masters of scenic art.”

Meanwhile, artists like Arthur Beaumont hardly got their due. Raised by a military family in England, the California transplant was particularly captivated by naval vessels. By 1933, he had painted maritime art for most of the U.S. Naval fleet. As a result of his work, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and recognized as its fleet’s official artist.

He also began producing promotional materials and storyboards for Paramount Studios’ naval films as early as 1935, first for a movie titled “Mutiny on the Bounty.” In 1942, he would do the same for “Wake Island” in the midst of World War II. His work was later etched into metal plates and used to mass-produce publicity prints.

“They were participating [in the military and war] in different functions and not always credited for that kind of work,” Mohrmann said. “I think there was an act of generosity [during wartime] in general — everyone was really patriotic.”

The exhibition also features a silent film titled “The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra,” a 1928 short highlighting the plight of a background actor known as “9413.”

“It’s all like him being shoveled around and underappreciated and not even given a name, right?” Kanjo said. “Everybody thought it was funny because it was kind of meta, but it was pointing out real issues.”

Beyond giving credit where credit’s due, the exhibition aims to uplift background art.

“Back then as well as now, people question the artistic merits of these works because they were made for films that were for profit,” Mohrmann said. “When in reality there was a ton of talent and artistry and critical thinking.”

Quincy Bowie Jr. contributed to this report.

As summer heats up alongside the exhausting news cycle, it’s crucial to find ways to unplug and wind down. Golden Hour in the newly renovated sculpture garden at the Norton Simon Museum is just the thing. Taking place tonight (Friday), and on two more Fridays this season (July 31 and Aug. 28), the event lasts from 4:30-6:30 p.m. and features a different musical group each time.

Tonight is the Verbena Quartet; a North Indian ensemble and a jazz trio are upcoming.

The fun is free with museum admission, and guests are encouraged to bring blankets to relax in the grass. I took my family of four to a recent event and it proved to be the rare occurrence when both the 10-year-old and the 17-year-old were happy. The museum provides all kinds of great art supplies on a big table by the entrance, including sketch paper, clipboards, colored pencils and charcoal drawing utensils.

There are also sheets of paper encouraging creative ways to approach drawing various sculptures in the garden, alongside a family-friendly Golden Hour bingo card with squares including “Spot something framed by tree branches” and “Look at the space between two objects.”

I did some drawing with my toes in the grass while my kiddos curved their necks over their own mini masterpieces. My husband read a book. The sun slanted low as the afternoon melted into early evening, casting lovely shadows on the families, couples, friend groups and solitary artists scattered around the garden sipping wine and snacking on cheese and crackers from the nearby cafe.

When we had our fill of relaxing, we ambled into the museum. My daughter wanted to gaze at the Picassos and the Van Goghs. As did I. I never don’t cry when I look at “The Mulberry Tree.”

“Can you imagine what he was thinking?” I asked my 10-year-old as we regarded the painting. “The pain and the beauty of it?”

She nodded sagely, gently smoothing her thumb against her own recent drawing, her deep inner world a mystery to me. The beauty and the pain of it. I was glad we had cuddled together in the late afternoon sunshine.

I’m arts editor Jessica Gelt, wishing you and your loved ones peace. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Antigone
The Bebelos Players present a back-to-basics production of Sophocles’ classic drama about a young woman who defies a king to honor her dead brother.
7 p.m. Friday-Sunday. Theosophy Hall, 245 W. 33rd St. eventbrite.com

Rick Bartow
Last chance to catch “All of these things have happened,” an exhibition of works on paper by the late Native American artist that touch on tragedies from throughout his life, as well as “Horse,” a 2014 sculpture covered in tar, wax, false teeth and nails that is “a study of sustained resilience.”
Noon-5 p.m. Friday-Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday (last day). Timothy Hawkinson Gallery, 7424 Beverly Blvd. timothyhawkinsongallery.com

Spencer Finch
“Balboa of House and Garden,” composed entirely of new work, is the artist’s first exhibition in Los Angeles. The show includes more than 50 unique works on paper, a site-specific skylight installation and a monumental outdoor sculpture. Finch’s “Memory Landscape (Nairobi, Chicago, Honolulu, Jakarta),” 2025, a commissioned tile wall mural inspired by places from President Barack Obama’s formative years, was recently installed at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
Opening, 6-8 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through Aug. 22. Lisson, 1037 N. Sycamore Ave. lissongallery.com

Bodo Mato
The pseudonymous multidisciplinary artist uses a subconscious dreamworld to access a legendary lost city to find real-world parallels in the exhibition “Atlantis: Echoes of Hubris.”
Opening reception, 6-10 p.m. Friday. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday-Tuesday. 7811 Gallery (West), 7813 Melrose Ave. 7811gallery.com

Raymond Saunders
“Flowers From a Black Garden” is a career-spanning look at the painter (1934-2025) as he moved from Dada, expressionism and assemblage to Fluxus, Pop and postmodernism, beginning in the 1960s.
11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday, through Jan. 3. UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 3333 Avenue of the Arts, Costa Mesa. langson.uci.edu

SATURDAY

Alternative Palm Springs: Other Desert Architectures
In some parallel reality there may exist a Coachella Valley unlike anything you’ve ever imagined. In lieu of that, this exhibition shares the unbuilt visions of prominent architects, off-grid designs of the counterculture, and private and public worlds created by the LGBTQ+ during the 20th century, yielding an expanded view of the area’s architectural ambitions.
10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday-Sunday; noon-8 p.m. Thursday; through Jan. 4; closed June 26 and July 4. Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion, 300 S. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs. psmuseum.org

Declarations of Independence
Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles and guest artist Justin Tranter celebrate national and individual freedom and pride for America’s 250th anniversary.
7 p.m. Saturday; 3:30 p.m. Sunday. Saban Theatre, 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills. gmcla.org/declarations

A Great Night in Hip-Hop
The Roots return for their third year at the Bowl, joined by Nas, with appearances from T.I., Bun B, De La Soul and more.
7:30 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

Rota Fortunae
A one-night-only experimental opera featuring Jordan Slaffey reimagines the four women of the 1996 crime thriller “Set It Off” using movement, live music and fashion. Directed by Chris Emile, music by composer and DJ Cody Perkins and designs by James Flemons.
7:30 p.m. Indoor Swap Meet, 128 S. La Brea Ave., Inglewood. eventbrite.com

Peter Stampfel
An innovator of anti-folk, freak-folk and psych-folk, the 87-year-old co-founder of the Holy Modal Rounders makes a rare West Coast appearance.
8 p.m. McCabe’s Guitar Shop, 3101 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica. mccabes.com

THURSDAY

Ojai Film Society Summer Screening Series
Annual presentation of independent, foreign, documentary, critically acclaimed and classic films kicks off Thursday with Taika Waititi’s 2016 adventure comedy “Hunt for the Wilderpeople,” starring Sam Neill. Other screenings: “Selena Y Los Dinos” (July 10); “Cookie Queens” (July 17); “Best in Show” (July 24); “Arrival” (Aug. 20); and “Jurassic Park” (Aug. 27).
7:30 p.m. Thursday; various dates through Aug. 27. Libbey Bowl, 210 S. Signal St., Ojai. ojaifilmsociety.org

Tank and the Bangas
The Grammy-winning New Orleans music group shares its signature blend of funk, soul, hip-hop, rock and spoken word. Featuring an opening set by Butter Funk Family and DJ sets by Tosstones.
7 p.m. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. skirball.org

Arts anywhere

Broadway unbound

Two of the biggest hit musicals ever are in town simultaneously starting this week — “Mamma Mia!” is at the Ahmanson through July 19 and “Phantom of the Opera” plays the Hollywood Pantages through Aug. 9. If you want to bone up beforehand or relive the hits after you’ve been to the theater, the cinematic adaptations of both are widely available. The 2008 movie version of “Mamma Mia!” starring Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried streams on Prime through the end of June and the 2004 “Phantom” with Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum is streaming on Prime and Apple TV. Both films are available to rent or buy on various platforms and, if you’re into physical media, relatively inexpensive Blu-ray and DVD versions can be had online. Public libraries are also great resources for arts-related content.

— Kevin Crust

Culture news and the SoCal scene

With the new Metro D Line subway extension up-and-running with new stations at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega, we asked architecture writer Sam Lubell to take an aesthetic look at these new displays of public art. “Suddenly the city feels different. Not transformed, exactly. But more connected,” wrote Lubell. “The fracturing grip of the city’s incomprehensible expanses, clogged arteries and stagnant governance — all intimidating barriers to healthy civic life — feels a little looser. … The stations, too, feel more connected, with art, architecture and infrastructure blending seamlessly into a cohesive experience … But above ground, it’s a tale of two (transit) cities. Outdoor plazas lack the kind of textured civic presence that’s been created below.”

The Hollywood Bowl opened its summer season with a lavish production, “The Best of Broadway,” starring Lea Salonga, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Darren Criss, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Halle Bailey, and hosted by Billy Crystal. The program including a selection of Broadway tunes old and new, was delivered with flair to an appreciative audience. “I had a lovely time,” reports Times theater critic Charles McNulty, “but I can’t say the concert lived up to its title. Not that impressive virtuosity wasn’t on display, but Broadway is truly at its best when musical numbers are embedded in a story, allowing the performers to feed off each other and reach heights that they might not be able to reach on their own. Too much of the bill required the actors to stand and deliver, ‘American Idol’-style. It was a little unfair to place such a heavy burden on them.”

McNulty also reviewed the Geffen Playhouse’s Los Angeles premiere of Pearl Cleage’s “Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous,” about an American expat actor angling for her big comeback. The play, wrote McNulty, “is hamstrung with exposition. More time is devoted to setting up the dramatic situation than to activating it. … The intentions are noble and the themes are handled with admirable complexity, but the writing is sluggish. The plot is like an old car whose engine just refuses to start on a cold winter morning.”

The final show of L.A. Opera’s production “Marriage of Figaro” last Sunday also marked the end of James Conlon’s tenure at the podium as the organization’s music director. Stepping down after 20 years, Conlon spoke to Times classical music critic Mark Swed. “I love L.A. and I’m not going to leave,” said Conlon. “I am absolutely happy at this point in my life. You know my age is 76. It is not a secret. I wear it proudly. But I’ve been a music director for 47 years, and I don’t want to be a music director any longer. I will still conduct.” Will he return regularly to L.A. Opera? “That’s the theory,” he said

Another maestro who can’t quit L.A. is Esa-Pekka Salonen. Last weekend, the beloved composer and conductor, who is back with the L.A. Phil as creative director, returned to the Ojai Music Festival after a quarter-century absence. “Salonen found renewal not from the desperation of rethinking but from freshening, illuminating the perception of exceptional young musicians first encountering greatness,” wrote Swed in his review of the four days. “In these uncertain times, that may be the most remarkable act of artistic optimism.”

Not yet 30, Spanish painter Nieves González is a burgeoning international art star with an exhibition at Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica. “Fashion inspires me,” she told writer Jane Horowitz in a recent interview. “Just as 17th century artists drew inspiration from the fashion of their day — often creating paintings that served as catalogs of current styles — I do the same. The goal is to not merely convey a specific message or ideology but to create a testament to a generation and the era in which we live.”

“California Gothic: A Bus Tour,” an avant-garde sightseeing event organized by the New Theater Hollywood, turns Tinseltown “into a stage, drawing locals for a mash-up of state history, gothic storytelling and public-intellectual riffing on the broken California dream,” wrote Times staff writer Eloise Rollins-Fife. The tour ended its latest run in mid-June, but will reopen during the last week of October for a special “ghost tour” edition.

Times columnist Patt Morrison reported from the City of Lights on Paris-born street artist JR’s “La Caverne du Pont Neuf,” which she describes as “an enormous art installation, a trompe l’oeil inflatable snow-clad mountain range … an homage to the innovative work of groundbreaking environmental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.” The work uses about 200,000 square feet of printed fabric on the city’s oldest bridge to create the illusion and the artist told Morrison, “Your eye wants to believe it, and for a moment you let yourself. That gap between knowing and believing is where the play happens, and people love being inside that gap.”

In the 1940s, Norman Rockwell spent time in the visitor’s lobby of the White House sketching U.S. senators, members of the military, the press and a Miss America as they awaited entry into the Oval Office to see President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Eight decades later, four of the sketches have been acquired by the White House Historical Assn. for $7 million, according to the Associated Press. Titled “So You Want to See the President!” the sketches will be on public display through June 2027 at the historical association’s “The People’s House” education center near the White House.

It was a busy week for announcing some of this fall and winter’s Broadway openings. Lincoln Center Theater’s Vivian Beaumont will host a revival of Aaron Sorkin’s “A Few Good Men,” starring Bradley Whitford and Tom Blyth, directed by six-time Tony winner Michael Arlen, starting Oct. 8. In March 2027, LCT Artistic Director Lear deBessonet will helm a new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music,” for its first Broadway run in nearly 30 years. A revival of Richard Greenberg’s “Three Days of Rain” lands in February 2027 at a Shubert Organization-owned theater to be announced with Anna D. Shapiro directing. The cast will include “Heated Rivalry’s” François Arnaud and David Corenswet of “Superman” in their Broadway debuts, joined by Yvonne Strahovski of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” The play was previously on Broadway in 2006 with Julia Roberts, Bradley Cooper and Paul Rudd. Walter Hill’s 1979 gang saga “The Warriors” will make the leap from screen to stage as a musical, with a book, music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis. Previews begin at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in March 2027 with an opening slated for April. Jenny Koons will direct.

— Kevin Crust

And last but not least

We cover a lot of awards in this space, but today we get to give a shout-out to one of our own. Times theater critic Charles McNulty was awarded the prestigious Nell Minow Award for Cultural Criticism by the National Press Club this week. His submission included a reflection on the Los Angeles wildfires through the poetry of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”; a tribute to South African anti-Apartheid trailblazer Athol Fugard; and an essay on the complexities of Audra McDonald’s performance in “Gypsy,” among others. The Times also won the Breaking News Award in the print/online category for its reporting on the January 2025 L.A. firestorms. A presentation ceremony and dinner will take place Aug. 27 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. For the complete list of winners, visit press.org.

Walk into the Grammy Museum in downtown L.A., and you’ll see Clive Davis’ legacy everywhere.

The museum’s intimate performance space is named for the late record executive, and his visage greets guests at the front door. (Davis was the first million-dollar donor to the nascent Recording Academy archive and exhibition space.) His sprawling roster of acts — Bruce Springsteen, Miles Davis, Whitney Houston, Alicia Keys, Earth, Wind & Fire — defined an entire art form and business model as preserved in the Grammy Museum. Davis’ pre-Grammy gala was the most coveted invitation in music every awards season.

Davis’ death at 94 is “devastating,” said Michael Sticka, chief executive and president of the Grammy Museum. “Clive was always a north star of music and talent and artistry. We’re all lucky to have his legacy to look up to.”

Davis’ death marks the end of perhaps the most important and enduring career in the record industry. Sticka spoke to The Times about Davis’ remarkable longevity, creative vision and how a career like his will likely never be possible again.

Clive was a giant of the record business. How did his career shape the modern record industry?

His career was iconic. He really had a unique ability to not just bring an artist to their fullest potential artistically, but commercially. From attending Monterey Pop and first seeing Janis Joplin to Whitney Houston and Alicia Keys, I don’t think anybody had that ear in them the way that he did.

With Clive, what you got was not just hearing commercial viability, but an understanding of what was going on in the zeitgeist. That’s what propelled his career and legacy beyond most record executives.

His name’s on the building at Grammy Museum’s theater. What did he mean to the institution — not just for fundraising but as a living connection to music history?

He didn’t just donate to the museum. He donated his time, his historical knowledge of music, his firsthand perspective. He always kept tabs on what was happening in music. I always say the Clive Davis Theater is the toughest ticket in town for its intimacy and the level of programming we do. But he did an annual program at the museum where people could come hear stories directly from him. Once he decided he was in, he was all in.

His gala was the place to be every Grammy season too.

I don’t think anybody could gather a roomful of luminaries like that from entertainment, tech and politics in the way that Clive did. We were lucky to be a part of that. Even with the stature he had, he was still a physical presence there, he was approachable. He was always looked at as this living legend, but his legacy was continuously being built.

That’s true over the arc of his career, which saw him lead Columbia, Arista, J Records and more. He had a lot of resurrections as well as successes.

He had this ability to resurrect. Look at Santana and “Supernatural,” he was a producer on that album that was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame just last year. So many of us would just give up, but he just had this resolve to continue, and thank God he did.

The record industry is so different now than when he began his career. Artists find audiences on social media rather than being discovered by label executives. Is a career like his — a famous executive driven by their own taste and individual savvy — even possible today?

That’s true, artists break on social media before they’re even on record executives’ radars now. I don’t know if we’ll see that kind of career arc again. Clive had a rare combination of gravitas and being recognized so publicly. The man and his legacy are not going to be replicated.

Beyond the name on the theater, how do you hope the Grammy Museum will honor him with its programming in time to come?

I don’t know yet. We weren’t really prepared for this. We’re gonna have to sit down and think how to pay tribute to such a legacy. I think that the impact the Clive Davis Theater has, bringing in 120 artists a year — I couldn’t think of a more apropos name on the door.

A MEGA new museum all about one major city is opening in the UK later this year.

Having been developed over the past decade, the London Museum will open in Smithfield, London, on November 28.

The £437million museum – which will be housed in Smithfield’s General Market – will become the world’s largest city museum.

There will be a total of three different spaces documenting the past 10,000 years of the capital with over seven million objects on display.

The first space, called ‘Real Time’, will be a covered street where visitors enter with real time data displayed around them about different parts of London.

Underneath the former market’s domed roof, visitors will then enter the ‘Our Time’ space, which will be the central area of the museum with events and activities including immersive theatre.

The area will have 13 installations about London, a restaurant and a bookshop, with festivals and markets planned for the future too.

Other activities at the museum will include dinner clubs and after-hours DJ sessions on Fridays and Saturdays.

And finally, the main permanent gallery, which will be known as ‘Past Time’, will be underground and take visitors through London’s history.

Most of the objects will be found on this floor and will range massively, including the recent ‘Piranhas’ artwork by Banksy on show as well as older pieces such as Charles I’s execution vest.

Other objects that will go on display include swimming trunks worn by Tom Daley for the 2012 London Olympics, loads of Elizabethan jewellery and Paul Simonon from The Clash’s bass guitar, which he smashed on stage.

A coffee stand – Syd’s Coffee Stall – that stood in Shoreditch for over a century will be in the museum as well, serving hot drinks as part of a Tuesday Tea Club at the museum.

There will be a unique feature on the lower level of the museum too, where visitors can look through a giant six-metre tall window to see Thameslink trains pass by the museum.

General Market opened back in 1883 as a meat market but has stood abandoned for the past three decades.

In 2028, the Poultry Market – which is next door – will also become part of the museum and will be home to exhibition spaces, a learning centre and collections store.

The spaces in the Poultry Market will be called ‘Temporary Time’, ‘Imagined Time’ and ‘Deep Time’.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “The opening of the new London Museum will be a hugely significant moment both for London and internationally.

“Backed by one of the largest ever cultural investments in our capital, London Museum will attract millions of visitors and Londoners and reinforce our status as the cultural capital of the world.

“London Museum celebrates the past, creates opportunities in the present and will inspire future generations, as we continue to build a better London for everyone.”

Former President Obama, joined by three former presidents, celebrated the opening of his presidential museum in Chicago in an extraordinary event Thursday that brought together world leaders, A-list celebrities, athletes and other internationally known figures.

Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Christina Aguilera and Bono were all slated to perform at the dedication ceremony.

Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters shared the stage with former Presidents Biden, George W. Bush and Clinton, along with former First Ladies Jill Biden, Laura Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Former Vice President Kamala Harris was also in attendance.

Obama and Michelle Obama are both expected to give remarks. The invite-only celebration was livestreamed and kicks off a weekend of events centered around the Obama Presidential Center, which opens to the general public on Friday, which is Juneteenth.

President Trump was not in attendance. He called the $850-million center a “total disaster” in a social media post in February.

Those at the event included California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate; civil rights leaders Andrew Young and Al Sharpton; Oprah Winfrey; comedians David Letterman, Conan O’Brien and Stephen Colbert; actor Tom Hanks; tennis legend Billie Jean King and Chicago Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts.

Former world leaders in attendance included former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Jennifer Hudson sang the national anthem. Other musicians slated to perform include Common, Eddie Vedder, Marc Anthony and the Roots, which was serving as the house band.

The Thursday celebration “will reflect a spirit of inspiration and joy, with a big boost from the performers who are sharing their talent with us,” said Valerie Jarrett, the Obama Foundation’s chief executive and former Obama top advisor. “We hope to inspire people everywhere to believe in their power to bring change home.”

General admission tickets for the center are sold out through the end of October. But tens of thousands of people have already been offered a sneak peek of the nearly 20-acre campus on Chicago’s South Side in Jackson Park.

The center, located near where Obama lived and began his political career, is expected to attract more than 1 million visitors annually. It is adjacent to the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in the lakefront park, and not far from the University of Chicago.

The campus includes a towering museum that covers the political and personal realms of the nation’s first Black president and first lady, while public spaces include a branch of the Chicago Public Library, a playground and athletic center, basketball courts and a picnic area with grills.

The tower’s design is meant to depict four hands coming together in solidarity. Wrapped around one side are 5-foot tall concrete capital letters, an excerpt of Obama’s 2015 speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery march. It begins, “You are America.”

Bauer writes for the Associated Press.

Béla Guttmann may be the most consequential soccer coach you’ve never heard of. But if it weren’t for Guttmann, you may never have heard of Pelé.

And Brazil may never have become the greatest soccer-playing country on Earth.

That’s because Guttmann changed the shape of modern Brazilian soccer — and changed the sport forever — when he imported the revolutionary 4-2-4 system from Hungary to Sao Paulo in 1957. A year later, Brazil won the first of five World Cups and the joga bonito was born.

But what Guttmann brought to Brazil isn’t nearly as interesting as how he got it there. That’s just one of the fascinating stories in “The Beautiful Game … The Untold Story,” the exhibit that will open the Holocaust Museum LA on Sunday at the Goldrich Cultural Center, a $70-million expansion that will double the size of the Pan Pacific Park museum’s campus to 70,000 square feet.

The exhibit was unveiled during a private reception on Saturday followed by a free preview day open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The grand public opening will take place in August.

The show’s launch coincides with eight local World Cup matches, which kicked off with the United States’ 4-1 win over Paraguay on Friday at SoFi Stadium, and it shines a light on the important but largely overlooked relationship between Jewish life and the global game, as well as how Jewish innovators like Guttmann shaped the modern rhythm, style and culture of the sport.

“It was in the same intellectual level as jazz, as art and everything modern and progressive,” journalist Allon Sander, who helped curate the exhibit, said of Jewish participation in European soccer in the years before World War II.

“The origin of the game and how it intersects with Jews and the Holocaust and the impact that these Jewish footballers and coaches had to shape the game and help popularize the sport is so fascinating,” added Beth Kean, the museum’s CEO. “And it’s an unknown history.”

Much of that story can be told through Guttmann, who was born in Budapest in the final year of the 19th century and developed into one of the sport’s first Jewish stars, representing Hungary in the 1924 Olympics and playing for nine teams in two countries before retiring to become a coach.

But none of that success mattered when the Hungarian government began introducing anti-Jewish laws in 1938, costing Guttmann his job and nearly his life when he was sent to a Nazi forced-labor camp, where he was tortured. Just days before he believed he would be shipped to Auschwitz, which meant certain death, he escaped alongside Erno Erbstein, another Jewish coach.

Erbstein revolutionized soccer in Italy before dying in 1949, along with the entire Torino team, when their plane crashed into a hilltop outside Turin. Four years ago, he was inducted into the Italian soccer hall of fame. Guttmann, meanwhile, who lost much of his family in the Nazi death camps, would go on to coach for 42 years in 14 countries, winning championships in six of them yet only staying in a single place for more than two years just once.

“He’s running away from his demons,” said Ronen Dorfan, a journalist and sports historian based in Budapest whose research was instrumental in putting the exhibit together. “His father was murdered, his sister was murdered. You never know how you survived in Budapest during the war so he had guilt feelings.”

The exhibit was designed in three sections, the first devoted to the years before World War II, the second is about the Holocaust and the third is the postwar years. And while it details Jewish participation in, and influence on, global soccer, it also challenges the cliché that Jews were intellectuals, artists and laborers but not athletes.

“We are always trying to challenge stereotypes. Stereotypes that we might have about ourselves and even stereotypes that we believe about others,” said Jordanna Gessler, the museum’s vice president of education and exhibits who helped curate the show. “It’s crucial to help people find their place and their voice and really see the unity, the similarities between people.

“This is a story that was lost in time and we’re really bringing it out,” Gessler added. “To really have this conversation and encourage people to explore stories that they might not know.”

One thing people might not know is that in the 1920s and ‘30s, Europe’s best teams weren’t in England, Germany or France, but in Austria and Hungary, where they were led by Jewish players and coaches such as Hugo Meisl, Jozsef Braun, Arpad Weisz, Marton Bukovi, Gusztav Sebes and Gyula Mandi. Weisz and Braun were both killed by the Nazis.

The surge of antisemitism and fascism in Germany, Italy and Eastern Europe helped spread the influence of those revolutionary players and coaches around the world.

“With the rise of the Reich and the Holocaust, the coaches ran away,” Dorfan said. “And they ran to every corner of the world, to Brazil, to Argentina, to Portugal [and] provided coaches to Real Madrid, to Barcelona, to Benfica, to Flamengo.

“There isn’t one of these clubs that doesn’t owe its tactical development in the ‘40s and ‘50s to the Jewish coaches, which came primarily from Hungary.”

The primary tactical development was the shift from the popular but rigid 2-3-5 formation, which required immense physical endurance and tactical discipline, to the fluid 4-2-4, which spread the wingers to the touch line and allowed for improvisation and creativity on the attacking end, a formation pioneered in Budapest in the 1920s.

“They developed a more refined game of passing the ball, keeping it on the carpet rather than the English kick and run, and really put thought into tactical thinking,” Dorfan said.

Guttmann, who played or coached for more than two dozen teams in his career — including one, in Romania, that paid him in vegetables during the postwar period — brought the Hungarian approach to Brazil in 1957 when he coached Sao Paulo to a championship. After Vicente Feola, the manager Guttmann replaced at Sao Paulo, took over the national team a year later, he brought the formation with him, popularizing many of the tactics still used in modern soccer, such as fluid defensive wingers, overlapping full backs, the use of a withdrawn striker and an attacking midfield.

“He is the whole exhibition in one man,” Dorfan said of Guttmann.

“Obviously if we wouldn’t have had the Holocaust, those [coaches] wouldn’t be kept out of Europe, Europe would be much stronger, much more developed. [And] then the development of Brazil or the success of Brazil would be coming much later,” Sander said.

Dorfan spent the better part of two years tracking down many of the more than 100 trophies, uniforms, photos and trinkets that make up “The Beautiful Game” exhibit, a search that required determination, perseverance and more than a little luck. Many of the items, because of their ties to Jewish athletes and teams, were hidden during the war and presumed lost. Others resurfaced only through detective work that sent Dorfan following leads that spanned decades and crossed more than a dozen borders.

That also cost money. So Alan Rothenberg, the man who, as president of the U.S. Soccer Federation, first brought the World Cup to Los Angeles 32 years ago, stepped up to lead an effort that raised more than $1 million to fund the exhibit.

“The story really needs to be told, particularly with what’s going on right now with respect to antisemitism,” Rothenberg said. “It’s really important for people to realize what can happen. And soccer is a great vehicle to draw them in. The one main thing in the museum is bringing schoolkids in.”

The Nazis and their collaborators failed in their attempt to erase the history of Jewish soccer pioneers; in fact, they inadvertently popularized both the men — and women — and their ideas. But the sport also helped other Jews survive a dark period and Kean said that may be the most beautiful and uplifting part of “The Beautiful Game.”

“The main reason we decided to do this exhibition in the first place is because for years so many survivors, when they talk about their life before the war, so many of them talk about soccer. So many of them were passionate and fond of the sport,” she said.

“We knew the exhibit opening was going to coincide with the World Cup. L.A. is going to be on the world stage. This is a great opportunity for the museum to get these stories out.”

THE UK is home to many amazing galleries and museums but one gallery in one of the UK’s coolest neighbourhoods is closing for the entire summer.

The William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, East London, will be partially closed from June 22 and then fully closed between July 20 and September 20 as part of a huge upgrade.

However, the onsite cafe will be closed for less time, remaining open until July 26 and then reopen from August 8.

The closure comes as the free-to-visit gallery will undergo a massive overhaul with both building and visitor experience improvements, as well as the gallery’s items being moved around.

All the items currently inside the gallery, which include tiles, rugs and even the artist’s coffee cup, will be rehung and a number of new objects will be added to the collection.

The new items will be based around women’s history, South Asian and Islamic art and art themed on design, politics and the environment.

The renovation of the gallery – which sits in the 18th-century manor house which was home to the artist and his family between 1848 and 1856 – will take place over several stages.

During the first stage, which will take place from June 22 to July 19, the first-floor galleries will be closed but the ground floor galleries, cafe and shop will remain open.

The second stage will take place from July 20 to 26, during which all galleries and the shop will be closed but the cafe will remain open.

Between July 27 and August 7 the entire building will be closed, with just the cafe reopening on August 8.

It won’t be until September 21 when the gallery will gradually start to reopen.

Though, the gallery will be hosting a number of events in the surrounding park over the summer including a family trail inspired by the gardens Morris loved and artist-led workshops.

Home to the world’s largest collection of Morris’s work, the gallery is also in one of London’s “most underrated” suburbs – Walthamstow – according to a number of visitors.

The destination has even previously been named the ‘coolest’ neighbourhood in the UK by The Telegraph.

Near to the gallery, you can head to God’s Own Junkyard, which is home to the largest collection of vintage and new neon signs in Europe and is free to visit.

The attraction is even home to some signs that have featured in big blockbuster movies such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Batman.

Make sure to head to Big Penny Social as well, which is home to a bar, restaurant, beer garden and events space.

The venue often hosts fun events too, from football viewings and flea markets.

Or for a nice walk, wander through Walthamstow Wetlands, where you can explore a number of paths and spot local wildlife.

There’s also many independent shops and cafes to dive into in Walthamstow Village, as well as cosy pubs for a tipple or Sunday roast.

If you want to try something more local, grab a bite to eat at the historic Walthamstow Market – Europe’s longest outdoor street market – such as Caribbean food and pie and mash.

The market is on each day except for Sundays and Mondays.

A cross section of a 250-year-old Pasadena oak tree that was uprooted in a 1993 windstorm is among the first things visitors will see upon entering the Huntington’s new exhibit, “This Land Is…” Jagged cracks in the trunk, which was once rooted in the Huntington’s lawn, are feebly held together by wooden joints.

It’s a fitting emblem of what’s to come in a long-planned show curated to coincide with the country’s upcoming semiquincentennial, and crafted to pose land itself as central to the country’s complex past. After taking in the exhibit, attendees can draw their own conclusions about the land’s role as a “geographical and metaphorical space of promise, struggle, and belonging.”

On a recent late afternoon, the Pasadena sun drilled down on the facade of the Huntington’s MaryLou and George Boone Gallery, where the show’s organizers waited beside four chiseled columns with their hands tucked behind their backs, swaying in anticipation.

“It’s the first time anyone is seeing it,” said Linde B. Lehtinen, the museum’s senior curator of photography.

Joining her are Josh Garrett-Davis, curator of Western American history, and Armando Pulido, assistant curator for special projects. All three smile with excitement.

For the better part of the last two and a half years, Lehtinen and Garrett-Davis have spearheaded the curation of “This Land Is…,” which opens Sunday and runs through early next year.

For them the fallen oak tree represents hope amid disturbance: Another once-towering elder on the museum’s North Vista was uprooted during a windstorm in 2025 — one of its acorns has since sprouted and now stands more than 6-feet tall.

Still, it only brushes the surface of an exhibition that seamlessly draws upon a plethora of works crafted across U.S. history. Want to plan a visit? Here are five things you shouldn’t miss seeing.

Woody Guthrie’s guitar, inscribed with ‘This Machine Kills Fascists’

In 1940, Woody Guthrie sat in a Midtown Manhattan hotel, toiling over lyrics for what would become “This Land Is Your Land.” Today, it’s been adopted as a quasi-anthem for the U.S. and the epitome of American progressivism.

For this exhibition, the museum acquired Guthrie’s C.F. Martin and Co. guitar, a seamless blend of spruce, mahogany, celluloid, ebony and mother-of-pearl. On its back, a carved inscription reads, “This Machine Kills Fascists.”

“The idea for ‘This Land Is…’ emerged … because the scope and breadth of his voice in terms of his activism and how prolific he was … and thinking about how he reflected on and experienced American land,” Lehtinen said.

Alongside the guitar is a copy of the Declaration of Independence, annotated by John McKesson, secretary of New York’s Fourth Provincial Congress, in the days following July 4, 1776. According to Lehtinen, the two objects were paired as instruments of protest and change.

“We talked to [Guthrie’s] granddaughter Anna Canoni, and she said to us at one point that he used guitars like pens or tools, and that was so appropriate to how we were thinking about its relationship to this document,” she added.

Japanese flower farmers photographed before, during and after internment

Not far from the Guthrie guitar is a panoramic portrait of the Kuromi family, posing amid a flower farm that stood where Los Feliz Boulevard is now. To its right is a watercolor painting of the Gila River War Relocation Center in Arizona, where many members of the family were forcibly transported to and imprisoned during World War II.

“I was looking at a historic preservation report, and the name was the same as my mechanic in Los Feliz,” Garrett-Davis said. “The next time I went to get my oil changed, I took a printout of that panorama and was going to show it to them and ask, ‘Do you know anything about this? Is this related?’

“I walked into their office, and a copy of that photo had been on their wall for years. In 10 years, I had never noticed it,” he said with a laugh.

After their internment, the Kuromi family returned to their farm in 1945 to find their equipment stolen. The process of regaining access to their land was slow, but they eventually settled back in, and operated the farm until losing their lease in 1961.

‘A Harvest of Death’ and mail from home on the Civil War front

One of the most grotesque displays on view is an albumen print of an 1863 photo titled “A Harvest of Death,” taken by Timothy H. O’Sullivan after the Battle of Gettysburg. Within its frame lies the bodies of fallen soldiers, sprawled out and lifeless on the grass.

“That evocative title signals some of the other things that we have been thinking about, whether it’s looking at gardens or loss … in this case, these are bodies that have been left, and they’re decomposing,” Lehtinen said.

Paired with the print is a letter from a young woman named Harriet Bailey to her uncle on the front lines of the Civil War, containing seeds delicately etched with drawings of a ship, facesand a dog. The two pieces represent a stark contrast in experiences during the same conflict, once again touching upon the theme of hope amid disturbance.

“This is a remnant of home that he’s actually being sent while on the battlefield,” she continued. “So, the joy and lightness to what is an incredibly somber moment in American history.”

The Colorado River, mapped out through an adventurer’s eyes

This display is described as a “tiny slice” of the Huntington’s archive on Otis Reed “Dock” Marston, a historian and river runner who made it his life’s goal to collect information on the Colorado River. According to Garrett-Davis, Marston had around 185 binders full of photographs, often placed on a cut-out map of where they were taken and organized mile-by-mile, from below the U.S.-Mexico border all the way into Utah.

This taps into a focal point of the exhibition: adapting it to a West Coast perspective. In this way, the idea of independence is viewed expansively as it unfolds across time and place.

“The Huntington has a wonderful collection of presidential papers and documents relating to the Colonial era, but we also have materials on California … from the lens of the West,” said Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence.

“We can show the West’s visual culture at the same time that we can show the original copies of the Declaration of Independence … we have a breadth that’s quite rare.”

‘Troubled Island’ and a mirrored struggle

The Haitian Revolution may seem out of place in an exhibition celebrating the U.S., but Haiti was the second independent nation in the Western Hemisphere. Its independence from the French was proclaimed in 1804, just two decades after the American colonies signed the Treaty of Paris.

In the mural “Troubled Island,” Noni Olabisi chronicles the Haitian struggle for independence, including how suffering under French colonists led to the 1791 slave rebellion. The piece was first painted for the William Grant Still Arts Center in West Adams in 2003, referencing an opera of the same name.

The opera was composed by Still with a libretto from the Missouri-born poet, playwright, novelist and social activist Langston Hughes, who connected Haiti’s struggle for freedom to his home country’s.

“We wanted to focus on parts that might seem peripheral but are actually quite central to American history,” Garrett-Davis said.

Three years later, Olabasi would render the same powerful mural on canvas.

Martin Mull was best known to audiences for playing comedic characters like Col. Mustard in “Clue” and Gene Parmesan in “Arrested Development,” but a new exhibit opening next year at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art seeks to elevate the role Mull was most proud to inhabit: a respected painter.

“Martin Mull: The Joys of Indoor/Outdoor Living,” co-curated by comedian Steve Martin and Hammer Museum Director Emerita Ann Philbin, comes to SBMA next June and runs through October. It will be the first major museum exhibition of Mull’s artwork in 20 years.

The paintings featured include scenes of unassuming houses visited by otherworldly guests, dead-eyed office workers, gravity-defying displays and lambs being led to the slaughter. They play with perspective, color, space and time to illuminate postwar American tensions, be they racial, political or existential.

“Martin Mull’s work as an artist will certainly be his primary legacy,” Martin said in a statement. “After a full-time career in painting, in the last 20 years of his life with his technical gifts fully developed, Martin’s art coalesced into tight, narrative paintings of a peculiar nature. Combining surreal elements with family idioms, he formed his own worried portrayal of American life.”

The exhibit, which will take over the museum’s 6,000 square feet of main galleries, will feature more than 50 paintings and drawings by Mull, most of which come from the artist’s estate and the private collections of Mull’s entertainment industry colleagues, including Steve Martin, Jennifer Tilly, and Ted and Nicole Sarandos .

The exhibit is the second curatorial collaboration between Martin and Philbin since 2015, when they partnered on “The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris” at the Hammer Museum.

Philbin, who retired from her longtime role as the Hammer’s director in 2024, told The Times via email that the idea behind the Mull show came after she saw one of his paintings in Martin’s dining room.

“Steve talked about how Mull’s painting practice was his deepest passion, despite the fact that his fame was as an actor and comedian. It prompted me to do a little research, and I became very intrigued by his body of work. I wrote to Steve, ‘Martin Mull. There’s something there.’ That’s how the project began,” she said.

Along with Martin and Philbin, the upcoming exhibition is led by SBMA Chief Curator James Glisson and Amada Cruz, the museum’s director and CEO. In a news release, a museum spokesperson said Mull’s work “upsets any storybook picture of perfection” and resists nostalgia while acknowledging its allure.

“It’s so deeply strange — dark and funny, hopeful and menacing all at once,” Philbin said. “The paintings are about the smoldering tensions that underlie the American dream, so I think it’s a particularly apt moment to bring them back into the public eye.”

Mull, who died in 2024, received his master of fine arts degree in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1967. Though he went on to craft a career in the public eye as a musician, comedian and actor, painting remained his “true vocation.”

Martin, a longtime friend of the multidisciplinary artist, echoed this sentiment in an email to The Times.

“If a comedian says he is also a painter, run. Except this once.”

The airport was once Britain’s main international gateway and birthplace of the ‘Mayday’ distress call

Croydon Airport has thrown open its doors to the public once more after being shut for 67 years. Once the nation’s main international airport, it closed down for good in 1959 and has remained vacant ever since.

Earlier this year, the airport received visitors for the first time as a heritage attraction. Now converted into a museum, the site enables people to discover the original terminal building on the first Sunday of each month.

Having initially opened in 1920, Croydon Airport played a pivotal role in the advancement of aviation in the aftermath of World War 1.

The location is celebrated as the birthplace of the ‘Mayday’ emergency call. In 1923, F.S. Mockford, Croydon’s Senior Radio Officer, devised the distress signal “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday”, taken from the French expression “m’aidez” (“help me”), reports Surrey Live.

Historic Croydon Airport said: “‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday’ was subsequently approved by the Air Ministry as the required radio procedure to be used in an emergency. In 1924, the UK promulgated its approval and use through the publication of The Air Pilot: Great Britain.

“Adopted by the International Radiotelegraph Convention of Washington in 1927, ‘Mayday’ became the international standard distress phrase. The ‘Mayday’ distress call still saves lives today.”

The airport shut its doors due to its inability to accommodate larger aircraft, with its final flight departing the iconic terminal in September 1959.

The Croydon Airport Visitor Centre has an impressive 4.6 Google rating at the time of writing.

On Tripadvisor, recent visitors to the museum were full of praise, with one writing: “Fascinating trip through the history of passenger aviation!”

Another visitor said: “I have lived in the area all my life and even used to go to Purley Way Lido across the way from the airport as a child, and didn’t know the significance of Croydon Airport.

“I was amazed how well preserved the building was, and didn’t even know it had a control tower. If you are into aviation or history, it is a must-see.”

A third wrote: “Very nice and detailed tour, highly recommended. But you will have to keep checking for the tour date as it’s not year round function.”

One person commented: “This local gem has great volunteers and interesting history (such As being the world’s first control tower and carrying almost half of the UK’s air passengers in 1935). The tour, photos, and signage do give an interesting view as to what it was like in the 1920s and 1930.”

Finally, another said: “Great place to visit. Tour guide Micheal in the museum gave a great talk and overview. Would recommend for all ages. Visually great with so much so see. Definitely a must see for anyone who loves aviation.”

CHICAGO — Former President Obama’s influence in his presidential museum runs deep, from the location on Chicago’s South Side to textured stone adorning its dramatic tower to striped reading chairs that resemble ones in his own home.

The Obama Presidential Center opens to the general public on Juneteenth after a celebratory dedication in Chicago with dignitaries. But tens of thousands of people — friends and family of museum staff, students and journalists — have already been offered a sneak peek of the nearly 20-acre campus as crews finish final art installations and landscaping.

The roughly $850 million project covers the political and personal realms of the nation’s first Black president. Campaign memorabilia and presidential artifacts are displayed in the admission-based museum tower while public spaces of the sprawling campus feature other things important to Obama: a new library, basketball court and picnic area with grills.

“This is a safe space for people to come and, yes, reflect on the historic moments of this presidency and the campaigns, but also to come together as a community to think about what change you can bring to your own neighborhood,” Josh Harris, the Obama Foundation’s vice president of public engagement, said during a recent tour with The Associated Press.

Here’s a closer look at the top attractions of the campus that is expected to draw as many as 1 million visitors annually.

President for a day

Obama’s presidential museum will be the first fully digital museum of its kind. There will be no official papers on display. Instead, visitors will experience high-tech and hands-on exhibits spanning the campaigns, key moments of Obama’s presidency and life at the White House.

One of the largest attractions is a life-sized replica of the Oval Office.

On a recent day, a stream of visitors, including schoolchildren, walked through the circular room, stopping to sit behind the desk and pose for pictures. The top drawer holds a copy of a handwritten letter from his predecessor, President George W. Bush, and Obama’s beloved BlackBerry phone.

“We want to make sure that people from all walks of life have the opportunity sit behind the Resolute Desk,” said Harris. “You think about the possibilities that if a young organizer from the South Side of Chicago can be president, you can be president too.”

Other sections of the museum detail the Affordable Care Act, immigration policies, and smaller moments such as when Obama unexpectedly sang during a 2015 eulogy for those killed in a South Carolina church shooting. A large television screen plays a clip of Obama singing “Amazing Grace.”

Peppered throughout are areas for personal reflection, which museum organizers say is key.

“We’re passing that baton and inviting people to bring change home, however change may be defined, both small or large,” said Louise Bernard, the museum’s director.

Touching iconic ballgowns

When Obama touted the museum’s contents at its groundbreaking in 2021, he predicted one of the top draws.

“We want this center to be more than a static museum or a source of archival research,” Obama joked at the site. “It won’t just be a collection of campaign memorabilia or Michelle’s ballgowns, although I know everybody will come see those.”

Roughly a dozen outfits on mannequins are behind glass, including a black and red dress designed by Narciso Rodriguez that the former first lady wore on Election Night in 2008 in Chicago.

Visitors will also get a chance to touch swatches of the fabrics, including the rose gold chain mail Atelier Versace evening gown she wore at her final state dinner in 2016.

Obama’s personal touches

The museum’s location is near where Barack Obama started his political career, taught law at the University of Chicago and where the family lived. Michelle Obama also grew up on the South Side.

A lifelong basketball lover, Obama requested a glass-paneled, professional grade basketball court to be used for community programs.

The former first lady designed a garden, where lettuce and strawberry plants are sprouting. There are also charcoal grills available for public use — an element that Obama envisioned when he pitched the plan in community meetings nearly a decade ago.

“President Obama always talked about his feelings of being in Chicago and one of his memorable moments was grilling in the park,” Harris said.

The Obamas’ design tastes and love of history are also evident.

The museum campus features dozens of commissioned works of art while different parts of the campus are named after prominent figures. The central “John Lewis Plaza,” named for the late congressman and Civil Rights leader, is designed as a public gathering spot.

Inside a new Chicago Public Library branch, a 70-foot mural depicts literary figures, including Walt Whitman and James Baldwin. At the center, Toni Morrison reads to a boy wearing orange shirt, representing a young Obama.

The presidential reading room features thousands of books chosen by the Obamas, ranging from presidential biographies to best-selling fiction. One of Obama’s favorite parts are two high-backed chairs with blue, yellow and black stripes. They were selected by the former president as top-notch reading chairs similar to ones he has at home.

Pricey admission with free options

Tickets are $30, the highest of any U.S. presidential museum or library. Next on the list is the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California, where tickets are $29.

Obama Foundation leaders say the prices are justified for the state-of-the-art facility.

Tickets at the adjacent Griffin Museum of Science and Industry are $25.95. In downstate Illinois, tickets to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield cost $15.

Along with free days and discounts for Illinois residents, Obama Foundation officials also argue that most of the campus is free, with only four floors of the museum tower requiring tickets.

Anyone can walk the campus, use the playground, library, sledding hill or grilling area. The tower’s top floor, which feature panoramic views of the nation’s third-largest city, is also free.

“The idea behind this institution, this campus, was to make it accessible to as many people as possible,” Harris said.

Tareen writes for the Associated Press.

A GuruWalk study found the world’s most walkable destination for travellers fascinated by ancient history

The old adage that the best things in life are free rings particularly true when it comes to travel. Exploring a city on foot, rather than wrestling with bewildering public transport networks or splashing out on car hire, is one of the finest ways to immerse yourself in unfamiliar surroundings — and it won’t cost you a penny.

Free walking tours are a firm favourite amongst seasoned travellers as a brilliant way to get acquainted with a new city while soaking up a bit of local history.

Europe is brimming with historic cities where you can stroll between landmarks in just a few minutes, including Cordoba in Spain, whose magnificent Old Town has even earned UNESCO World Heritage status.

The ability to simply wander up to a World Heritage Site is a remarkable privilege that’s easy to overlook, yet far from an everyday occurrence. But when it comes to exploring your surroundings on foot, one European city — dubbed an “open-air museum” — stands head and shoulders above the rest as the ultimate walkable destination.

A study by GuruWalk, the world’s largest platform for free walking tours, has crowned Rome the most walkable destination on the planet for “travellers fascinated by ancient history”, drawing on the preferences of more than four million users of the platform.

The city’s historic centre is packed with unmissable sights, while its surrounding streets and winding cobblestone alleyways are frequently too narrow for traffic to navigate, making it an absolute must for exploring on foot.

Many of Rome’s most iconic attractions, including The Colosseum, the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain are within a mere 20-minute stroll of one another, with countless stunning Baroque piazzas to pause at along the way.

The oldest surviving structure in Rome, the present-day Pantheon — which originally functioned as a temple dedicated to Roman deities — was finished in 126 AD and sits encircled by three of the city’s most cherished squares: Piazza Navona, Piazza di Spagna, and Campo de Fiori, reports the Express.

Reflecting on the awe-inspiring monument, one Tripadvisor reviewer remarked: “We didn’t get to go in so this review is only in regards to the outside. I thought it was so cool to see. You’re walking through a city and suddenly walk right next to this beautiful ancient structure. There’s so much history to it!”

Indeed, there’s no finer method of immersing yourself in Ancient Rome than by meandering through its storied streets. A visit to the Vatican — the heart of the Roman Catholic Church and location of one of the world’s grandest churches, St Peter’s Basilica — wouldn’t be complete without popping into the nearby Pizzarium.

This beloved Roman establishment, famed for its pizza al taglio (by the slice), is adored by both residents and tourists, and there’s an abundance more to discover while exploring — from velvety gelato and piping hot bowls of pasta to a crisp Aperol Spritz to round things off.

If you find yourself worn out from all that strolling, there’s plenty of coffee bars to choose from, but be aware that milky coffees are only deemed acceptable before 11am, with tradition suggesting it’s wise to order an espresso after that time.

According to GuruWalk’s 2026 top ranking for Rome, it stated: “Rome has captivated travellers for over 2,700 years thanks to its unparalleled historical legacy. Walking through its cobblestone alleyways reveals one treasure after another: the Colosseum, where gladiators battled before 50,000 spectators, the Pantheon with its unreinforced concrete dome that remains the largest in the world, and the baroque fountains that spring up at every corner. Every step transports you through empires, popes, and renaissances.”

GuruWalk’s top 10 walkable cities in 2026:

1. Rome, Italy
2. Madrid, Spain
3. Budapest, Hungary
4. Prague, Czech Republic
5. Lisbon, Portugal
6. Amsterdam, Netherlands
7. Porto, Portugal
8. Barcelona, Spain
9. London, United Kingdom
10. Berlin, Germany

I WAS born in Southend-on-Sea with candy floss and chip grease running through my veins, so I have a real soft spot for an English seaside resort.

And with its blonde sandy beaches, vintage ice-cream parlours and shellfish stalls, the Kent coastal town of Ramsgate does not disappoint.

Cockles aside, my partner and I have come for the weekend to check out one of its quirkiest attractions, This Museum Is (Not) Obsolete, which is part studio, part science lab and part techno time capsule.

It’s owned and run by Sam Battle, AKA Look Mum No Computer, who represented Britain in the Eurovision Song Contest this month.

Now back in Ramsgate proudly brandishing his ONE point, Sam’s museum houses his vast collection of eccentric inventions, retro computers, analogue synthesisers and other audio oddities that hum, squeak and beep.

It’s brilliant and bonkers in equal measure.

Staring up at the flashing 1,000 Oscillator Megadrone, I’m assured the museum is very hands-on and you can touch and play with almost everything.

Fans travel from across the country to see Sam’s creations, including a Raleigh Chopper/synthesiser, a flame-throwing Henry Hoover and my favourite, the Furby organ — a fully functioning instrument ­power­ed by rows of the singing fluffy toys.

After an hour happily geeking out, we wander down to the harbour — the only one in the UK still officially granted royal status.

There, primary-coloured fishing boats bob alongside shiny yachts, while cafe-bars and vintage bike shops hide under the arches nearby.

Ramsgate can be a little gritty in parts — there’s no shortage of vape and betting shops — but that’s part of its charm.

And like its coastal neighbours, Broadstairs, Deal and Margate, it’s attracting more and more artists, musicians and independent businesses each year.

A short stroll from the harbour is Addington Street, the town’s indie quarter. It has a hip artsy vibe with renovated Victorian villas, vintage blue street signs and shops such as Vinyl Head Records and No.36 by SP, which sells fancy homewares.

We stop for a pint at the Queen Charlotte, a cute little pub filled with retro curios; think fringed lamps, a ship-shaped cocktail bar and a ­vintage record player from where music by The Carpenters flows.

But Ramsgate isn’t just about kitsch pubs and fantastical Furby organs.

Beneath the town is a network of tunnels that stretch for two and a half miles.

Originally a tunnel railway that connected the town to neighbouring Broadstairs, it was expanded in 1939 to serve as an air-raid shelter for Ramsgate residents.

On the 90-minute guided tour through the dimly lit tunnels, I learn of Ramsgate’s remarkable resilience and community during the war.

We’re staying at The House at Ramsgate, a chichi boutique hotel (formerly Albion House) on the seafront.

From our sea-view room, we can see the world’s largest Wetherspoons, The Royal Victoria Pavilion, which spans 11,000 sq ft in a prime spot on the beach.

Instead we relax with a cocktail in the quieter lounge at the hotel followed by a dinner of locally caught crab cakes and ribeye steak.

After breakfast, Sunday is spent blowing out the cobwebs walking the coastal path to Broadstairs.

The scenic two-mile route links the sandy beaches along the coast.

A few years ahead of Ramsgate in its gentrification, Broadstairs feels like its more polished sister.

We find a farmers’ market in the gardens of Bleak House, where Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield, and stop for a drink at the Royal Albion, his old watering hole, before wandering back to Ramsgate.

One thing’s for sure, whether you are into funky retro tech or sunny seaside strolls — or even a bit of both — Ramsgate is well worth a visit this summer.

Talk to the passionate team behind KidSTREAM, a new children’s museum in Ventura County, and they’ll tell you about the many lofty goals they have for the 21,000-square-foot space which opened to the public Thursday.

They’ll describe how the museum is the first of its kind in Ventura County and how they hope to make it accessible to as many local children as possible through outreach, discounts and free programming.

They’ll explain how the immersive exhibits highlight the county’s unique industry and geography, including an agriculture area where young visitors can pick pretend fruits and sell them at a farmers market and an ocean exhibit where miniature replicas of the Channel Islands emerge from the bouncy blue “Pacific Ocean.”

They’ll share that the STREAM in KidSTREAM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Arts and Math, and talk about the activity carts and art projects that will enhance and support learning for young visitors.

But they are also well aware that for some families, the still-evolving space will serve a less highfalutin, if just as important, goal.

“Parents are looking for a good nap on the way home,” said KidSTREAM founder Kristie Akl. “And we can give them that too.”

Akl, along with KidSTREAM board chairman Bryan Yee and guest experience director Dani Hildreth, were giddy with excitement as they took me on a tour of the museum in the days before it opened.

This moment had been a long time coming, they said.

A high-energy former high school biology teacher with a make-it-happen spirit, Akl first began dreaming about a children’s museum in Ventura County in 2013 after taking her three daughters to KidSpace, a children’s museum in Pasadena founded by members of the Caltech community in 1979.

Akl loved Kidspace, but it was a full hour from the family’s house in Camarillo and she longed for something similar closer to home. For two years, she tried convincing others to create a children’s museum in Ventura County. When that failed, she formed a fledgling board in 2015 and incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2017.

“I was always optimistic,” she said. “You have to be to do something like this.”

The original plan was to open the museum in 2020, but fundraising efforts were hampered by the 2017 Thomas fire, which destroyed hundreds of homes in the area. A few years later came COVID shutdowns. The delays were discouraging, but Akl and a growing community of motivated believers used the time to build out their proof of concept by bringing science projects to local schools, neighborhoods and community events, creating online workshops and giving farm workers free science kits to help their kids get exploring.

“It was a herculean task and a huge community effort,” Akl said. “Everyone leaned in.”

Today she estimates that the KidSTREAM Children’s Museum touched the lives of 70,000 children in the Ventura area before ever opening its doors.

“They prototyped a lot of ideas,” said Yee, a father of three who took over from Akl as chairman of the board of KidSTREAM in 2022. “That showed us what works and what doesn’t work and what we should do next.”

In 2022, the city of Camarillo donated the building that housed the former public library to the museum and in 2024, the team raised enough money to bring children’s museum specialist Hildreth on board. Construction began in 2025.

In addition to the agriculture and Pacific Ocean areas outside, visitors will find a camping exhibit with an obstacle course, gratitude tree and a series of different shaped tents where kids can play. There’s also a sand pit where children can dig up replicas of pygmy mammoth bones. (The pygmy mammoth is a dwarf species of mammoth that was native to the Channel Islands.) A nature area includes a sensory path designed with the unique needs of neurologically divergent children in mind.

“There are 200,000 kids in Ventura County from a huge range of backgrounds including a lot of farm worker families,” Hildreth said. “The space is designed for all of them, newborn to 10 years old.”

In addition to the outdoor play areas, visitors will find an indoor “makerspace” with a white Lego wall where children can create vertical designs, four tables for art projects and a super-sized Lite-Brite.

“When you are 3 feet tall, it’s your whole field of vision,” Hildreth said.

Admission to KidSTREAM is $16 for adults and children over the age of 1, $13 for seniors and military, and $3 for families with EBT, SNAP or WIC cards. Membership options are also available.

Yee said market research suggests the new museum will reach as many as 150,000 people, and there is still room for expansion.

“We’re 21,000 square feet now with room for growth,” he said. “We’re not stopping, but we’re so excited to open our doors.”

The Wende Museum of the Cold War announced on Saturday that it plans to build a $16-million expansion in Hawthorne.

The Culver City museum has purchased a historically significant midcentury modern building in Hawthorne, which it plans to transform into a research institute and interactive storage facility for its collections — a “living archive,” as it’s calling the facility.

The Wende plans to debut the space in spring 2028.

“In the museum world, there’s typically public space and storage space — meaning dead storage,” Wende founder and Executive Director Justin Jampol said in an interview. “And this living archive is a hybrid that combines both. It houses the collections and makes them accessible for discovery.”

The 24,000-square-foot building was erected in 1965 by shopping mall pioneer and developer Ernest Hahn to serve as his corporate headquarters. It was designed by movie theater architect George Nowak, who also designed the Writers Guild Theater.

The Wende plans to renovate the building, adding a 7,000-square-foot extension, with flexibility to further expand in the future. The facility will include state-of-the-art, climate-controlled storage for the museum’s more than 250,000-object collection of paintings, sculptures, photographs, tapestries and Cold War-era ephemera from the Soviet Union, East Bloc, China and other countries.

Interactivity, however, is the goal: so there will be spaces for “respite and inspiration,” Jampol said, such as a “scholar’s garden,” reading rooms and a library with a community learning lab and free coffee for visitors.

“The idea is to make it as engaging and comfortable as possible,” Jampol said. “Most archives are places that are very uncomfortable and uninspiring — think fluorescent lights blinking in a basement. The idea here is to open this up in a way that makes people want to be here. And focus on the content and not the space itself. We’re trying to create an experience that makes visitors want to go on an adventure.”

The Wende’s Collections Department will be headquartered in the new building. The facility will also house a conservation center for endangered objects and paper archives, and will feature a digitization and imaging lab that will make the collections available online, free of charge.

It will also include reading rooms and research offices for up to 100 visiting scholars or artist fellows annually.

“The collections, instead of being hidden in a box, will be on full view,” Jampol said. “When you walk through, you won’t see boxes. You’ll see vases, tapestries, ceramics and more.”

Construction on the building, at 2311 W. El Segundo Blvd., starts May 15. Funds for the project came from the Arcadia Fund, the Kaufman Foundation and the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, among other capital supporters.

The Wende Museum in Culver City opened its doors in 2017 inside a former 1949 atomic bomb shelter. It now draws about 25,000 visitors annually, who come to take in four exhibitions and more than 60 public programs. Admission is free.

Rapid expansion has been a hallmark of the Wende of late.

In September, it debuted a $17-million culture and wellness center offering free yoga, meditation, sound baths and therapy. The 7,500-square-foot facility was made possible with funding from the late philanthropist Glorya Kaufman who died a month before the building opened to the public. It’s called the Glorya Kaufman Community Center.

In February, the Wende bought a three-bedroom house built in the 1940s adjacent to the museum’s campus that will be used as a live-work space for photographers in residence. It will include a community space for photography workshops and a post-production studio. The Nikita Foundation and the Victor Family Foundation provided funding.

It debuted a tiny home on its campus last fall, nicknamed “The Stevie” after donor Steve Markoff. It’s used for cross-disciplinary artist residencies.

A facility for interactive museum storage and research is not a new concept in Los Angeles.

The Autry Museum of the American West — after merging with the Southwest Museum of the American Indian in 2003 and since stewarding its collection of Indigenous art and artifacts — debuted a $32-million, 100,000-square-foot facility in Burbank in October 2022.

The so-called “Resources Center” was built to house, conserve and care for both museums’ collections in a state-of-the-art, climate-controlled and fire-safe environment. It also serves as a research destination for scholars, artists, tribal representatives and others to study the collections.

Jampol said that the project will enable the Wende to serve a wider swath of visitors, from specialists to the general public, and to venture outside of Culver City to engage other communities.

“It’s about making the collections both safe and accessible,” he said. “We looked to the Autry for inspiration alongside the V&A East in London — they both invite people in from the community, alongside scholars, to explore the collections. It’s the democratization of art — I love the ethos and spirit of that.”

A NEW multi-million museum is set to open in one of the UK’s prettiest cities.

Fashion Museum Bath is currently closed, but has revealed plans to reopen in the city’s Old Post Office.

The project is being designed by architects 6a, known for projects such as MK Gallery in Milton Keynes and South London Gallery.

Set to be approved next week, inside would be an 100,000 piece collection spanning 300 years.

Along with the gallery, the Bath attraction would also have a shop and cafe inside.

Set to cost £54million, it would open by 2030 when given the go-ahead.

Councillor Mark Elliott, cabinet member for resources, said: “To get an entirely new world-class museum including improvements to the surrounding public realm for £54m will be a great achievement.”

The museum website states: “The new Museum will champion fashion’s transformative power as a global industry and expression of creativity, culture and identity.

“Our mission is to craft a ground-breaking museum that brings fashion to life for people locally and globally, helping to reshape Bath for the future.

Bath is known for being one of the UK’s most beautiful cities, and was named the world’s best place to visit by New York Times last year.

It was even named one of the best cities to visit by Time Out this year.

The new museum is part of a wider £7million Milsom Quarter Masterplan of Bath, which will also see improved streets and public spaces as well as as new creative workspaces.

A BELOVED British museum has been forced to shut permanently after the building was deemed unsafe.

The museum is dedicated to preserving over 50 historic trams – an integral part of the town’s transport heritage.

Electrical faults in the building have made Blackpool‘s Tramtown museum uninhabitable to the public, a structural engineer’s survey said.

The former working tram depot dates back over 100 years, becoming a dedicated museum in 2021 following seven years of heritage tours.

The museum had previously been given a £50,000 lifeline from the Government’s Pride in Place Impact Fund to fix the major electrical faults in the building.

Blackpool Council suggested these repairs would allow the museum to reopen for a short term period.

However, a video from April 28 on the Tramtown YouTube channel revealed the building could not be used, leaving volunteers concerned how they were previously allowed into the building given how unsafe it was.

This unique museum gave a rare insight into the history of Blackpool’s trams and illuminations, welcoming over 500 visitors in its opening week.

Affordably priced at £5 per ticket, or £2.50 for children, the museum included a small, donation-based cafe, built for visitors less than a year before its closure.

Blackpool Council leader Lynn Williams said: “While the work was ongoing fixing the electrics at Tramtown, an independent structural engineer carried out a survey of the building.

“That independent report has come back saying the building is unsafe.

“The only public entrance is unsafe and we can’t gamble with the safety of volunteers and visitors by opening an unsafe building.”

Blackpool council leaders now hope to submit a joint funding bid and steering group to maintain a long-term future for the museum.

“I want to make very clear that this is not the end of heritage trams in Blackpool. The news will double our resolve to set up a joint steering group to create a better future for Tramtown and our historic trams,” Williams continued.

Blackpool Transport’s new managing director, Lea Harrison, said: “Blackpool is as famous for its historic trams as it is for its tower and the Pleasure Beach and we are fully committed to preserving the town’s rich tramway heritage for future generations to enjoy.”

Gray skies didn’t prevent L.A.’s arts community from getting fancy in support of the Hammer Museum’s annual Gala in the Garden. Adorned in fur coats, colorful sunglasses and patterned ties, artists and celebrities including Owen Wilson, Rufus Wainwright, Lauren Halsey and Catherine Opie joined to celebrate gala honorees Betye Saar and television writer and producer Darren Star.

The event highlighted how the Westwood-based museum inspires creatives and harnesses community for the city’s artists. Under pink and yellow lights, guests enjoyed cocktails while admiring the museum’s galleries. Guests, including Los Angles County Museum of Art Director and Chief Executive Michael Govan and the Hammer’s Director Emerita Ann Philbin, reunited with old friends and colleagues, making the event feel like a family affair.

All were unified in their admiration of the night’s guests of honor.

At 99, Saar is among L.A.’s most esteemed and accomplished living artists. Her career has spanned more than seven decades, with an early focus on rejecting white feminism and reclaiming the Black female body. Civil rights activist Angela Davis traced the start of the Black women’s movement to the creation of Saar’s 1972 assemblage piece, “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima.”

During onstage comments at the gala, Getty Research Institute presidential scholar Sandra Jackson-Dumont discussed the massive impact Saar has had on the art world.

“It measures in the artist who found their voice because you insisted that your voice mattered. It’s in the institutions that shifted because you demanded that they see us,” Jackson-Dumont said while introducing Saar to the stage. “You take what the world cast aside and breathe spirit into it, insisting that the overlooked can speak, that the discarded can testify, that the everyday can dream.”

The event also served as an early celebration for Saar’s 100th birthday in July, with Jackson-Dumont calling her birthday “100 years of vision. 100 years of courage.”

“[It’s] not 100 years of working, of making art, but 100 years of living with eyes wide open, heart attuned, spirit unbound, we stand in awe,” Jackson-Dumont said.

Saar took to the stage amid a resounding standing ovation, and when she spoke, the crowd’s gaze remained intently on her. While Saar kept her remarks short, she talked about the importance of art in everyday life.

“So many people do not realize how important art is, how it affects everything we do. Even bad things, because you can take art and make it good,” Saar said. “I want to thank you for coming to this event because by you being here, it encourages a lot of other people who are not here to love art and to use art and to know how important art is in this foreign life.”

Netflix co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos introduced Star, who created groundbreaking series including “Beverly Hills, 90210,” “Sex and the City,” “Younger” and “Emily in Paris,” which defined pop culture references for generations of television viewers.

Sarandos called it a “privilege” to work with Star, explaining that his work has an “enduring staying power” and that “there has never been a storyline that is too bats— crazy for Darren.”

“Darren is simply one of the most talented showrunners of his generation, with his finger on the pulse of pop culture for more than three decades,” Sarandos said. “He influences the clothes we wear, the way we cut our hair, the music we listen to and the dreams we dream.”

Star, who has long served on the Hammer’s board of directors, celebrated his honor by explaining what he loves about the museum, including its Alice Waters’ restaurant Lulu, and the environment the space provides for Los Angeles creatives.

“The Hammer creates a wonderful community. We come together because we all love art, love Los Angeles and love this museum,” Star said. “I’m grateful to be part of this family and the city’s extraordinary artistic life.”

The gala was the second under the leadership of Hammer Museum Director Zoë Ryan, who succeeded longtime director Ann Philbin in January 2025. Former Los Angeles City Council President Joel Wachs called Ryan a “true scholar, open-minded, unflappable.”

“I believe she is exactly the kind of strong leader this institution needs in these really difficult, complicated and turbulent times,” Wachs said during his opening remarks. “And if anyone can be counted upon, I believe it’s her that will vigorously defend against the grave dangers and vicious attacks on freedom of expression that both museums and universities currently face.”

During her speech Ryan said the Hammer is “cherished” by the Los Angeles community, and that she intends to keep providing a space for creatives in the city.

“At the heart of the Hammer is a deep commitment to giving space to artists, bold and experimental ideas, and supporting audiences as a catalyst for change through dialogue and exchange — all much needed in this country right now.”

It will be more than a “Star Wars” bonanza when the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens to the public Sept. 22. The highly anticipated $1-billion museum on Thursday announced about 20 inaugural exhibitions curated by George Lucas across more than 30 galleries — and only one is related to cinema, with a focus on “Star Wars” memorabilia, including large-scale vehicle installations, production designs, props and costumes.

The full scope of the 1,200-plus objects will only be revealed when guests step through the museum doors into more than 100,000 square feet of gallery space on the first day of fall.

The futuristic-looking 300,000-square-foot museum in L.A.’s Exposition Park was designed by Ma Yansong of Mad Architects with executive architect Stantec and includes 11 acres of park space that extend to the museum’s roof, designed by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA. Co-founded by Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, the museum will rotate the famous filmmaker’s vast collection of narrative art, which contains objects not found in more traditional museums, including manga, comics and children’s tales. The idea is to present the myriad ways images are used to tell an endless variety of stories. Lucas has called his collection “the people’s art.”

Exhibitions currently on deck include a variety of themed shows such as one on the architecture of the building; one titled “Everyday Life,” dedicated to visual stories about “childhood, community, family, love, motherhood, play, school, sports and work”; another titled “Civic Life” featuring “artists’ portrayals of experience in the courthouse, the polling place, the political headquarters”; an exhibit titled “Narrative Forms” highlighting “narrative art across genres of adventure, fantasy, romance and science fiction” by artists including Julie Bell, Boris Vallejo, Ken Kelly, Georges Méliès, John C. Berkey and Jeffrey Catherine Jones; and children’s literature illustrations by Beatrix Potter, Leo Politi, E.H. Shepard and Jacob Lawrence.

There will also be exhibitions devoted to the work of individual artists and genres such as comics and graphic stories from illustrators Mœbius, Marie Severin, Jack Kirby, Alison Bechdel, Jim Lee, Frank Miller and Rafael Navarro; illustrations and book covers by Frank Frazetta; the work of fairy tale and children’s illustrator Jessie Willcox Smith; the lush art of Maxfield Parrish; a selection of work by iconic American artist Norman Rockwell; selected works of Thomas Hart Benton; and early 20th century book illustrations by N.C. Wyeth.

A news release about the inaugural exhibitions noted that they are drawn from the museum’s founding collection of more than 40,000 works.

“The exhibitions trace the evolution of human culture through storytelling, from ancient sculptures of gods and goddesses to Renaissance paintings to photographs, comics and modern cinema,” the release says. “Many exhibitions are organized by theme, focusing on myths about love, family, community and adventure that connect every generation. These shared stories, told over and over in many forms, bind us together and define our human experience.”

The road to the opening of the Lucas Museum has been winding. In 2017, Lucas first announced his decision to build his museum in L.A., with construction beginning the following year. The building was initially scheduled to open in 2021 — a goal that was pushed to 2023 due to COVID-19 pandemic-induced delays. From there, the debut was pushed to 2025, and finally 2026. The museum announced its final opening date last November.

Lucas’ role at his namesake museum has also not always been clear, and the museum’s development has been marked by a series of high-profile staff shakeups. The museum’s original director and chief executive, Sandra Jackson-Dumont, stepped down from her role in early 2025 after less than five years. She didn’t speak publicly about her departure but the museum issued a statement that her decision was based on a “new organizational design” that would split her job into two positions, with Lucas responsible for content direction.

Three months later, the museum laid off 15 full-time employees, a number of whom were from the education and public programming team. Seven part-time, on-call employees were also eliminated. The layoffs were described to The Times in harrowing terms by two employees who asked to remain anonymous.

In December — soon after the museum announced its opening date — news broke that chief curator Pilar Tompkins Rivas had stepped down from her role.

To date, no new chief curator has been named, but a rep for the museum wrote in an email that Lucas “is responsible for curatorial and content direction for the museum and continues to work closely with the curatorial team on his decades-long vision to celebrate storytelling and narrative art.”

North Korea has opened a memorial museum in Pyongyang for its soldiers killed while fighting alongside Russian forces in the war in Ukraine, in the clearest sign yet of how central the conflict has become to the growing alliance.

The inaugural ceremony at the Memorial Museum of Combat Feats at the Overseas Military Operations was held on Sunday. It also marked the first anniversary of what the two countries describe as the end of an operation to “liberate” Russia’s Kursk border region from a Ukrainian incursion, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Monday.

KCNA said North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un attended the event along with senior Russian officials, including State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin and Defence Minister Andrei Belousov.

South Korea’s intelligence agency has estimated that North Korea deployed about 15,000 soldiers to fight for Russia in the Kursk region, and that about 2,000 of them were killed. Moscow and Pyongyang have not disclosed any figures.

During the ceremony, Kim sprinkled earth over the remains of one soldier and laid flowers for others whose bodies had been placed in a mortuary, according to KCNA. Kim and the Russian officials then signed a guestbook at the newly opened museum.

In his speech, Kim said the fallen North Korean troops would remain “a symbol of the Korean people’s heroism” and would support “a victorious march by the Korean and Russian people”.

He accused the United States and its allies of pursuing a “hegemonic plot and military adventurism” on the Russia-Ukraine front, praising Russian and North Korean forces for thwarting those efforts.

Meeting Belousov separately, Kim pledged full support for Russia’s policy of defending its sovereignty and security interests, KCNA said.

Russia’s TASS news agency quoted Belousov as saying that Moscow is ready to sign a military cooperation plan with Pyongyang covering 2027-31.

In a letter read by Volodin, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the new museum would be “a clear symbol of the friendship and solidarity” between the two countries and pledged to further strengthen their “comprehensive strategic partnership”.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Kim has tilted his foreign policy decisively towards Moscow, supplying troops and conventional weapons in exchange, analysts say, for economic support and possibly sensitive technologies.

Officials in South Korea, the US and allied countries fear Russia could transfer advanced know-how to Pyongyang that would boost its nuclear and missile programmes.

Military experts say North Korean troops initially suffered heavy losses in Kursk due to their lack of combat experience and unfamiliarity with the terrain, making them vulnerable to Ukrainian drone and artillery fire.

But Ukrainian military and intelligence officials have assessed that the North Koreans later gained crucial battlefield experience and became central to Russia’s efforts to overwhelm Ukrainian forces by deploying large numbers of soldiers in the region.