L.A. Agenda: Design and Arts Events in Southern California
Author:Lindsey ShookIt’s January in L.A., and awards season is in full swing. If you’ve caught screenings of all the best picture nominees, check out these events happening before Oscar night.
Sure, the 1930’s action flick Gangster Squad didn’t make the Oscars cut. But you can still make time for an Art Deco Walking Tour with the L.A. Conservancy. The tour takes a look at buildings from L.A.’s boomtown ‘20’s and 30’s, including interior tours of the Southern California Edison Company and Oviatt buildings.
Tours meet Saturdays at 10 AM in Pershing Square (Olive and 6th). Tickets are $10, $5 for Conservancy members. It’s recommended that you arrive 15 minutes before the tour departs and be prepared to walk roughly 1.5 miles on the tour.
If you loved the costumes and elaborate story boards for the movie fake-out in Argo, check out LACMA’s screening of Encounters, a documentary following photographer Gregory Crewdson. Crewdson is known for his elaborately staged photographs inspired by Hitchcock and Lynch films. Using the kind of special effects (klieg lights, fog machines, etc.) usually seen only in Hollywood movies, Crewdson’s pictures read like stills from never-seen features left in the vault. Crewdson and director Ben Shapiro will attend.
The screening takes place at LACMA, Thursday, January 24 at 7:20 p.m. Tickets are $10 for non-members, $7 for LACMA members and are available at lacma.org

Scene from Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters. Photo courtesy of Slant.
And if Zero Dark Thirty’s more your speed, head over to the Santa Monica Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition of Samira Yamin’s We Will Not Fail. Yamin hand-cut Islamic geometric motifs into the Oct. 1, 2001 issue of TIME magazine, the first of several issues dedicated to the war on terror. The result is both delicate and subversive.
We Will Not Fail will be on display at SMMOMA beginning Jan. 17