LACMA opens its new building for a sneak peak: Photos from the first preview
After five years of construction, so much debate about its scale, design and ambitions, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art held its first event Thursday night inside the Peter Zumthor-designed building. A sprawling, immersive concert by composer and SoCal jazz hero Kamasi Washington called for multiple bands, each with about a dozen musicians, to play site-specific arrangements throughout the empty galleries before art has been installed. A woodwind ensemble overlooked Park La Brea through floor-to-ceiling glass; a choir stacked harmonies that floated over the span of the structure as it crossed Wilshire Boulevard.
Hundreds of VIPs and members of the media took it all in. The project has its skeptics, including how the museum's permanent collection will function in it. But for now, museum members could slink about the echoing halls of L.A.'s newest landmark and ponder the possibilities.
Guests at the sneak peek inside the new building Thursday cross a glass-lined expanse that crosses over Wilshire Boulevard.
LACMA Director Michael Govan addresses members of the media assembled for the first public peek inside the empty building, which still needs to complete some construction details and install the art before opening, targeted for April 2026.
The design of the museum has morphed over the years, from a dark, curvaceous amoeba-like form that echoed the nearby La Brea Tar Pits to a design that retains the curves up top but shifts to rectilinear glass on the galleries level below.
The preview event Thursday featured musicians staged throughout the building.
Preview events give museum members a chance to view Zumthor's design before art is installed. One of the lingering questions is how the concrete walls will fare given the museum's new plan to shift from permanent collection displays to ever-rotating exhibitions — and all the rehanging of artworks that will be required.
The setting sun casts long shadows from visitors looking out toward the rooftop of Renzo Piano's Resnick Pavilion and, off in the distance on the left, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures' domed terrace.
Artist Tony Smith's installation 'Smoke' has a new home outside the David Geffen Galleries. The museum recently announced the addition of a forthcoming Jeff Koons' sculpture, 'Split-Rocker.'
'Smoke' rises near a long entry staircase to the new building. When the new building opens in April 2026, LACMA has said, the ticketing process will be handled at kiosks on the ground level.
Inside another one of the galleries. Some of the architecture-circle speculation about the building has centered on the finish of the building's concrete, inside and out.
The view from the David Geffen Galleries as it crosses Wilshire Boulevard.
Times art critic Christopher Knight, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his early analysis of the LACMA building plan, and Times music critic Mark Swed attended the preview concert event Thursday. Check back for their first impressions of the new space.
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Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- Chicago Tribune
Savannah Bananas leave an indelible mark on Chicago, from an emotional White Sox reunion to a Chance happening
Fans gathered in the parking lot in front of Rate Field's Gate 5 for the Before the Peel party. A swarm of yellow crowded in front of the stage to watch the festivities take place. This is where the first celebrity cameo happened. The afro-mohawk, big gold chain, sideburns, yellow sleeveless vest, blue shorts and a layer of sweat that glistened his forehead. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. … K? 'I'm Mr. K and I put the T in potassium,' Mr. K said on stage. 'I pity the fool to anyone not having fun right now.' He led a crowd train, did the Cupid Shuffle with a dad-bod dancing team and had water balloons thrown at him by three mascots — Split, Benny the Bull and Southpaw. This was at 3 p.m. Friday, four hours before the Savannah Bananas' first game in Chicago. Ever. You just had to be there. The dancing, baseball-playing — sorry, Banana Ball-playing — team finished their first trip to Rate Field on Saturday with a second game in as many nights against the Firefighters. The weekend included trick plays, dancing in the heat and nonstop music from start till dawn. The yellow swarm of fans filed out of the Sox-35th Red Line stop right at 11:30 a.m. Friday to purchase merchandise, adding to their bright-colored wardrobe. It was about time the Savannah Bananas came to the Windy City. Amber and Corey Shultz brought their 6- and 4-year-old sons, Tanner and Carter, for their second Bananas game. They went to Indianapolis for their first experience, but 35th and Shields is a shorter drive from their Kankakee home. The kids said they most wanted to see Split, the Bananas mascot. 'Hopefully they come in next year,' Amber Schultz said. Photos: Savannah Bananas make Chicago debut at Rate FieldIt was fun for kids and adults alike. Edward Gordon, 35, was wearing his banana costume. It was a bold move wearing an extra layer in nearly 90-degree heat, but this seemed to be his plan regardless. 'When you're in the shade it's nice, but it's very appealing being in here,' Gordon said, smiling at the unsubtle banana pun. 'I'm excited as you can possibly be out here. It's worth the wait and it's worth the heat.' Team co-owner Jesse Cole had a meeting with the Bananas and Firefighters before the festivities started. His philosophy always has been to prioritize viewers, telling the teams 'the fans need this' and breaking out of the huddle with a 'fans first!' chant. He walked to the media availability to answer questions about his team and the journey up to this point, among other topics. He didn't sneak up on anyone — that's hard to do when wearing one of his nine bright yellow tuxedos. 'It's amazing to go all around the country, new ballparks, places we've never been for the first time and (sell) out immediately,' Cole said. 'To have 3.6 million people on our waitlist is crazy, but we know that's a responsibility for us. For these people that come to see our show for the first time, we got to put on the greatest show on sports. 'Chicago is a special market for us, and obviously the demand is huge, over 100,000-plus people on the waitlist to come here. Anytime we come to a city like Chicago that has a great history, to put our little stamp on it is exciting for us.' Everyone knows the Bananas for their dancing, but maybe not for the effort behind it. The rehearsals began at 12:45 p.m. with more than five rehearsals for different numbers. Ryan Kellogg, the lefty pitcher who was a Cubs draft pick in 2015, said these choreographs change every game and are unpredictable. 'It's tough to set expectations for games like this because just like any normal baseball game, anything can happen,' Kellogg, 31, said. 'I'm excited to see this place sold out. I'm sure this place can get really loud, so I'm really excited for that.' And that it did. The energy only increased as the night went on, to the delight of the players on the field. Seems like Cole's pep talk worked. 'We feed off their energy, so when they're into it, we're always into it,' Kellogg said. 'It was always a lifelong childhood dream to pitch in all 30 major-league stadiums, so to be able to cross this one off the list and … stand on the mound and look up into the third deck and see all those fans excited and locked into the game is special.' The White Sox lent their ballpark to the Bananas, who returned the favor big time to fans. Firefighters catcher Dalton Cornett went up to bat early in the game Friday night wearing his father's White Sox jersey. His dad, Scott, was a catcher in the Sox organization for two years before becoming the baseball coach for his alma mater, Alice Lloyd College in Pippa Passes, Ky., a position he has held for more than 30 years. 'It's always special having my dad there, he's taught me everything and molded me into who I am,' Cornett said. 'He always stays on my back to keep pushing (me), so it's been absolutely great.' In the sixth inning, Cole announced special additions to the roster. Former White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski came running in wearing a Bananas jersey and was met with a roar from unsuspecting South Side fans. In his 19-year MLB career — eight with the Sox — he finished with 2,043 hits, 188 home runs and 909 RBIs. He was behind the plate when pitcher Bobby Jenks closed out the White Sox's 2005 World Series win. In the seventh, Pierzynski had familiar company. Cole called on Mark Buehrle to pitch in the bottom of the inning. Having thrown for the White Sox from 2000-11, he finished his 16-year career with a 214-160 record, 3.81 ERA and 1,870 strikeouts. Buehrle pitched seven innings in Game 2 of the 2005 Series against the Houston Astros, then earned the save in the Game 3 win two nights later. The Sox last month unveiled a Buehrle statue along the right-field concourse at Rate Field, honoring the franchise great. Buehrle threw to Pierzynski for the first time in more than a decade Friday night, and the two embraced at the plate, a reunion that would make Pope Leo XIV smile. A 'Let's go, White Sox' chant ensued across the sold-out crowd. The theme continued Saturday with appearances from longtime Sox shortstop and World Series-winning manager Ozzie Guillén and Paul Konerko, another hero from the 2005 champions. That wasn't the only Chicago love at Rate Field. White Sox die-hard Chance the Rapper performed Friday with a dance in center field with the Bananas and Firefighters. He was all smiles during his moment and in his suite surrounded by family and friends. The lights went out in the eighth inning, and fans illuminated the ballpark with their phone flashlights as Chance sang along with the Bananas to Coldplay's 'Yellow.' 'Never bet against the Bananas,' he said after their 3-2 win Friday night. 'I had never been to one of their games before, but I'm a big fan of the All-American Rejects,' Chance, whose real name is Chancelor Bennett, said of the Bananas. 'I've seen a video of them performing together and I thought it was so cool. When they were coming to Chicago, I reached out. It was really cool, I love s— that's for the whole family.' The game had a two-hour time limit, but if you blinked, you missed a backflip catch, Dakota 'Stilts' Albritton delivering pitches standing at 10 feet, the dancing umpire and even a 'Mike Ditka' cameo in which the celebrity impersonator brought out the bears — kids dressed up in animal costumes. Banana Ball rules include one in which the Most Valuable Banana can present a fan challenge to overturn a call. There was one in the third inning, when a call was changed after a review showed a fan in the stands caught the yellow banana ball on a fly — which is an out. Viewers were directly involved with the game. '(It's) just the different spin on baseball,' said Kyle Lund, 38, wearing a banana bucket hat his wife bought him. 'Honestly, it gets a little boring to be at night in a game and it (be) slow. This (is) going to be quick.' Between innings, players danced with kids in the stands, sang them lullabies and even handed out roses to the 'beautiful fans' as a thank you for attending. The Savannah Bananas can call their first trip to Chicago a success after seeing more than 80,000 fans in two nights at Rate Field. Whether they return to the South Side or debut at Wrigley Field in the coming years, the yellow team left its mark on the city, showing that a little fun can go a long way. 'It shows the kids that you don't have to be serious all the time,' Gordon said. 'You can still enjoy and have fun, but you still have sports involved with it too.'
UPI
3 days ago
- UPI
Leguizamo's Esposito seeks redemption by catching an arsonist in 'Smoke'
1 of 3 | John Leguizamo's "Smoke" wrapped up Friday. Photo courtesy of Apple TV+ NEW YORK, Aug. 16 (UPI) -- Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge! and Ice Age Icon John Leguizamo says the disgraced detective he plays in Smoke is seeking redemption by trying to bring down the former partner who cost him his career. Created by best-selling novelist Dennis Lehane, the show follows a law-enforcement task force, including Leguizamo's Esposito, who are determined to catch Dave (Taron Egerton), an arson investigator and prolific fire-setter. "He got too close to the truth. He knew who the arsonist was and that's when they destroyed his career, made him the fall guy, and he hit rock bottom," Leguizamo, 65, told UPI about his character in a recent Zoom interview. "He drinks a lot and takes a lot of pills and he becomes a porn director," the actor said. "But then he gets a chance to get back on the [police] force because he knows the truth. But he has to keep constantly proving himself and I think that's the exciting part of being in that character. I have to fluctuate. I have to fight with all these different forces against me and no one will believe me." John Leguizamo knows how to make an entrance.#Smoke - Now Streaming Apple TV (@AppleTV) July 18, 2025 Esposito finds an unlikely ally in ATF Agent Hudson, played by Veep and My Girl alum Anna Chlumsky, 44. "She tries to help me get back the reins," Leguizamo laughed. "Poor woman. She's exhausted because of me." To prepare for the role, Chlumsky looked at what a woman in her position would have had to accomplish to get to where she is in a predominantly male field. "There's this sense of having to prove yourself over and over, even if you've gotten to the point where you're leading a task force," she said. "That never goes away. It's part of your conditioning. It's part of your workplace code switch and that's really where I was jumping in from. I was jumping in from how trusted she felt at work, how much she trusts herself and, ultimately, not wanting to let any of those insecurities get into her ability to do the job well." Leguizamo pointed out that this is a theme for many of the characters in Smoke. "Jurnee [Smollett] has to try to prove herself," he said, to which Chlumsky replied, "Also, to whom are you proving something, right?" Leguizamo said he was happy to provide the comic relief in a show that digs into some really serious topics, including crime, corruption, mental illness, suicide and violence against women. "What I love about this series is that it has teeth," Leguizamo said. "It's not easy. It's not just light-hearted," he added. "I love that it's really dark, complex characters, people with a lot of demons and, then, we get a chance, Anna and I, to bring a little humor and a little repartee that lightens it up a little bit, but they are still messed-up characters. We're still broken human beings and I love playing those kind of characters that are really vulnerable and, yet, they fight for the truth." Chlumsky emphasized that the show is first and foremost intended to be entertaining. "Even when he's going to the darkest questions and exploring the shame of his characters or the parts of this characters that they don't even want to look at, you can tell that [Lehane] is remaining playful," Chlumsky said. "He's having a great time and that's, I think, what energizes the whole thing." The series wrapped up on Apple TV+ Friday. Greg Kinnear and Rafe Spall co-star.
Time Magazine
4 days ago
- Time Magazine
Breaking Down the Smoldering Finale of Smoke
Warning: This post has spoilers for the finale of nine episodes, Smoke traced destruction as it traveled from suburban streets and storefronts into more figurative places—the dark recesses of identity, the fragile façades to which people cling in order to survive. By the season finale, "Mirror Mirror," long-buried truths surface, demanding a reckoning as emotional as it is inevitable. Creator Dennis Lehane always envisioned a climax that erupted on every level. "It's such a cliché, but I wanted to have an explosive finale," he tells TIME. "This is a show about fire. We've been promising them fire, so we're going to give them the fire of all fires. We wanted to go as big as we can—just go for broke, and if we miss, we miss." That eruption plays out most vividly through the series' two central figures. If Michelle Calderone (Jurnee Smollett) serves as its moral compass, Dave Gudsen (Taron Egerton) is its shape-shifter, the man whose presence destabilizes every scene because even his sense of self is built on deception. Over the season, he was both predator and partner, the charming investigator and the arsonist hiding in plain sight. By the end, the armor he constructed—and the story he's told so often he nearly believes it—has crumbled. Into the growing inferno The finale opens in the aftermath of Michelle's darkest act. In the penultimate episode, "Mercy," she accidentally wounded Captain Burke (Rafe Spall)—her colleague and former lover—then let him die, torching his home to eliminate the evidence. Before fleeing, she planted a glove bearing Gudsen's DNA, crafting a false trail. Now, in "Mirror Mirror," she struggles to steady herself, continuing to investigate alongside Gudsen while her composure falters beneath the surface. Her act of arson ignites something far more catastrophic: an uncontained wildfire rising from Burke's ruins, flames roaring as windborne embers spiral into the dark. She and Gudsen drive headlong toward the blaze, racing through the woods while heat presses in and smoke thickens the air—until the path reveals itself to be a trap. Gudsen, unmasked earlier as one of the two serial arsonists she's been hunting, unbuckles her seat belt and wrenches the wheel, sending them into a crash designed to kill her. Harry Nilsson's "Jump Into the Fire" pulses as Michelle—not dead—ties back her hair, preparing for battle. Gudsen crawls from the wreckage; she kicks him, slams him against the car, and presses the barrel of a gun into his mouth. She doesn't pull the trigger. Instead, a storm breaks—rain cascading in a moment of symbolic and literal cleansing. "[It's] as clean as Michelle's gonna get in that moment," Lehane says. "She's pushed this all the way, and there's nothing left to do. Because if it didn't rain at that moment, something bad could have happened to Dave." The downpour pulls her back from crossing an irreversible line. As rain drenches them both, she reads him his rights. For Lehane, the scene's tension lies partly in its soundtrack. Many of the show's song selections were his. ("That's where I really do feel a bit like an auteur," he adds.) He crafted the entire sequence around Nilsson's drum solo, playing it endlessly in the writers room. "When I shot that, I said to the creative team, 'Look, guys, we are doing this to Harry Nilsson's 'Jump Into the Fire,'' Lehane recalls. When the initial cut used different music, he personally recut the scene to match Nilsson's rhythm, and the editor ultimately agreed it was the right move. "We worked that to the bone to get it exactly where I wanted it." It's a primal, visual crescendo he conceived during what he calls a "mad scientist" burst in the Los Angeles writers' room, scribbling notes while listening to the Oppenheimer soundtrack. "I love 'Go Big or Go Home' moments," he says. "I don't do them much... I like to twist, twist, and twist. But this was a big moment." A battle of damaged wills After their confrontation in the woods, Michelle delivers Gudsen to a waiting Jeep, where Esposito (John Leguizamo) greets her with an air of triumph. Back at Columbia Metro Police Headquarters, the station falls silent as officers watch Gudsen enter, their contempt palpable. In the station bathroom, Michelle catches her reflection, and then sees him—Burke—not in the mirror, but in her mind, planting a warning that if anyone discovers their affair, the truth could unravel everything she's accomplished. In the interrogation room, things shift to psychological warfare. Gudsen weaves stories, reframes evidence, accuses Michelle of bias, and dismisses the glove bearing his DNA as circumstantial. He maintains he was merely investigating, but Michelle counters with his manuscript, cross-referencing it with actual unsolved arson cases and highlighting details only the perpetrator, or someone with access to classified files, could possess. Still, he deflects. Perhaps a lawyer leaked the report. Maybe a private investigator shared too much. Then Esposito sends Michelle a photograph: the disguise Gudsen wore during the hardware store attack, discovered in a hidden compartment of his impounded car. Even confronted with this evidence, he refuses to confess. It's a standoff Lehane and Smollett dissected at length during filming. "I call [Jurnee] my thespian queen," he says. "At this point, Michelle is desperate. Let's call a spade a spade—she started the incident that caused all this. Her morality is compromised by the end. She's interrogating Dave for a murder she committed and destruction she caused. Yet she's pursuing justice, which we all want. We all want Dave brought to justice." Gudsen's strategy remains unchanged. "He will deny, deny, deny, and attack, attack, attack," Lehane explains. "He refuses to let truth penetrate, but when it slips through, when she extracts it from him, he glimpses himself. Then he turns away." During their final exchange in the interrogation room, Gudsen stares at Michelle. "I know who I am," he declares. She meets his gaze, responding simply, "So do I." The shape of denial The closing montage delivers quiet devastation. Gudsen's ex-wife and son pack away photographs, including one showing a heavier, balder version of the man—a face both foreign and unmistakably his. In a single frame, the myth of the chiseled, commanding investigator collapses, revealing the ordinary figure he's spent years trying to erase. Over Thelma Houston's "Don't Leave Me This Way," the moment turns contemplative—Lehane's final musical choice, selected to underscore the magnetic pull between Michelle and Gudsen, two people unable to fully break free from each other. Whether he'll ever be convicted remains uncertain, the unanswered question hanging over the finale, which ends before a trial. Gudsen's fractured identity—swaggering machismo versus devoted family man—might suggest dissociative identity disorder, but Lehane resists reducing him to a clinical label. For him, Dave represents a broader cultural pathology. "I think of it the same way I think of all these performative males in our culture right now: macho dweebs hiding behind their keyboards," he explains. "If you saw them in person, you'd see some little 5'-6" guy who lives with his mom." Dave's psychology, Lehane argues, stems from denial, particularly regarding his desires and the transgressive aspects of his personal life. The writers explored how his relationships diverge from those of what Lehane calls a "healthy heterosexual American male," suggesting truths Dave cannot acknowledge. "We're all constructing these personas, and it's damaging the world," he observes. That critique carries personal weight. Like Egerton's character Jimmy Keene in Lehane's previous Apple TV+ series Black Bird, Gudsen functions as a cultural stand-in. Lehane was raised in what he describes as an "extremely masculine culture"; his immigrant father and uncles worked with their hands. But authenticity, not posturing, defined their masculinity. "My father had nothing but contempt for posing," Lehane recalls. "If my brothers got a weight set, he'd say, 'Why do you need to push a bar up and down? You can just do hard work.'" Lehane often considers how that generation would view today's performative masculinity. "I think he would be befuddled and appalled," he says. "A lot of the great-grandfathers and grandfathers of the men polluting our culture right now would be appalled." In that sense, Dave is his embodiment of "toxic masculinity,' a man whose identity rests on performance and concealment, whose carefully crafted armor masks profound emptiness. Living with the aftermath Lehane never set out to create a simple morality tale with clear heroes and villains. The ambiguity is deliberate, with Gudsen and Michelle shaped by their compromises, each capable of inflicting harm. Gudsen's intelligence and charm form part of his protective façade, a narrative he's repeated until it feels almost genuine. In his final moments, he approaches self-recognition before retreating, leaving both audience and characters suspended in uncertainty. Michelle, meanwhile, is steadied by duty and singed by guilt, hunting the truth even as the secret she carries could undo her. That deliberate inconclusiveness places Smoke alongside other works that resist easy answers. Lehane draws parallels to The Sopranos' contentious finale. "Whether you liked it or not, you're still talking about it," he notes. He's witnessed similar reactions to the conclusion of Shutter Island, the 2010 Martin Scorsese psychological thriller he wrote. "It's the question I get more than any other. I got it from my 16-year-old daughter yesterday. She said, 'Dad, my friends really want to know.' I was like, 'Honey, I'm not telling you.'" Dave and Michelle constructed identities around control and performance, and now both stand exposed: raw, unstable, unmoored. "What do they have in their lives, really, without each other?" Lehane asks. "They let their ids run so completely amok that there is no way to get half the horses back in the barn. So that is the big final dramatic question: Where are these people going to go now?"Smoke concludes without resolution, offering only consequence. The greatest damage isn't physical destruction but exposure itself: the compromises and deceptions that prove too painful to confront. What lingers isn't closure, but the mental heft of choices that cannot be undone—and the knowledge that carrying them is the only path forward.
