New Offerings at UCLA

WHEN I moved to the Eastside five years ago, the main think I knew I'd miss from my more central position in the city was the cultural stuff at UCLA. The last few days -- which has seen a new schedule  for UCLA Live and a season preview at the Hammer Museum -- reminds me just how much is going on there.

One of the best developments since I landed here 13 years ago has been Ann Philbin's revival of the oil tycoon's museum in a particularly corporate part of Westwood. Today's preview continued a fresh program of art in various forms, much of it infused, this time, with music and performance.

Douglas Fogle, the newish chief curator, opened up the preview by welcoming us on "what passes for bad weather in LA - 'There's a mist, I can't go out.'" He was especially excited about a September show by Mark Manders, a sculptor who started out as a poet and retained, he said, a poetic approach to his craft. The Hammer's Contemporary Collection is about to open, full of what seemed like challenging work.

Overall, there seemed like a great deal of installations, documentaries, musical offerings, etc. coming over the next few months. The next Hammer Invitational, still without a title, looks promising, and this year will offer not only LA artists -- Kerry Tribe and Charles Gaines, both of whose recent work sounds fascinating -- as well as international artist who have not had much exposure in the Southland.

I was able to very swifty move through Outside the Box: Edition Jacob Samuel, 1988-2010, and will be returning to take a closer look at the beautifully austere work of the old-school Santa Monica-based printmaker, who obvious loved Durer. (I especially liked his work with Barry McGee - right -- and Ed Ruscha.)

UCLA Live, which for years I have found to be the most challenging arts series in town, recently announced its 2010-'11 schedule, and as usual there is some wonderful stuff on here, if not, alas, the international theater festival that has helped connect LA audiences to the best work happening in the rest of the world.

It's hard to imagine John Cale being better suited to any spot in town than this series, and I am eager to see piano virtuoso Murray Perahia, Dengue Fever playing to silent film The Lost World as well as the intriguing bill of soul legend Mavis Staples and Brit folk-punk singer Billy Bragg.

Should I be surprised that cashiered UCLA Live artistic director David Sefton, whose last season this is, is not, from what I can tell, anywhere mentioned in the rollout of the new season?

Shocked and Appalled at UCLA

David Sefton -- generally the most intriguing and unpredictable of Los Angeles' arts showmen -- has resigned from his post running the UCLA Live series that takes place at Royce Hall and other venues. Sefton, a native of Liverpool, is being coy about this, but it's hard not to imagine that someone as passionate about his programming, and about his particularly fervent niche of high and low, stepping down unless he received considerable pressure.

Here is the LA Times story which runs tomorrow. Writes Mike Boehm: 'He said Thursday that he quit in response to "a major rethinking and restructuring" of the program that his bosses at UCLA's School of the Arts and Architecture are undertaking in response to "increasing fiscal pressures" brought on by the poor economy and the state's fiscal woes.'

In the 13 years I've been in LA, only Esa-Pekka Salonen of the LA Phil has been a more exciting local force in the arts. I recall the jolt the arrival of the irreverent Scouser sent through the local cultural community, and went to as many of these offerings as I could. Here is my LA Times story on Sefton concentrating on his wild theater offerings.

One early sign that a short-sighted and stupid decision might be coming was UCLA's recent (and barlely announced) canceling of the International Theater Festival, the key to Sefton's annual programming and some of the most daring avant-garde performance I've ever seen, from Societie Rafael Sanzio to Complicite to the more traditional but still bracing Shakespeare performances by Mark Rylance's Royal Shakespeare Company. The best coverage of this is by Steven Leigh Morris. (Dean Christopher Waterman of UCLA says ticket sales had been low.)

I also wrote a cover story on Sefton for New Times LA soon after he arrived: I spoke to or corresponded with a number of cultural luminaries, including Elvis Costello, Laurie Anderson and late great deejay John Peel, and all sung Sefton's praises and talked about his transforming of London's South Bank Centre. Christ, here's a guy who brought Scott Walker out of reclusion!!

"When I arrived I was an enfant terrible, and now I'm an eminence gris," Sefton told Boehm. "It takes just 10 years."