Latest news with #TheKingdomofPylos:Warrior-PrincesofAncientGreece
Time Out
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
The Getty Villa is finally back open after the Palisades Fire
Five and a half months after it shut its doors in the midst of the Palisades Fire, the Getty Villa —one of the city's cultural crown jewels—has finally reopened. Thanks to the efforts of both security and facilities staff and firefighters, the museum is still intact —a beacon of hope amid the surrounding landscape. And as of June 27, the Getty Villa is officially welcoming the public again, albeit with limited hours: Friday to Mondays from 10am to 5pm. (You can reserve free tickets here, though the first couple of weeks are already booked solid.) We got to preview the grounds and the Villa's new exhibition, ' The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece,' earlier this week. Here's what you can expect from a visit to the newly reopened museum. Driving to the museum on Tuesday night, I felt a mix of anticipation and trepidation. I hadn't been close to the Palisades since the wildfires, and I wasn't sure what to expect. After turning a corner on Sunset heading toward the Villa, I suddenly found myself driving through swaths of destruction—innumerable burnt trees, barren hillsides, empty lots where houses once stood, crumbled and hollowed-out buildings. The drive up made me emotional—I was full of both sorrow and love for our city. Once I turned onto the cobblestones of the Getty Villa entrance from PCH, I felt on more familiar ground. At first glance, not much seemed different about the museum grounds. Thankfully, the art and buildings themselves were untouched and are still standing proud. The surrounding landscape, however, didn't fare as well. According to the Getty's website, some 1,415 trees had to be removed due to fire damage—that amounts to 44 percent of the Villa's forest—though thankfully the plants in the courtyards weren't harmed. Sure enough, the hillsides behind the museum building are sparser than you might remember, and the ocean is a bit easier to see from the back of the property. The difference was especially stark in the East Garden, behind the mosaic fountain. Some of the fire-damaged trees have been salvaged and will potentially be used in a memorial, as an art installation or furnishings. In the meantime, the Getty's grounds and garden director and his team are replanting and placing an emphasis on native, more flame-resistant plants and trees. The Palisades Fire also covered the Villa's grounds with ash. Once it was deemed safe to do so, a specialty cleaning company was brought in, who used a multistep process to wash and sweep the ash off of the roof and roads, as well as the balconies and patios—the gorgeous outdoor spaces that make the Getty feel like such an oasis. It took a little more finesse to clean the murals in the Outer Peristyle, though—the colorful paintings reminiscent of ancient Roman frescoes that surround possibly the most photogenic part of the Villa's grounds. To do this involved calling in conservators to vacuum soot off the walls, wipe them down with wet sponges and then carefully inpaint, or fill in, the murals to make them more vivid and bright. Inside the museum—besides an acknowledgment inside the Atrium thanking staff members for their service during and after the fires—you'll find the same permanent collection of Greek and Roman antiquities that fully transports you to ancient times (oil industrialist and collector J. Paul Getty wanted the Villa to emulate a first-century Roman country house). On the second floor, though, is a brand-new exhibition. 'The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece' is dedicated to the Greek Mycenaean civilization and the kingdom of Pylos, which Homer immortalized in the Iliad and Odyssey. It's the first major museum show in North America devoted to the Late Bronze Age Mycenaeans (we're talking 1700–1070 BCE). Three rooms and a hallway are filled with art and artifacts that excavators unearthed from Messenia, the Palace of Nestor and burial sites including the tomb of the Griffin Warrior (1450 BCE)—think clay tablets, gold cups, ornate weapons and tiny signets and sealstones adorned with awe-inspiring amounts of detail. It's hard to wrap your head around the intricacies of these treasures that are thousands of years old. A slate of public programming will accompany the exhibition, including an opening lecture by archaeologists Sharon Stocker and Jack Davis on June 28 and a Bacchus Uncorked wine program on August 9 and 10. Outside, starting September 4, the Villa's Outdoor Classical Theater will spring back into action with the musical Oedipus the King, Mama!, a mash-up of Sophocles's Oedipus the King and Elvis Presley's music. Seeing a play in the ancient Greece–style amphitheater as you feel the Pacific Ocean breeze is a special experience. My visit to the Getty Villa did a lot to restore my hope in L.A.'s resilience. And the Getty is leading by example, sharing advice on emergency preparedness with institutions around the world. Pacific Palisades and L.A. at large still have a lot of healing to do in the wake of the wildfires, but the Getty Villa's reopening—right on the heels of PCH fully reopening in time for the summer—can serve as a beacon in the city's ongoing recovery.
CBS News
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Getty Villa reopens almost 6 months after Palisades Fire forced its temporary closure
The Getty Villa Museum has reopened its doors Friday, almost six months after the Palisades Fire forced its temporary closure. Over the last several months, staff have worked to deep clean spaces, remove debris and make sure the museum is safe for the public to return. On Jan. 7, the Palisades Fire erupted and quickly spread during a deadly Santa Ana wind event. Flames spread to the Getty Villa, burning trees and vegetation. Katherine Fleming, president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, said that although no galleries and collections were damaged, the museum's irrigation system was destroyed. The Getty Villa art museum was threatened by the flames of the wind-driven Palisades Fire in Pacific Palisades, California, January 7, 2025. The fast-moving brushfire burned buildings and sparked thousands of evacuations as a life-threatening Santa Ana wind event ripped through the region. DAVID SWANSON/AFP via Getty Images Reopening day will feature the grand opening of The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece exhibition. It will showcase over 230 art pieces and artifacts from Messenia. The museum will have a soft reopening, operating Fridays through Mondays before returning to its regular hours, the museum's website says. Museum officials said the property underwent extensive cleaning before painting on the outdoor frescoes could begin. Conservators worked with county and federal agencies to conduct environmental testing to ensure cleaning was safe. Although museum officials hope another wildfire does not threaten the property in the future, the museum has taken steps to ensure staff are trained and prepared to help keep them safe. The Getty Villa said.
Los Angeles Times
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Getty Villa sets reopening date after fire: L.A. arts and culture this weekend
The Getty Villa Museum will reopen to the public on a limited basis beginning June 27 after a nearly six-month closure forced by the devastating Palisades fire. On the night of Jan. 7, reports swirled that the wind-driven conflagration had reached the outskirts of the Villa. A Getty team stayed through the night, putting out spot fires with fire extinguishers and ensuring that the galleries were safely sealed off, while updating a command team at Getty Center that included Getty President and Chief Executive Katherine Fleming. A few days later, Fleming told The Times that the teams were confident that their thorough preparation — including extensive brush clearing — would keep the museum from burning. The galleries and other buildings did remain safe, but the glittering fountain pools went dark with ash. Extensive work on the property, including intensive cleaning and testing of indoor and outdoor spaces for toxic residue, is nearing completion. The water system has been flushed, and air and water filters have been replaced. More than 1,300 fire-damaged trees were removed. 'The site may look different to visitors,' the museum warned in an announcement this week, 'with less vegetation and some burn damage to the outer grounds.' The limited visitor hours will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Monday. The goal will be to help limit traffic on Pacific Coast Highway, which is the only way to reach the campus. (The Villa is not yet accessible via Sunset Boulevard.) Reservations are limited to 500 visitors daily, and free, timed-entry reservations can be booked online. Parking is $25. Unfortunately, the exhibition on view when the fire erupted, 'Ancient Thrace and the Classical World: Treasures From Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece,' had to close, but the Getty created a virtual tour. Times art critic Christopher Knight had great things to say about it when he viewed it just before the fire. The exhibition for the reopening is 'The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece,' which will be on view from June 27 through Jan. 12. It will feature more than 230 works of art and artifacts from Messenia, a region in Greece where the Mycenaean civilization flourished during the Late Bronze Age. Theater fans can breathe a sigh of relief. The outdoor classical theater will return in the fall with 'Oedipus the King, Mama!' co-produced by Troubadour Theater Company. I'm arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, looking forward to reading a book in the shade by a Villa fountain. Here's your weekend arts roundup. Does Los Angeles have its own musical style? Times classical music critic Mark Swed answers the question after attending the Hear Now Music Festival and Tod Machover's opera 'Schoenberg in Hollywood.' 'Los Angeles is the home of film music. The two most influential classical composers of the first half of the 20th century, Stravinsky and Schoenberg, lived here. ... The composer with the most radical influence on the second half of the 20th century, John Cage, was born and grew up here. Ferreting out L.A.'s bearing on jazz and the many, many aspects of popular music, as well as world music, is a lifetime's effort,' Swed writes. 'A Doll's House, Part 2' at Pasadena Playhouse gets a mixed review from Times theater critic Charles McNulty, who praises Jason Butler Harner's performance as Torvald, while noting that costumes and set design did not come together. Lucas Hnath's play picks up 15 years after the conclusion of Henrik Ibsen's 1879 classic, when Nora famously walks out on her husband and children. Nora's life is complicated. And so is McNulty's reaction to the show. Last week, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art laid off 15 full-time employees, accounting for 14% of its staff. Most were from the organization's education and public programming team. Seven part-time, on-call employees were also let go, according to the museum. Sources described the morning of the layoffs as chaotic and shocking, with staff being summoned by human resources and being told they needed to be out of the building by 2 p.m. The museum said in a statement, 'Education remains a central pillar of the Lucas Museum.' The Hammer Museum raised $2.4 million during its 20th annual Gala in the Garden last Saturday. The fete honored Jane Fonda and artist Lauren Halsey, and it featured a performance by the singer Griff. This marked the first gala for the museum's new director, Zoë Ryan, who took over in January. Last year's party marked a heartfelt send-off for longtime director Ann Philbin, who retired after 25 years at the helm of the institution. This year, per usual, plenty of celebrities were in attendance, including LeBron and Savannah James, Usher, Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen and Molly Shannon, as well as plenty of artists including Doug Aitken, Andrea Bowers, Diedrick Brackens, Catherine Opie, Ed Ruscha and Jonas Wood. Thelma Golden, the director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, paid tribute to Halsey; Danson and Steenburgen celebrated Fonda. The Fowler Museum on Tuesday returned 11 objects to the Larrakia community of the Northern Territory in Australia. The items, which hold deep cultural and spiritual significance to the Larrakia people, consist of 10 glass spearheads and a kangaroo tooth headband worn by a Larrakia elder. Elders have worked closely with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and the museum over the last four years to identify and arrange the return of the objects. This particular return ceremony is the second time the Fowler has returned artifacts in partnership with AIATSIS. Last July, the museum repatriated 20 items to the Warumungu community of Tennant Creek in northern Australia. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has announced its 2025-26 theater season — the first with President Donald Trump as chair. 'Hamilton,' as previously reported, is out. Offerings include plenty of Trump-approved Broadway fare, including 'Moulin Rouge,' 'Chicago,' 'Mrs. Doubtfire,' 'Back to the Future: The Musical' and 'Monty Python's Spamalot.' Tony Award winner Charles Strouse, who composed the music for 'Annie,' 'Bye Bye Birdie' and 'Applause,' has died. He was 96. — Jessica Gelt You can opt to be buried up to your neck in compost at this California spa. I love a good spa day, but this is a hard pass for me.
USA Today
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
The deadly Palisades Fire nearly destroyed landmark Getty Villa. Now it's about to reopen.
The deadly Palisades Fire nearly destroyed landmark Getty Villa. Now it's about to reopen. Show Caption Hide Caption 82-year-old joyfully reunites with beloved cat lost in Palisades Fire After being separated from her cat during the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles, Katherine was overjoyed when Aggie was found alive two months later. LOS ANGELES – Once in the crosshairs of the deadly Palisades Fire, the famed Getty Villa Museum in the tony coastal hills of Los Angeles has a reopening date. The villa has been closed since Jan. 7, when the fast-moving Palisades Fire came much too close for comfort. The blaze destroyed thousands of structures in the area, killed 12 people and went on to burn for nearly a month, but amazingly, the villa was spared. 'It is with the utmost gratitude and appreciation for Getty staff, first responders, and other agencies that we can announce the reopening of the Villa to the public,' Katherine Fleming, president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, said in a May 19 announcement. The villa is set to reopen on Friday, June 27. It will have a limited schedule − Friday through Monday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. − to limit traffic on the fire-battered Pacific Coast Highway – the only open route to the museum. Reservations for the museum are limited to 500 per day and parking will cost $25. How close did the Palisades Fire come to the Getty Villa Aerial footage and images shared on social media the morning of Jan. 7 showed smoke approaching the Getty Villa as the fire moved through the area. Some trees and vegetation on the villa site burned, according to the museum. Fleming said at the time that additional fire prevention measures, including on-site water storage and irrigation, were immediately deployed throughout the grounds. Museum galleries and library archives were sealed off from the smoke by "state-of-the-art air-handling systems," and double-walled construction also provided "significant protection" for the collections, according to Fleming. The museum said Tuesday that it has undergone an extensive cleanup and removed more than 1,300 fire-damaged trees. "The site may look different to visitors, with less vegetation and some burn damage to the outer grounds," the announcement read. What is the Getty Villa? The Getty Villa is an educational center and art museum located the coastal Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. Opened in 1974 by billionaire oilman J. Paul Getty, the museum honors the arts and cultures of various classic civilizations from the ancient Greeks to the Romans. The museum will reopen with the exhibition "The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece" on view through January 2026. The exhibition will showcase over 230 works of art and artifacts from Messenia, an epicenter of the Mycenaean civilization that flourished in Late Bronze Age Greece – according to the announcement. It is the first major display in North America focused on Mycenaeans, the museum said. The exhibition on view in January, "Ancient Thrace and the Classical World: Treasures from Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece," closed permanently due to the fire. A video tour of the exhibition was posted by the museum in April. Contributing: Thao Nguyen, Anthony Robledo – USA TODAY
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Getty Villa to Reopen June 27 With Major Mycenaean Exhibition After Palisades Fire Closure
After more than five months of closure due to the Palisades Fire, the Getty Villa Museum in Pacific Palisades is set to reopen to the public on Friday, June 27. The museum, modeled after a Roman country house and home to a collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, has been closed since January 7, since wildfire threats forced an emergency shutdown. Now, after extensive recovery and safety efforts, the Villa will welcome visitors back on a limited four-day schedule: Friday through Monday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.'It is with the utmost gratitude and appreciation for Getty staff, first responders, and other agencies that we can announce the reopening of the Villa to the public,' said Katherine Fleming, President and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust. 'Without their tireless efforts, we would not be in the position we are in today.'On the morning of the evacuation, 17 members of Getty's facilities, grounds, and security teams volunteered to remain on-site to protect the museum and its collection. Thanks to their efforts and coordination with the Los Angeles Fire Department, the museum was spared significant structural damage. However, the grounds still suffered: Getty crews removed over 1,300 fire-damaged trees and completed a deep clean of both indoor and outdoor spaces, along with system flushes and filter replacements. Visitors may notice the difference. The landscape has less vegetation, and some burn damage remains on the outer edges of the property. Due to road closures, the Villa is currently only accessible via Pacific Coast Highway (PCH), with no access from Sunset Boulevard. To manage both fire recovery and local traffic, the Getty is capping attendance at 500 guests per day. Timed-entry reservations are now available online, and parking remains $ reopening comes with a major new show: The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece, the first major North American exhibition focused on the Mycenaean civilization. On view from June 27 through January 12, 2026, the show will spotlight over 230 artifacts from Messenia—long considered a hub of Bronze Age Greece—including clay tablets in Linear B, the earliest form of written Greek, and the Pylos Combat Agate, an intricate sealstone regarded as one of the most extraordinary pieces of Aegean exhibition replaces Ancient Thrace and the Classical World: Treasures from Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece, which was cut short by the fire. A virtual tour of that exhibition remains available on Getty's returning this fall is Getty Villa's beloved Outdoor Classical Theater, with its 19th annual production, Oedipus the King, Mama!, a co-production with the Troubadour Theater Company. Additional public programming, both online and in person, will accompany the Kingdom of Pylos exhibition throughout its run.'We look forward to welcoming visitors back to explore our newest exhibition… and much more of our treasured antiquities collection this summer,' said Timothy Potts, director of the Getty more information or to book a free timed-entry ticket, visit
