LA County Museum of Art curator to speak at PC

Wendy Kaplan, the department head and curator of decorative arts and design at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will give a presentation titled “Found in Translation: Design in California and Mexico, 1915-1985” at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 26, in the Porterville College theater.

The presentation is part of PC’S Cultural and Historical Awareness Program and is free and open to the public.

“Found in Translation” was a groundbreaking exhibition and book about design dialogues between California and Mexico in the 20th century. During her presentation, Kaplan will present examples of furnishings, drawings, photographs and mural studies to explore design through four main themes: Spanish Colonial inspiration, prehispanic revivals, folk art and craft traditions, and modernism.

She will show how buildings, objects and design interconnections shaped people’s values and identities in both California and Mexico.

Kaplan has been a curator at LACMA since 2001. She previously held curatorial positions at The Wolfsonian florida International University in Miami, Glasgow Museums in Scotland and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She is a leading expert on late 19th- and 20th-century design and has authored, coauthored or edited several books on the subject. She has twice received the prize for the year’s most outstanding publication given by the Art Libraries Society of North America. In 2012, she received the award for Best Architecture or Design Show from the International Association of Art Critics – United States Section for California Design.

Theater doors will close 10 minutes after the start of the event or once the theater has reached capacity.

The theme of this year’s CHAP series is “Connections: Ideas, People, Places.” Several more CHAP presentations will be given at PC throughout the school year.