“The Ditchdigger” by David Simon
The Long Beach Museum of Art (LBMA) will present the latest installment of its popular LBMA After Dark program— an evening filled with food, drinks, music, and world-class artwork, on Thursday, March 19.
The line-up for this event includes beer and wine tasting, happy hour prices on food and drink, DJ Lithuanian Prince spinning tunes, and a lounge-style setting with comfortable couches and benches set up throughout the campus. Museum goers will have access to all exhibitions until 10pm, including: “David Simon: Dark Forest;” “California, Seen: Landscapes of a Changing California, 1930 — 1970;” and “Modernism and the Milton Wichner Collection.”
The LBMA After Dark event is open to the public from 7pm to 10pm. There is a $10 cover charge at the door, but museum members and a guest are admitted free. (The museum will host a private preview reception for the David Simon: Dark Forest exhibition for Museum members and press starting at 5pm.)
“David Simon: Dark Forest” features a collection of figurative sculptures based on the contemporary play The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets, written by music legend Tom Waits. The Black Rider tells the tragic story of a young man’s downfall after bargaining with the devil in pursuit of love. Inspired by the characters in The Black Rider, Simon created approximately 20 figures of either bronze or Forton (a lightweight, durable casting medium), often accented with other materials such as glass, steel, leather or wood.
The sculptures are almost life-size and extremely realistic, each one representing a role or character in the play. The exhibition will be presented in the Museum’s Gail Oxford Gallery, which will be transformed into a dimly lit forest of sculptures and pedestals to provide the appropriate theatrical setting for the Black Rider characters.
