The Legends of Laughter: The Marx Brothers Exhibit at the Hollywood Museum.

 The Legends of Laughter: The Marx Brothers Exhibit at the Hollywood Museum.

(WestHollywoodToday.blogspot CA  July 19 2025)  By Karen Ostlund
                                                                       

The Hollywood Museum has unveiled a new, one-of-a-kind exhibit honoring the legendary Marx Brothers, starting July 18 2025.

 Titled “Legends of Laughter: The Marx Brothers,” the expansive showcase offers fans an unprecedented glimpse into the lives and careers of Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Zeppo, and Gummo Marx, featuring original and screen-used costumes, props, family photographs, memorabilia and rare artwork.
                                                                        

Donelle Dadigan, Founder and President of The Hollywood Museum, welcomed key speakers from the Marx family and inner circle, including Bill Marx (son of Harpo), Jade Marx (granddaughter of Groucho), Greg Marx (grandson of Gummo), Steve Stoliar (Groucho’s former assistant and author of Raised Eyebrows), Frank Ferrante (family friend and historian), Robert S. Bader (Marx Brothers historian and author) and actress Jackie Joseph. 

“We are excited to be able to make history, as we present this unique Marx Brothers exhibit,” said Donelle Dadigan. “I know when Marx Brothers fans from all around the world come and visit The Hollywood Museum, they will have a rare and up-close opportunity to experience this exciting new exhibition.”  Special messages were shared from Leonard Maltin and Dick Cavett.

Guests included Sam Harris, Danny Arroyo, Bob Bergen, Carolyn Hennesy, Erin Murphy, Lydia Cornell, Barry and Stanley Livingston, Ilene Graff, Kennedy Garcia, Kym Karath, Robert Weide, and many others across film, TV and stage.

Among the exhibit’s highlights are Chico’s screen-used hat, Harpo’s iconic horn, wig, harmonica, trench coat, and travel trunk, and Groucho’s personal library books, scripts, and furnishings from his home. The exhibit also features posters and paintings by Harpo Marx from his post-performance years and memorabilia from You Bet Your Life.

                                                            

The Marx Brothers were an American comedy team known for their humor and wordplay.
Their performing acts, were influenced by their mother, Minnie Marx, that started with Groucho on stage at age 14, in 1905, who was joined, in succession, by Gummo and Harpo. Chico started a separate vaudeville act in 1911, and joined his brothers in 1912. Zeppo replaced Gummo when the latter joined the army in World War I.
The brothers performed together in vaudeville until 1923, when they found themselves banned from the major vaudeville circuits owing to a dispute with E. F. Albee.
 The Marx brothers transitioned later to Broadway, where they achieved significant success with a series of hit musical comedies, including I'll Say She Is, The Cocoanuts, and Animal Crackers.
In 1928, the Marx Brothers made a deal with Paramount Pictures to appear in a screen version of The Cocoanuts.

MOCA Focus on 2 exhibits: Takako Yamaguchi + Fictions of Display.

 MOCA Focus new exhibits: Takako Yamaguchi + Fictions of Display

Photos by Karen Ostlund
(WestHollywoodToday.blogspot CA July 1st 2025)  

MOCA Focus: Takako Yamaguchi  presents her first solo museum show in Los Angeles and centers on new bodies of work of oil and metal leaf on canvas at MOCA Grand from June 29 2025 through January 4 2026.                              

Takako Yamaguchi at MOCA Grand.

Yamaguchi was born in Okayama, Japan, in 1952, and she moved to the U.S. in the early 1970s and began to appropriate imagery from sources as diverse as Mexican muralism, Renaissance art, Japanese Nihonga, and Art Nouveau in ornate paintings.
Today at age seventy-two, the Santa Monica–based artist has developed over the past forty years, a series of stylized oil-and-bronze-leaf seascapes featured in this exhibition.
Yamaguchi’  sees her paintings as “Eastern” and “Western”- influenced vocabulary of abstract zigzags, spirals, and braids to denote natural forms like rain, waves and mountains.
                                                                       

Takako Yamaguchi art at MOCA Grand.

Takako Yamaguchi is accompanied by a Nimoy Emerging Artist Publication Series catalogue, marking the artist’s first monograph.
Organized by Anna Katz, Senior Curator, with Emilia Nicholson-Fajardo, Curatorial Assistant.
Support is provided by the MOCA Global Council and by Ortuzar, New York.
                                                                        

Artist Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Piano Destruction Concert (1966)

Also on view at MOCA Grand,  JUNE 29, 2025 – JAN 4, 2026 is
Fictions of Display exhibition which is
exploring the themes of theater, performance, and museum display—ranging from props, stages, and pedestals to actors, impersonators, avatars, — this exhibition presents works from MOCA’s permanent collection.

Through sculpture, video, photography, painting, and archival materials, MOCA's 2nd new exhibit Fictions of Display foregrounds the performance strategies and work including Claes Oldenburg’s sculptural of consumer goods—shoes, dresses, cakes, ice cream—made from muslin soaked in plaster and painted with enamel, that were originally part of his immersive, performative project The Store (1961–62).
In a note written in 1962, Oldenburg stated that theater was the most powerful art form because it is the most involving.
                                                                           

Artist Marnie Weber Brown Bear and White Ghost (2005)

                                                     
The exhibition introduces several new acquisitions, as well as works never installed in MOCA galleries, like a painting by Polish theater director Tadeusz Kantor, known for his avant-garde and deeply personal approach to performance, or Catherine Sullivan’s video installation.

Fictions of Display includes figures who have made significant contributions to the history of performance, such as Eleanor Antin, Colette, Rebecca Horn, Mike Kelley, Senga Nengudi, Yoko Ono, Raphael Montañez Ortiz, and Johanna Went, among others.
For Tania Pérez Córdova’s "Portrait of an Unknown Person Passing By", which a performer dressed in a garment featuring the same pattern as a ceramic object on view will quietly circulate among visitors at unannounced moments.
                                                                         

Artist Martin Kippenberger Disco Bomb (1989)

Featured artists are:  Eleanor Antin, ASCO, Ana Barrado, Math Bass, Joseph Beuys, Mark Bradford, Brassaï, Nancy Brooks Brody, Colette, Fiona Connor, Tania Pérez Córdova, Guy de Cointet, Raúl De Nieves, Lukas Duwenhögger, Thomas Eggerer, Victor Estrada, VALIE EXPORT, Ali Eyal, Peter Fischli, Dan Flavin, Robert Gober, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Félix González-Torres, Joe Goode, Dan Graham, Yaron Michael Hakim, Lyle Ashton Harris, Evan Holloway, Christian Holstad, Rebecca Horn, Roni Horn, Donald Judd, Brian Jungen, Tadeusz Kantor, Mike Kelley, Toba Khedoori, Martin Kippenberger, Terence Koh, Louise Lawler, An-My Lê, William Leavitt, Charles LeDray, Nikki S. Lee, Sherrie Levine, Los Carpinteros, Paul McCarthy, Steve McQueen, Ana Mendieta, Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Senga Nengudi, Kayode Ojo, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Silke Otto-Knapp, Roxy Paine, Giuseppe Penone, Sondra Perry, Julia Phillips, Sigmar Polke, Monique Prieto, Reynaldo Rivera, Beverly Semmes, Cindy Sherman, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Catherine Sullivan, Atsuko Tanaka, Wolfgang Tillmans, Cosima von Bonin, Marnie Weber, Johanna Went, Pae White, Hannah Wilke.

Fictions of Display is organized by José Luis Blondet, Senior Curator, with Paula Kroll, Curatorial Assistant.

Address: MOCA.org at 250 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012