Getty Center to Host College Night

The J. Paul Getty Museum will host its annual College Night on Monday from 6–9:30 p.m. at the .

Local college students are invited to enjoy a free night of special tours, live music, food, and other activities, all incorporating this year’s theme: “L.A. Style.” That evening, students will rub shoulders with Hollywood elite (on paper at least), thanks to two newly opened photographs exhibitions: Herb Ritts: L.A. Style and Portraits of Renown: Photography and the Cult of Celebrity.

Ritts, the famed fashion and celebrity photographer, whose life was cut short by AIDS in 2002, created many of the black and white iconic images seen in magazines and on television in the 1980s and 90s. Portraits of Renown surveys the visual strategies used to photograph famous people from the 1840s to the year 2000. Curators and museum educators will be on hand to provide tours of the exhibitions.

Once students have escaped the paparazzi, they can also tour mid-century L.A. in the Pacific Standard Time exhibition In Focus: Los Angeles. Photographer Anthony Friedkin, whose work is featured in the exhibition, will be offering gallery talks exclusively for College Night attendees.

Students can also learn the history of decorative arts in The Life of Art: Context, Collecting, and Display, which will be on view that evening. In a special one-night only installation inspired by the exhibition, students from Otis College of Art and Design will take a closer look at objects in our lives and the stories we tell about them.

Tours will also highlight works in the Getty Museum’s permanent collection, including Van Gogh’s masterpiece Irises and recent acquisitions by Manet and others.

Students can also look forward to special V.I.P. treatment, with a limited number of behind-the-scenes tours of conservation and design studios, and the Photographs Study Room, offering a glimpse into a world rarely seen by most visitors. Space for these tours will be limited. Information about signing up will be posted on the event web page.

Prominently displayed that evening will be a collection of large-scale photographs created by students from Santa Monica College, East Los Angeles College, College of the Canyons, and Pierce College, all of whom took part in a Digital Scavenger Hunt project devised by photographer and 2012 Getty Artists Program invitee John Divola. College Night guests will also be invited to join this Digital Scavenger Hunt, using cameras, cell phones, or any basic digital device to capture designated subjects located across the Getty Center site and within the Getty Museum's collections. Resulting images will be gathered for a collective, online work of art to follow the event.

In celebration of all things L.A., the Getty will also be serving a Los Angeles-inspired menu. Food and non-alcoholic drinks are complimentary, and a cash bar is available for the purchase of beer and wine (with ID).

Admission and parking are free, but reservations are encouraged. Students will be asked to present a college ID upon arrival. For more information on College Night at the Getty Center and to make a reservation, visit www.getty.edu/collegenight.

This year’s College Night at the Getty Center was planned with the help of a student committee, including students from UCLA, UC Riverside, CalArts, and Cal State Channel Islands.