What we’re doing to make the Getty Museum a space of well-being and connection
“Over many years in museum education—and through my parallel work as a yoga instructor and mindfulness practitioner—I’ve started to understand that my role as an educator isn’t simply to teach with artworks, but to create the conditions for people to soften in museum spaces,” says Keishia Gu, Getty’s head of education. Gu has helped integrate mindfulness practices and wellness-based programming across Getty’s offerings—and in this story tells us how mindfulness in museums helps us meet art, ourselves, and one another more fully.
Moving mindfully, connecting quietly, breathing it all in
Mindfulness is for kids, too
Want to make museums part of your kids’ agenda during their summer break? Getty editor Erin Migdol, art lover and parent of a toddler, consulted Lilit Sadoyan, a gallery educator at Getty for 18 years, and Stephanie Horn, a docent at the Villa for seven years, about how to foster a love of museums in kids. She also asked other Getty parents for their tips on making a museum trip memorable (for the right reasons).
Behind the scenes at an art auction
“I’ve attended hundreds of art auctions in my life, and they’re nerve-wracking,” says Julian Brooks, senior curator in the Department of Drawings at the Getty Museum. Brooks reports on his experience at a recent Sotheby’s auction where Getty ended up acquiring six drawings but losing several others.
What auctions are really like, and what Getty acquired
If walls could talk
The Green Book, Victor H. Green’s vital guide for African Americans driving through Jim Crow–era America, listed an estimated 224 locations in LA where Black travelers could expect safety and dignity at a time when segregation laws and racial violence made even routine road trips risky. LA’s safe havens included familiar eateries like Clifton’s Cafeteria, nightlife destinations such as Jack’s Basket Room, and cultural anchors like the Dunbar Hotel.
Conserving buildings central to African American history
Inside the frame
In Jerry McMillan’s photographs, you can feel the Los Angeles art scene of the ’60s and ’70s. Not the milieu we know now—the white-walled galleries, the glossy retrospectives, the auction records—but something rawer: a group of young painters and sculptors arriving in a new city that barely knew it had an art scene.
See photos of art school buddies Ed Ruscha, Larry Bell, and other artists in their early days