In 2010 the Museum began hosting the Wende Salon, an ongoing series of exclusive cultural events.  These intimate gatherings feature concerts, readings, film screenings, tours of private collections and other activities that highlight the artistic significance of the artifacts in the Museum’s collection. The social events are held in private homes or other exclusive locations and are designed to bring together people interested in exploring the intersection of history and art. They offer opportunities to meet and mingle with other individuals who share a commitment to the Museum.  

Invitations to the Wende Salon events are benefits of Annual Membership at the $1,000 level and above. View upcoming and past Wende Salon events

Upcoming Salon events
Past Salon events

Become a Museum Member and ensure that the Museum continues to engage the public with its singular collection and innovative programming.

To speak with someone about supporting The Wende Museum, please contact Associate Director Donna Stein 310-216-1600 x 301 or email dstein@wendemuseum.org

Upcoming Wende Salons  

Spril 2013
The Wende Museum
Wednesday, May 22, 2013

The work of the irreverent East German photographer Claus Bach is the subject of the exhibition Claus Bach’s Views of Weimar currently on display at The Wende Museum through June 2013.  Weimar has been the locus for the debate on the legacy of East German art and in 2012 Bach was one of four photographers featured in a comprehensive survey on GDR visual media.  Virginia Heckert, J. Paul Getty Museum Curator; Wolf Gruner, USC History Professor; and Brechtje Beuker, UCLA German Professor, will explore whether Bach’s photographs are contemporary art, cultural documents or ‘just’ East German photography -- or perhaps something else completely.

Past Wende Salons   

Fall 2012
The Wende Museum
Wednesday, October 24, 2012

The Fall Salon presented a special evening of conversation about secretive and unfamiliar objects, places and subjects. Photographer Taryn Simon, in conversation with Peter Tokofsky, Education Specialist, J. Paul Getty Museum, discussed her work Contraband (2010), an archive of global desires and perceived threats, presenting 1,075 images of items that were detained or seized from passengers and mail entering the United States from abroad. An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007) reveals objects, sites, and spaces that are integral to America's foundation, mythology, or daily functioning but remain inaccessible or unknown to a public audience. These unseen subjects range from radioactive capsules at a nuclear waste storage facility to a black bear in hibernation to the art collection of the CIA.

This program was sponsored by the Greater Los Angeles Chapter, Fulbright Association and Meridee Williams.

Spring 2012
The Wende Museum
Sunday, April 15, 2012

The Spring Salon presented Ask Me More about Brecht: Hanns Eisler in Conversation with Hans Bunge, a special performance, music and cultural history by Sabine Berendse and Paul Clements.

Winter 2012
The Wende Museum
Friday, February 24, 2012

The Winter Salon presented a special evening of theater, an exploratory duet between the performers and the Wende Collection. COLD WAR: A PERFORMANCE PROJECT is being developed over three years by the Netherlands-based PeerGrouP and the Los Angeles Poverty Department. Both groups create theater that engages with current social issues, but the communities they work with are very different. PeerGrouP builds projects in rural locations in Drente Province in the North of the Netherlands and LAPD develops projects in the heart of Skid Row, downtown Los Angeles.

Fall 2011
The Wende Museum
Friday, October 21, 2011

The Wende Museum launched Breaking Stalin’s Nose, the debut novel by Eugene Yelchin, St. Petersburg-born and Los Angeles-based artist and author. The Museum also presented an exhibition of the artist’s dramatic graphite illustrations for the book to be on view until February 23, 2012.

Summer 2011
The home of Synne Hansen Miller
Sunday, August 7, 2011

The Summer Wende Salon presented Moscow-born and Los Angeles-based pianist Yana Reznik, who played a selection of works by Russian composers, including Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Scriabin. In the United States Ms. Reznik trained at the Manhattan School of Music, earned a Master’s degree at the USC Thornton School of Music, and received a Professional Studies Certificate at the Colburn Conservatory with pianist John Perry. A winner of the Artists International Competition, she has appeared as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, and Stanford Wind Ensemble, among others.

With special thanks to Synne Hansen Miller and Board Member Michael Walsh.

Spring 2011
The Wende Museum
Friday, April 15, 2011

The Politics of Memory was the subject of a conversation between the Romanian-born, LA-based artist Claudia “Cotrutza” French and UCLA Professor of Sociology and Romanian scholar, Gail Kligman.

Winter 2010
Desert of Forbidden Art
The Wende Museum
Friday, December 10, 2010

The Winter Salon featured the film Desert of Forbidden Art to showcase this important documentary and the museum’s collaboration in its making. Objects from the museum’s collection are featured in the film. The screening was preceded by a Museum tour & reception beginning at 7PM. Following the screening at 8 PM, there was a discussion with the directors Amanda Pope and Tchavdar Georgiev.

Film Synopsis
The film Desert of Forbidden Art explores how art survives in time of oppression. During the Soviet rule artists who stay true to their vision are executed, sent to mental hospitals or Gulags. Their plight inspires the young Igor Savitsky. He pretends to buy state-approved art but instead daringly rescues 40,000 forbidden fellow artist's works and creates a museum in the desert of Uzbekistan, far from the watchful eyes of the KGB.

Ben Kingsley, Sally Field and Ed Asner voice the diaries and letters of Savitsky and the artists. Intercut with recollections of the artists' children and rare archival footage, the film takes us on a dramatic journey of sacrifice for the sake of creative freedom. "One of the most remarkable collections of 20th century Russian art," it is located in some of the world's poorest regions. Today these paintings are worth millions, a lucrative target for Islamic fundamentalists, corrupt bureaucrats and art profiteers. The collection remains as endangered as when Savitsky first created it, posing the question whose responsibility is it to preserve this cultural treasure.

Fall 2010
Home of German Consul General Wolfgang Drautz
Thursday, September 2, 2010

The 2010 Fall Salon featured a pair of sonatas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Joseph Haydn, in a performance by pianist Brent McMunn and violinist Veronika Spalt Campbell.  The violin played by Spalt Campbell was built in 1780 and the pianoforte used by McMunn was graciously loaned by the Kasimoff-Blüthner Piano Company.     

Summer 2010
Home of Wende Board Director Gabriele Hayes and Mark Hayes
Saturday, June 5, 2010 

The 2010 Summer Salon featured a reading of David Hare’s Berlin by actor Nick Ullett.  First performed in 2009 at the National Theatre, London, Berlin is a meditation on Germany’s restored capital—both what it represents in European history and the peculiar part it has played in Hare’s own life.

Spring 2010
Home of Wende Board Director Angela Thompson
Sunday, March 28, 2010 

The inaugural 2010 Spring Salon featured a musical performance by cellist Sebastian Toettcher, pianist Ruby Cheng and violinist Veronika Spalt, playing a selection of works by Beethoven and other pieces from Vienna.