
“Pearly Gates Collection” Art Panel DEC 2 to feature Peter Frank, Jim Edwards, Adolfo Nodal, and Michael McCall
YUCCA VALLEY, CA — The Hi-Desert Cultural Center’s Yucca Valley Arts Center (YVArts) will present a panel discussion on the ideas and concepts surrounding its current exhibition, THE PEARLY GATES COLLECTION. The event will take place on December 2nd at 4pm. The exhibition, a conceptual curatorial project created by Michael McCall, the gallery’s executive curator, was built by trading worthless bank notes to 50 chosen artists, asking each artist to trade an artwork they feel would be worthy of exhibiting in the “Halls of Heaven”. The project pays tribute to famed curator, Walter Hopps, who once owed the aforementioned bank notes. Hopps, along with Edward Kienholz, spearheaded the contemporary Los Angeles art movement during the mid-50s and opened the Ferus Gallery, which exhibited Andy Warhol’s “Soup Cans” in 1962. It was Warhol’s first gallery showing. Hopps went on to become the director of the Pasadena Art Museum, exhibiting Marcel Duchamp first retrospective in 1963. The year previous to the Duchamp retrospective, Hopps curated a show entitled, “Paintings of Common Objects”, credited as the first exhibition of Pop Art in the United States.

Tickets to this special panel are free for members and only $15 for non-members. The new center is located at 58325 CA-62 in Yucca Valley, CA 92284. For more information on the new Yucca Valley Visual & Performing Arts Center, visit YVArts.org or send an email to info@yvarts.org to learn how to get involved or to become a founding member or donor.
The Yucca Valley Visual & Performing Arts Center is a program and annex of Hi-Desert Cultural Center. Additional information on the Hi-Desert Cultural Center may be found on the Cultural Center’s main website, HiDesertCulturalCenter.org or by calling 760.366.3777. The Hi-Desert Cultural Center is a GuideStar “Gold Status” non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that serves as the arts agency for the Joshua Tree National Park region.
PHOTO CAPTION: Art critic, Peter Frank, will be among the art panelists for the Yucca Valley Arts Center’s upcoming December 2 panel on The Pearly Gates Collection—a collection in celebration of famed art curator Walter Hopps.
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ABOUT HI-DESERT CULTURAL CENTER
With its multi-venue performing and visual arts centers located in Joshua Tree and Yucca Valley, California, the Hi-Desert Cultural Center (HDCC) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt corporation (Federal Tax ID# 23-7425816) that has been serving as the regional performing and visual arts organization and arts agency for the gateway communities of Joshua Tree National Park for more than 50 years. The Cultural Center owns and operates its own performance venues and facilities and produces award-winning community and professional live theater, concerts, art exhibits and galleries, festivals, the Joshua Tree Philharmonic symphony orchestra, a master chorus, an artist residency for veterans, an extensive educational arts and technology academy program for youth and adults, and more. The Cultural Center is the largest and oldest non-profit arts organization in the region with several million dollars in assets, employing over 30 full-time and part-time employees, and with an annual budget exceeding half-a-million dollars. Having achieved GuideStar Gold status and recognized as an organization of artistic excellence by the National Endowment for the Arts, it instructs over 700 adults and youth weekly and operates a significant financial aid and scholarship program so that no children are turned away from programs due to their socioeconomic situation. Learn more at: www.hidesertculturalcenter.org