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The Santa Monica Museum of Art will head east to talk about the L.A. River, Rem Koolhaas’ Plaza at Santa Monica project will get another round of public discussion, and OK Go will play the Pier.

Smmoa At the Frogspot

Join the Santa Monica Museum of Art and Friends of the Los Angeles River (FoLAR) Sunday at the Frog Spot along the banks of the river in Elysian Valley for a free discussion with several artists about conservation, art, and how artists and architects can affect policy.

Sunday’s event is a chance to hear from the artists participating in SMMoA’s upcoming exhibition, Citizen Culture: Artists and Architects Shape Policy, which will run from September 13 through December 13.

From SMMoA’s website: “[T]he Santa Monica Museum of Art presents a conversation with Ala Plástica (Silvina Babich and Alejandro Meitín), Lewis MacAdams, and Laurie Peake about their work with rivers, conservation, and the ways these artist-activists navigate bureaucratic and artistic channels to raise consciousness and affect social and political change.”

The event runs from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at The Frog Spot, FoLAR’s new pop-up gateway to the L.A. River, located along Elysian Valley bike path at 2825 Benedict Street, Los Angeles, CA 90039. For further details please contact Lynda Dorf at 424.645.4620 or lynda.dorf@smmoa.org. For more information about the participating artists, visit smmoa.org.

When: Sunday, September 7 from 3 to 5 p.m.
Where: The Frog Spot on the Elysian Valley bike path (2825 Benedict Street, Los Angeles, CA 90039)

The Plaza at Santa Monica Meeting

Santa Monica could get an iconic building designed by world-renowned architect Rem Koolhaas in an underused area of the city’s Downtown. But, first, The Plaza at Santa Monica, as it has been called, has to undergo a series of community meetings, the next one of which will be on Monday, September 8, at 7 p.m. at the Santa Monica Main Library, 2nd Floor Multi-Purpose located at 601 Santa Monica Boulevard.

The proposed 148-foot tall design would bring a 225-room boutique union hotel, about 50 units of affordable housing, 43,650 square feet of public open space, 40,000 square feet of neighborhood-serving retail, a bike center, 172,000 square feet of office space, and 1,220 underground parking spaces to an underused 2.5 acre parcel of City-owned land a block east of the 3rd Street Promenade.

With height such a flashpoint in the community, however, some local anti-development activists have begun to demand that the parcel, currently home to two banks, some retail and a surface parking lot, remain untouched. Or that the project be limited to below 84 feet at the expense of many of the proposed community benefits.

Monday’s meeting is an opportunity for members of the community to weigh in on the project.

When: Monday, September 8, 2014 at 7 p.m.
Where: Santa Monica Main Library, 2nd Floor Multi-Purpose located at 601 Santa Monica Boulevard

OK Go at the Pier

We are down to the second-to-last Twilight Concert performance of the summer, but that doesn’t mean the acts are getting any less awesome. Los Angeles-based band OK Go will share the stage Thursday with Allah-Las Thursday.

If you’re not familiar with OK Go’s music, odds are you have seen at least one of their music videos, like this one for the song, “The Writing’s on the Wall.”

And here’s the Allah-Las performing “Tell Me (What’s On Your Mind)”

When: Thursday, September 4 at 7 p.m.
Where: The Santa Monica Pier

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