Thomas Mann House Events
Oliver Polak & Friends: One Night Only
Belly Room at the The Comedy Store (8433 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069)
Language: English ・ This event is open to the public.
Info
For this one-night-only event at the iconic Comedy Store, Polak will be joined by an international lineup of guest performers, including Robby Hoffmann, Amir K, and additional surprise guests. Together, they explore themes of migration, identity, memory, and contemporary politics through the distinct lens of stand-up comedy.
A multiple award winner, bestselling author, and host of his own Netflix series, Polak is widely regarded as one of Germany’s most original and provocative comedic voices. As Germany’s most prominent Jewish stand-up comedian, his work moves beyond conventional “cultural exchange,” confronting audiences instead with sharp wit, vulnerability, and what he himself describes as “emotional damage with punchlines.”
Find more information here!
Participants
Oliver Polak is a stand-up comedian and writer. Half-German, half-Russian and Jewish: he certainly has all the ingredients needed for a third world war.
Oliver Polak’s fellowship project at the Thomas Mann House is titled "Stand Up For Comedy Across Borders." He aims to develop a show for comedy clubs in Los Angeles. In this show, he intends to make himself the subject, share his story, and perform his narrative night after night. Through his stand-up, Oliver seeks to engage in meaningful dialogue with Americans and challenge prejudices—including his own. He aims to explore both the humorous similarities and differences between cultures. His observations, reflections, and dialogues, along with the ups and downs of his journey, will be recorded like a diary, forming an experiential account that can lead to deeper insights.
Partner
An event by The Comedy Store and the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles.
Émigré vs Exile Modernism and Architecture in L.A.
Thomas Mann House (1550 N San Remo Drive, CA 90272)
Language: English ・ By Invitation Only
Info
Join us in the living room of the Thomas Mann House for an insightful conversation between Volker M. Welter, an architectural historian specializing in modern architecture at UC Santa Barbara, and The New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, whose research explores German-speaking émigrés and exiles in California and their influence on music, literature, architecture, and the arts in Los Angeles.
When influential German Studies scholar Erhard Bahr remarked in his seminal book Weimar on the Pacific: German Exile Culture in Los Angeles and the Crisis of Modernism, that the architects Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra “were, strictly speaking, immigrants rather than exiles,” the historian established the year 1933 as a significant caesura separating “immigrant modernism” from “exile modernism” in California. Many German-speaking professionals already immigrated to California in the 1920s and earlier to pursue careers and progressive ideas of modernism before the Nazis even came into power. The exiles, such as Thomas Mann, Theodor Adorno, or Bertolt Brecht, who arrived in California as refugees after 1933, often had a much different and less enthusiastic understanding of modernism after their traumatic experience in Germany.
When architectural history ponders the works and influence of German-speaking, Central European architects in Southern California, a much simpler trajectory is often discussed: Schindler and Neutra brought modernist architecture to California when the two came to the U.S. Subsequently, other German-speaking architects working in architecture in the Los Angeles area are evaluated in comparison with the two “masters.“ In sharp contrast, the works of those exiled architects who fled to California after 1933 are rarely considered at all. Recent scholarship on these architects suggests that distinguishing, analogous to Bahr, between immigrant architects and exile architects allows an astonishingly differentiated picture of the impact of German-speaking architects on Southern California to emerge.
In their conversation, Welter and Ross will explore the nuances around different concepts of modernism in California before 1945, as these transatlantic currents and theoretical frameworks did not only leave their mark on architecture, but can also be seen, discussed, and exemplified in film, music, literature, and the visual arts.
Participants
Book Launch: The California Camera Club - Collective Visions in the Making of the American West
Los Angeles Public Library (630 W 5th St, Los Angeles, CA 90071)
Language: English • This event is open to all
Info
Author Carolin Görgen will discuss her new book about the California Camera Club, a San Francisco–based photographic association that emerged as the largest organization of its kind in the United States at the turn of the 20th century. Although the club played a decisive role in advancing the careers of Ansel Adams and other famous American photographers, its most significant legacy lies in fostering collaborative outdoor practices. In telling the story of these largely unknown photographers, Carolin Görgen offers a new perspective on American photography.
For ADA accommodations, call (213) 228-7430 at least 72 hours prior to the event.
Participants
Carolin Görgen is Associate Professor of American Studies at Sorbonne Université. A historian of photography and the American West, she researches the histories of photo networks in the western United States and their environmental afterlives. Görgen’s research has been supported, among others, by the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Huntington Library, and the Thomas Mann House. She was a 2025 Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Partner
This event is organized by the Los Angeles Public Library.
