The Wende Museum’s unique dedication to Cold War history, its expansive collection of cultural artifacts, and its presentation of both historical and contemporary exhibitions have become increasingly relevant over the past few years of geopolitics. The Medea Insurrection — their current exhibition surveying the radical legacy of female artists in the Soviet era — for example, is a powerful group of salient strategies for sublimated resistance.

The institution’s public programs are high-minded and timely as well, such as their In Search of Our Times Lecture Series, whose next installment is called The History of Forgetting and takes a look at the structures by which history is preserved, or lost. Asking fundamental questions like who decides what to preserve and highlight, by what criteria, and for how long? If institutional archives fail to protect a legacy, does it disappear, or persevere by other means? Who is empowered to enact revision and interpretation of what memories we do possess? What truth can we trust, and whose? See, we said it was timely stuff.

Wende Museum, 10808 Culver Blvd., Culver City; Sun., Jan. 12, 2 p.m.; free with RSVP. wendemuseum.org.

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Installation view of The Medea Insurrection: Radical Women Artists Behind the Iron Curtain, Wende Museum, Culver City, California. Courtesy of the Wende Museum. (Photo by Dany Naierman)

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