How many days this fall can you leave a full-scale model of Sputnik-1 at the Wende Museum and walk across the street into a field of more than 500 American flags? At the corner of Culver Boulevard and Overland Avenue this year, the two schedules overlap on November 13, 14 and 15.
Right now that corner is waiting on both sides. The Wende's galleries are closed for an exhibition changeover until Saturday, November 7. The Exchange Club of Culver City's Field of Valor isn't on the grass at Veterans Memorial Park yet either. The Exchange Club lists the display for November 9 through 19. Each side keeps its own schedule, and lining them up shows which days are worth your Saturday.
The Wende comes back on the 7th, and its new show is about the sky
The new exhibition is Competing Cosmologies: Interpreting the Sky. Wende chief curator Joes Segal and associate curator Emma Diffley put it together with NASA historian Lois Rosson. The show looks at how discoveries in space exploration during and after the Cold War inspired visual artists around the world. It's organized in four sections: Astronomy, the Space Race, Futurisms, and Aliens.
The objects are the reason to go in person. According to the Wende's exhibition page, the show pairs Cold War-era and contemporary artwork with historical artifacts. Those include a full-scale model of Sputnik-1, an original meteorite, and cosmos-themed sculpture. The artist list ranges widely. It includes Chesley Bonestell, Sun Ra, Alexei Leonov, Paul Laffoley, Chitra Ganesh, Jitish Kallat, Beatriz Cortez and Lia Halloran.
Opening day on Saturday, November 7 runs from noon to 5 p.m. A curator-led tour starts at noon, opening speeches are at 2 p.m., and the reception is at 3 p.m. Families with younger kids can come earlier for a bilingual Russian-English storytime from 10:30 to 11 a.m., aimed at ages 4 to 8.
Sunday, November 8 adds a free Samizdat Sundays textile workshop called "Moon Flags," from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. A picture-book workshop follows that afternoon at 2 p.m. The moon-flag workshop runs a day before the real flags go up across the street, which is a fitting bit of timing.
You won't need to rush to the exhibition, because Competing Cosmologies stays up through October 17, 2027. The flag field across Overland only stays up for about ten days.
Monday the 9th, the field across Overland fills in
The Field of Valor is the Exchange Club's yearly salute to veterans and first responders. It puts more than 500 American flags in front of Veterans Memorial Park at 4117 Overland Avenue. If you checked the city's events calendar, you may have seen a listing that starts October 21 and ends November 11. November 11 is also the last day to sponsor a flag. The Exchange Club's Tribute to Heroes site and the Culver City Observer both put the flags on the field from November 9 through 19. If you go this weekend, you'll find the lawn without flags.
You can sponsor a flag through Veterans Day with a $50 donation. You give a hero's name and branch of service, and a handmade yellow ribbon carrying that name, branch and emblem gets assigned to a flag in the field. The organizers say the program raises more than $18,000 a year. The Observer reports that the proceeds go to New Directions for Veterans, a local charity that helps Los Angeles veterans find housing.
Sponsors can take their ribbon home any time from November 11 to 18. The organizers ask for one thing in return:
"Please leave the flags as is."
After November 9, the Tribute to Heroes site plans to post a map for finding sponsored flags, listed by sponsor name.
Why the 13th, 14th and 15th are the days to go
The Wende's public galleries are open Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The museum is closed Mondays and Tuesdays, and Wednesdays and Thursdays are for school tours only. The flags go up on a Monday and come down on a Thursday. Put the two schedules side by side and they overlap on one weekend.
| Dates | Wende galleries | Field of Valor |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 7–8, Sat–Sun | Open, reopening weekend | Not yet installed |
| Nov 9–12, Mon–Thu | Closed to the public | Up |
| Nov 13–15, Fri–Sun | Open 10 a.m.–5 p.m. | Up |
| Nov 16–19, Mon–Thu | Closed to the public | Up through the 19th |
| Nov 20–22, Fri–Sun | Open 10 a.m.–5 p.m. | Down |
The Exchange Club's Veterans Day ceremony also falls on that weekend. It's on Saturday, November 14 at Veterans Memorial Auditorium, 4117 Overland Avenue. The Observer calls it a free community event. This year's theme celebrates the contributions of immigrant veterans. The organizers say the ceremony honors veterans and first responders and will be followed by a special presentation on immigrant veterans. As of late October, the time is still listed as TBA.
If you plan to do the whole corner on the 14th, here's one way to put the day together:
- Check culvertribute.org the week of the ceremony for the posted start time, and build the rest of the day around it.
- Park once. The Wende says free parking is available in city lots next to the museum, with EV charging nearby at the Veterans Memorial Building and Senior Center.
- Walk the flags before or after the ceremony, while the field is fully planted and the ribbons are still on their flags.
- Cross back to the Wende for the exhibition's four sections, any time before 5 p.m. Admission to exhibitions and public programs is free.
Friday the 13th and Sunday the 15th work the same way with fewer people around, since the ceremony is on Saturday.
Saturday the 21st, the people behind the show sit down together
The flags come down on the 19th, two days before the Wende hosts the event this exhibition was built toward. "Visualizing the Cosmos: Science | Art | History" runs from 2 to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 21. The panel brings together the astrophysicist Kip Thorne, the artist Lia Halloran and NASA historian Lois Rosson. Halloran's work hangs in the show and Rosson helped curate it, so the panel is a rare chance to hear the people behind the galleries explain them.
The event is free and takes reservations through Eventbrite. The Wende notes that an RSVP doesn't guarantee a seat once the room reaches capacity. The panel is held at the Wende Museum's Community Center at 10858 Culver Boulevard, a short walk up the street from the main museum entrance at 10808.
Two nights later, on Monday, November 23 at 7 p.m., the Wende screens two films about the artists Oscar Rabin and Valentina Kropivnitskaya. A conversation with director Alexander Smoljanski follows. That one moves away from the cosmos and back toward the Cold War-era art the Wende is best known for.
The Plunge keeps its regular schedule until December
The Plunge at 4175 Overland Avenue is the other civic anchor on this block. If you swim there, November is unaffected. The city's Plunge closure page schedules a winter maintenance shutdown from Saturday, December 19, 2026 through Sunday, January 31, 2027, with reopening expected Monday, February 1, 2027 pending final checks. According to the city's closure page, the work includes new filter sand, a new backwash valve, repairs to more than 100 damaged tiles, expansion-joint work, and draining, refilling and rebalancing the pool. For the winter weeks, the city lists the El Segundo Aquatic Center, Santa Monica Swim Center, Westwood Pool, West Hollywood Aquatic Center and Celes King III Pool as places that may have space, and suggests checking with each one directly.
So a swim, a walk through the flags and an hour with Sputnik can still fit into one November morning at Culver and Overland.
I've spent a long time in the South Bay and on the Westside, and the civic corners that bring a city together are part of what I pay attention to, along with the homes around them. If you're out at Veterans Memorial Park on the 14th and want to talk about Culver City, or anywhere from El Segundo to the Westside, Bill Ruane is glad to hear from you. Let's Connect.
