Your Social Life - Not In London, Not At The Frieze Art Fair

You have noticed, beloved readers, that things are very quiet in Los Angeles this week? It's because everybody is in London for the Frieze Art Fair. For my occasional non-art readers (Hi Annie, Jonathan and Mike!), this is the art fair that's hip and fun, going on institutional. People are really sharply dressed and they do lots of coke, and the music is better at parties, and you know, in Europe they dance at parties. Aside from that, it's all about OMG is the market is going to collapse now or later? (methinks a bit later, either at the Fall auctions if moneyed people are panicking now, or the Spring one next year when they need liquidity). In any case, art dealers tend to over-inflate their sale results, as I said before, so don't expect anything reliable. While in London, have a cuppa for me, easy on the booze. The Brits drink only to get sloshed, it's spectacular. Oh, and, they love knives. And Russian mobstersoligarchs.

Anyway, if you are in Los Angeles this weekend, it's cool. Aside from the aforementioned Stevie Wonder tribute at the Echo, can yo do anything art-related? I believe you can.
Saturday afternoon you can go to Griffith Park for a one-day exhibition where I'd go if I weren't so frantically trying to get some work done while battling an ongoing migraine (day 5 today!). I'm pasting the info below, because I'm lazy, and I'm also pasting the info for the inaugural exhibition of Woodbury Hollywood Exhibitions, right next to LACE, where a bunch of FBC! personal friends are showing, and once again I'd love to hang out with them at the opening but I'm afraid I'm running out of time on my own projects. We'll see.
In any case, look how all works out well: LA old zoo in the afternoon, Hollywood in the early evening, quick dinner at a taco truck in Echo Park, and then the Stevie Wonder tribute. Ah, I wish I were you!



In 2008, ART2102 continues to collaborate with new generations of alternative spaces and projects in Los Angeles by providing a non-institutional structure and framework to support their initiatives. ART2102 has been extending its status as a non-profit and beneficiary of grants to several of these smaller experimental spaces, while generating and increasing their exposure through ART2102's communication networks and support systems. It is an effort which aims to expand ART2102's activities beyond the more traditional forms of exhibition and other curatorial projects.

On October 18, Slab presents a one-day exhibition at the old Los Angeles zoo involving artists Michael Decker, Liz Glynn, Deva Graf, Hilary Graves, George Kontos, Louisa Van Leer, Karen Lofgren, Marco Rios, Ry Rocklen, Rosha Yaghmai.

Slab considers the zoo to be a challenging location for an exhibition by resisting and playing on traditional expectations of how we typically view art. For the event, Slab has designated areas that were originally used as animal habitats - designed, constructed, and
intended to replicate natural living habitats – as art exhibition spaces. The empty caves and surrounding areas lend themselves to ideas of ancient civilization societies, theatrical ruins, or more simply, a stage begging to be once again inhabited. In the pursuit of straightforward exhibition projects unhindered by a set theme, the artists selected have the freedom to respond to the zoo site as they see fit, whether choosing to include an existing artwork or creating something entirely new.

4:00pm - 7:00pm
Old Los Angeles Zoo picnic area
4730 Crystal Springs Blvd
Los Angeles, CA


Please join us on Saturday, Oct. 18th 6-9PM for our inaugural exhibition and opening
reception.

Woodbury Hollywood Exhibitions is very proud to announce our inaugural exhibition,
"Analytic & Synthetic Pile-Up".

This show will feature artworks by Mason Cooley, Lisa Lapinski, Shirley Tse,
Will Fowler, James Hayward, Christie Frields, Daniel Mendel-Black, Keith Walsh,
Roger Dickes, Suzanne Adelman, Michael Dee, John Rosewall, Ed Johnson, Darcy
Huebler, and Luciano Perna.

Exhibition Dates: October 18th – November 27th, 2008.

Opening Reception: October 18th: 6:00-9:00 PM
Gallery Hours: Wed.-Sat 12:00PM-5:00PM
(323) 461-6486

Analytic & Synthetic Pile-Up is a group exhibition featuring sculpture, painting and
photography by 15 Los Angeles artists.
The artworks in the exhibition utilize a ‘piling-up’--a multi-layering of concepts
or materials--where the elements are chunky and disjunctive in some works, and
seamless or autonomous in others.

The Analytic and Synthetic sensibilities in this exhibition are a play on
distinctions from Cubism. Historically, ‘Analytic’ described early Cubist works
that employed everyday objects, often found collage works. Through the use of these
materials, the works were considered to represent ‘reality’ more directly. The
‘Synthetic’ was understood as a more refined and intellectualized approach in later
Cubism. ‘Synthetic’ artworks, usually within the singular medium of painting, have
been characterized as more visually dense, abstracted, and colorful.

If we take a rather playful look through this historical lens, there are artworks in
this show that might appear, at least perceptually, to fall into either category.
Might a hybridized sculpture appear to be analytic? Or an abstract painting,
synthetic? Perhaps it’s worth a mention that the early distinctions were somewhat
arbitrary or over-determined even in their own historical context. Given our
contemporary understanding, the works in this exhibition, and their surrounding
dialogue or intent, certainly blur these prior categorical distinctions.

There are questions which arise from a passing glance back to these art historical
categories: Is it possible to build a hierarchy of works based on whether they
refer more to the physicality of the everyday world than to the intellectual? And,
is it possible to decide which sensibility most directly communicates reality to us?

**This event is free and open to the public.
Woodbury Hollywood Exhibitions is located just two doors east of LACE (Los Angeles
Contemporary Exhibitions) and is Woodbury University’s new off-campus exhibition
space.