Your Social Life In The Would-Be Art Capital Of The World

Sorry for the absence of posting last week, and for the lightweight one that's coming up. I'm trying to focus on my other writing and on the preparation of the small show I'm curating in NYC at the end of April (yay!).
That, plus the jetlag when I came back and the unavoidable cold I've gotten this week = not too much focus on what's going on in LA.

The show I've missed going to the opening of was and is still in Torrance, where the programming is very strong, but I wish they'd keep their show up a bit longer.
So, if you're in the vicinity, don't miss What's New Pussycat, a show that mixes Los Angeles greats Ed Ruscha, Larry Bell, Juan Capistran (with one of his renditions of the Pettibon-Black Flag logo), and former LA luminary Bruce Nauman, and many, many other. Please note that next week, Max Presneill will teach a class on "Gonzo curating" on February 5th, which is also World Nutella Day, there's a $10 bucks suggested donation but if you wish to attend the class, I suggest you bring also a jar of Nutella and donate it to the museum staff in appreciation.
This way you can all gonzo-curate while being creative with Nutella.
Please note that February 2nd is the French holiday of La Chandeleur (not the same as Shrove Tuesday, which happens a month later), otherwise known as National Crêpe Holiday, so next week you can happily marry Nutella and crêpes and have a good time AND go to the Torrance museum.

I've also missed the bunch of openings at the PDC last week. I know there's a group show with Chris Lipomi and Michael Rashkow in it at Annie Wharton, that anotheryearinla presents giant cyanotypes by Robyn Hill,  and that Taft Green is also in a group show at See Line Gallery.

OK, it's all very well, but what's happening like, right now?, are you going to ask. Ah, but it's this time of the year again when Los Angeles wants to feel like the art capital of the world and has yet another one of its smallish art fairs, Art Los Angeles Contemporary. It opens tonight and lasts until Sunday. And most of the galleries are the ones you already know in LA, plus a few LA alumni (Jack Hanley, Sarah Gavlak). It costs $40 if you want to attend the gala opening tonight, and $18 if you want to attend just one day. There are a bunch of performances and events organized during the fair, but at times and hours only accessible to people who don't have a job and live on the West Side (ever tried being in Santa Monica at 5 PM on a Friday?). The real Dan Graham, the artist, will be having a conversation with Aaron Wrinkle of the Dan Graham gallery on Saturday, if you're nearby.

On Saturday evening, The Hammer opens its "invitational show", All Of This And Nothing, featuring among others Charles Gaines and Kerry Tribe.

Not opening on Saturday but rather nearing its end is the Hanne Darboven show at Regen Projects, and I believe there is one last music performance at 3 PM. Please phone the gallery for confirmation as I'm not certain about it.

Speaking about music, the CEAIT festival focusing on Greek-French composer Iannis Xenakis is this weekend at Redcat. The tickets are only $25 (and its cheaper for students), so don't miss this event. Yours truly is attending the Sunday performance and rabidly gobbling cold medication as to not contaminate my fellow audience and not cough loudly during the concert.

Speaking of Redcat, FBC! is looking forward to the Aram Moshayedi-curated Geoffrey Farmer exhibition which will start on February 18th, but the official opening is in March.
Mark your calendars because on the same weekend, the long-awaited Ivan Morley show will finally open at Richard Telles gallery, yeah!
I also know that Chris Lipomi, who's currently in a group show at the PDC, is going to have another opening sometimes soon, but I don't know yet where and when.




Charles Gaines, Black Panther (1966), 2008
Graphite on paper. 62 1/2 x 45 1/16 in. Courtesy of the artist; Kent Fine Art, New York; and Susanne Vielmetter Projects, Los Angeles (image taken on the Hammer Museum website)

Fausto Romitelli - Trash TV Trance Part 1

FBC! is just discovering avant-garde composer Fausto Romitelli, thanks to my friend Patrice. This is so incredibly awesome I'm wondering how I can have lived so long without it.
Please listen to Gilbert Imperial interpreting this piece live.

Your Social Life In The New Year

FBC! is back, albeit still a little bit jet-lagged and about to go hibernating, not that winter is very present here in SoCal, but I'd like to concentrate on my other writing for a while.

I have to update a couple of things relative to my last post. First of all, Ivan Morley's opening & exhibition at Richard Telles are tentatively postponed until February. Then, my friend GW told me that the Jack Goldstein show is totally happening, even if it's not posted on the OCMA exhibition schedule. It may happen in 2012 and not 2011, I don't know, so maybe that's why it's not announced on their website as of yet. If anybody from OCMA reads this and can confirm, it would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Now, onto the things to see this week in Los Angeles. Many of you already know that Mike Kelley had an opening at Gagosian on Tuesday, where he was mixing his Extra-curricular Activities project with the Kandors one. His work is veering more and more toward the beautiful and using vernacular culture and Pop culture visual cues more as props to build a visual vocabulary than as a critical tool. The gallery was packed with tons of people, so it was hard to see some of the artworks, but I was totally psyched to see he's used in one of his pieces the Sigmund Freud action figure I had given him at the opening of Day Is Done in 2005. Anyway, personal anecdote aside, I recommend you go see the show.

Yesterday was the gala opening of Photo LA, one of the several art fairs to grace our fair city in January. Your truly missed it (cf. jet-lag) but encourages you to go see it this weekend, there are always some nice anonymous and not-so-anonymous bargains to be had in the bins, if you like historical photography.

Tonight in Chinatown there's a group show opening at Cottage Home with all the info here on their FB page.
Tomorrow, FBC! pal Nancy Popp has an opening for a very short exhibition featuring her video work at Kristi Engle Gallery, part of a multi-part exhibition called TBA.
On the opposite side of town, Tad Beck is also having an opening at Samuel Freeman Gallery, from 5 to 8 PM.
Still tomorrow, if you're smack dab in the middle of LA, don't miss the show at Actual Size, Pals, a 'Teleplay' and look up their website too because it announces Collective Show LA which, as the name indicates, will feature artists collectives based in Los Angeles.

A show that already opened a while back and that FBC! enjoyed a lot, Pumping by Joel Tauber, is not only worth your while but if you happen to be in Culver City tomorrow around 6 PM, there's a party at Susan Vielmetter gallery.

Lastly, if you're wanting for things to do on Sunday, Simon Leung will do a talk about his Poe installation at Las Cienegas Projects, at 3 PM.




all photographs in this post: Mike Kelley exhibition at Gagosian, credit FBC!

Happy New Year!

With the radical music of Suicide to greet the New Year, he he he... This was made more than 30 years ago and it's still much fresher, experimental and cutting-edge than most music made today. Fresh, experimental, radical and cutting-edge art is everything I wish you all for 2011, along with fantastic health, great job prospects and money aplenty, love  and friendship in the same quantity.

FBC! is still in the old world this week and so will miss the openings in LA on Saturday. I haven't paid much attention from here (obviously) so there won't be any YSL post this week. I just want to signal one opening at EGHQ, I think there's one at Steve Turner as well and the series of Kamikaze shows at POST. Please refer to the above links for full information.

Among the few things FBC! is looking forward to in 2011 are the April 9 concert of the Residents in LA (location TBA), the Melvins in residence at the Echoplex every Friday in January, Swans at the El Rey on March 2 and possibly Devo at Club Nokia on March 19. Maybe if we're  lucky John Cale will finally release his long-awaited next album this year. And maybe get himself a real website and not a lame Myspace page.

Art-wise both Tad Beck and Ivan Morley are scheduled to have an opening on January 15 (at Samuel Freeman and Richard Telles respectively) while Mike Kelley has one at Gagosian on January 11th.

The obvious big art event in LA this year will be Pacific Standard Time, a series of events curated in most LA institutions about the art production of our fair city from roughly 1955 to 1980 and overseen (and funded in big part) by the Getty. Finally, Los Angeles will look at his own art history, but FBC! regrets that there isn't a corollary series of shows tackling the last 30 years since it is really then that the city took off as an art capital of the world.
Yours truly believed that the Jack Goldstein retrospective curated by Philip Kaiser was going to happen at OCMA this year after MOCA stupidly canceled it, but I find no mention of it on their website. Can anybody tell me if it's happening in 2012 instead, or if it's not happening at all? Which would be a disaster. The rest of the contemporary art programming at most LA museums looks pretty uninspiring this year, with the bright exception of the Hammer and the Paul Thek retrospective, and a small show that seems interesting coming up at the Norton Simon, about 1960s abstraction.

On a more personal level, I'm looking forward to the Mondrian retrospective currently at the Pompidou Center in Paris, and some stealth guerrilla curating I'll be doing in NYC at the end of April.