Your Social Life, Looking Up At Too Many Billboards

But be careful when you drive, OK?
This weekend is the opening of Too Many Billboards at the MAK/Schindler House, but really the exhibition is all over Los Angeles.

But before we get into that, tonight is also the kickoff of a 2-day event, 40 Years of Video Art: A Critical Reappraisal of an Art Form, at Cottage Home in Chinatown, a collaboration between Tom Solomon and the Goethe Institute. It's at 7.30 PM tonight, there are screenings and discussions, and you can download the complete program on the website of the Goethe Institute (link above).

Back to the billboards. The opening is tomorrow, with artists talks, a bus tour, etc. All the information you want is here. Most crucially, there is the map of the various billboards so you can do a self-driven tour. Just be very careful and don't hit any other driver or pedestrian.
But if you want to avoid driving (and who wouldn't want, in Los Angeles?), take the bus tour! The list of artists is mouth-watering, from Kenneth Anger to lauren woods, and includes FBC! gal pal Susan Silton (hi Susan!) as well as one of my favorite LA photographers/post-conceptual artists, Ken Gonzalez-Day (I picked up the picture from his website.)

Speaking of post-conceptualism, whatever that means, I've promised a few people I was going to write about my thoughts on the Valentine Day musings of Roberta Smith during the next few days. Stay tuned!

Lastly, I received an email form Suzanne Adelman letting me know about a group show she's in (and, no, I don't know her) at S1f Gallery. It's opening on Saturday, so if you are not running out of time go check it out, it's located at one of my favorite buildings in LA, the American Cement Building.

Have fun, and drive safely.

image: How Many Billboards, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, 2010.
Courtesy of Ken Gonzales-Day and The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Links I Like

So last weekend I wrote this post about Thierry Weyd's blogs, and it was cool because we emailed a little bit. It's someone I haven't seen in almost 20 years, so there is some magic with internet, I must say.
While I'm at it, I thought I should provide you with an irregular series where I would link to artist web pages, blog I read, etc. I think I'll do it maybe once a month? Which means you should feel free to email me your blog/website address at frenchybutchic@gmail.com, and if I find them in accordance with my taste, I'll be happy to link them in a post. I'd rather do a post than update my blogroll/links list, because it requires less organization for me, and I'm really behind my schedule now. A few things before you start emailing me:

- When you send me your links, please remember that it's possible your email has landed in my bulk folder. I try to check it from time to time, but if it's buried there I may not see your mail.
- Secondly, this is a personal blog and I have certain tastes, so if you don't make it on the post, it may mean I'm not into it (to give you an example, each time I see "art" featured on BoingBoing, what I'm looking at belongs to the category of illustration. I'm not against illustration, but it's not my primary interest).
- If you don't make it on FBC! please don't send me pleading or threatening or insulting emails. I'm sure there are many other avenues where your work can be featured, remember this is just a blog, not the Venice Biennial or MoMA.
- Also keep in mind I am very, very absent-minded. It happens that I want to present something, and I totally forget depending on how many migraines I've had that week or if I'm focused on looking for a job or whatever else. I'm only human, and I do my best, but it's only me. I'm still waiting for that hot stud of a non-paid male intern to materialize, but so far the Gods haven't been very generous.
- as far as links, I'm happy to get references to artists websites, food sites, literary sites, lefty political sites (as long as they are funny), curiosities sites, and musical sites. Blogs are fine, and flickr streams as well.
- FYI, I'm a bit of sissy, so, please, no gory, violent, racist or generally gross websites. And no porn either, thank you, I have a feeling my readers don't need me to know whatever happened to sex in Scandinavia. I know you care, but I don't.

***

Now that we are in agreement, I'm starting the list with Tosh Berman, who is the publisher of Tam Tam Books, a francophile and someone who happens to use the same Blogger template as I do. I don't know him personally, though I hope to meet him at some point in the future. He's very knowledgeable about French culture, and is the publisher of Boris Vian in America. Please visit his blog, and better yet! Buy his books!
The second person whose website I want to introduce you to is Calvin Phelps, who commented on FBC! mariachis post yesterday. I looked at his website, and thought, hey, I could link it to FBC! His website is very simple to use and navigate, and it will give you a clear idea of what he does.
I've already told you about Unframed, the LACMA blog, toward which I am biased since I've worked at the musuem a while ago. I really like this blog, I think it is very well made, with a clear balance between the visual arts and all other forms of expression featured at LACMA (movies, lectures, music, etc), and is written by both curatorial and communication staff. Please look at Allison Agsten's post about the decline in art coverage in Los Angeles. It's always been meager, and with the upcoming demise of the LAT (they sacked about 75 people on Monday) it's not going to improve.
You should also check Kehinde Wiley's website. I really like his work, which I find kitschy and and very fun to look at. It satisfies art historians like myself aplenty, with all his references to classical painting. Now, I think there's a slight, impossible-to-define-something that's missing, the little thing that would push his work from very good to awesomely great, but I don't know what it is, and I like it as is anyway. Enjoy!
To end this first edition of Links I Like, Ken Gonzalez-Day's website. I like Ken's work a lot, and I have had the pleasure to meet him a while back at an opening. In person he's adorable and very, very funny. In his art he makes pictures so gorgeous you want to lick them, but his work has a deep historical and political intent as well, without falling into propaganda. Have a look and you will understand!

Before you go look at all these sites, don't forget the Mariachis for Obama poll at the bottom of this page.

The photograph above was pinched from Ken's website, from the project Hang Trees.

FBC Goes To An Opening!

Last Thursday FBC! was graciously invited by her pals from the LACMA Photo Dept. to the opening of Phlip-Lorca di Corcia. Having see one of his retrospectives before, as well as the "Pole Dancers" series in Paris, I was curious to go see the "One Thousand" series of Polaroids. And I'm glad I went, in the company of gal pal and LA Art Girls member Nancy Popp. Not only because Nancy is always lovely, but also because, as a photographer, she could ask all the right questions to the artist himself about the various Polaroid cameras he's been using.
The series in the show, save for the aforementioned "One Thousand" are rather incomplete, and mixed up instead of being installed separately. Which FBC didn't like that much, but as Nancy pointed out, the work is so strong that the effect is not diluted by having the pictures mixed together. There was my favorite shot from the "Heads" series , depicted below - once again, after being told it was OK to take pictures without flash, I was told by a guard within 5 seconds that photographies were not allowed. So most of the pix are from the opening.
But the highlight of the show was definitively the Polaroid series. It's beautifully installed on wall racks, unframed, looking vulnerable and unprotected without any plexi to cover them.
They are gorgeous to look at, and underscore how much diCorcia is gifted at framing, shooting from low angles, and mastering composition. The series spans a couple decades (maybe more, but I don't have the press release or anything to rely on), and presents anything within classical categories such as landscape, portraits, etc.
It's in the Ahmanson building, proving was again that everything that's good to see at LACMA is located on the East side. The opening was set up in the atrium, under the Tony Smith-that-is-a-posthumous-reconstitution, which was really cool. In addition to the artist, FBC! also met with Ken Gonzalez-Day, whose work in the Phantom Sightings show is so exquisitely beautiful it's almost painful. We were both rather tipsy and exchanged grandiose plans to take over next year CAA's conference, complete with booze parties at the Bonaventure and orgies for sex-deprived scholars at the Getty Villa. All in all, it was fun!
Other guests included Darcy Huebler, and I'm taking the opportunity to say hi here as we kept on missing talking to each other during the opening, various LACMA curators, including Rita Gonzalez, and of course Charlotte Cotton, Eve Schillo and Alex Klein.

Real Presences At Phantom Sightings

So almost 2 weeks ago I went with a very talented painter (Hi Ivan!) to the opening of Phantom Sightings at LACMA, the most exciting show I've seen in a long time at a Los Angeles Museum. And I don't say that because the lead curator of the exhibition, Rita Gonzalez, is a close friend of mine. I honestly was a bit weary before going, as I am with many identity-based show concepts ("Post-Chicano art"), and also because there were 3 curators involved (Howard Fox and Chon Noriega were the 2 other ones) and it's always difficult to find a good balance between several curators choices, tastes and interests. In addition, I know very little about Chicano/Latino art, aside from my occasional visits to shows and my already professed admiration for Ruben Ochoa (museums everywhere, collect this guy NOW). So I thought it was outside of my area of expertise, which was a totally stupid prejudice or stereotype, as it is a contemporary art exhibition, my chosen specialty.

So we walked into the exhibition space in what used to be the Anderson building, and wow! Weren't we blown away! I've come back to the museum again last week to see the show (re: wow) and BCAM, and clearly Phantom Sightings is a winner 9BCAM, on the other hand...). It's smart, beautifully, perfectly installed, there are many artists and works I've discovered, and the identity part isn't propaganda-like but functions in every single work as art, beautifully integrated and meaningful without being overbearing and aggressive or guilt-tripping. I'm waiting for my long-anticipated lunch and walk-through with Rita to really write a review, and I also want to get the press packet and read the catalogue so I don't write egregious mistakes about artists or dates. I also want to refute that stupid article: granted, no one reads City Beat (at least no one I know. Do you know anyone who reads it? Let's start a contest!), but it seems the person writing is well-known, if scandalously ignorant about art stuff. Very arrogant and condescending too: having gone on a date at the Norton Simon doesn't make anyone an art lover or an art expert. She writes well, much better than I will ever dream to, but wrong tooth to pick Honey! You're a bit late on the LACMA-bashing. I think what you need is take your dates to Disneyland, you would be more comfortable there, seeing that you come from the OC (yes, I'm in a bad mood too, it's IRS day today!).

[While I'm in a bad mood, I want to retaliate: one of my former colleagues scooped me at the opening and told a guard as I was taking pictures without flash, as is allowed and indicated at the entrance. I'm slightly pissed off you (because I know exactly who you are): a) didn't ask me directly to stop taking pictures. That was lame and cowardly. What were you afraid of? Did I ever bite you? and: b) got a guard involved: it's an impossible situation for them to have one of their superior telling them to prevent pictures from being taken while there are signs telling the public it is allowed and: c) you're not even the curator of the show, didn't bother to check whether it was OK or not, which is very condescending and arrogant. Next time, ask me directly, if it makes you uncomfortable I will stop. Mind you, I asked the curator if it was OK and she helpfully told me yes and I did read that sign, so I got my bases covered, and you did not. So, screw you.]

Meanwhile, you my faithful FBC! readers have all the time in the world to see the show, and you should really do it because it's one of the most intelligent show to end all the identity/post-identity politics exhibition concepts to come, and you will enjoy seeing some of my faves: Ken Gonzalez-Day (beautiful), Ruben Ochoa, Juan Capistran, Ruben Ortiz-Torres and the woman whose name escape me (I need that press package, dammit), who does role-playing B&W photographs. So more on the show later, and here are a few pics I took at the opening.
As usual, the vertical one is sideways, thanks to Blogger and its uploading pix tool.