Here we are, it's October, everywhere else in the Northern hemisphere (say in London, where the Frieze art fair is drawing to an end this weekend) it's Fall season, and here in California we've been welcoming rain mid-week, and now we're experiencing 96ºF, sunshine, and uncharacteristically very high humidity. Your truly is suffering from blocked air pipes, so I'm a bit slow on the uptake, plus I had a couple of deadlines to meet this week, hence making this installment of YSL kind of late (and, yes, I know I missed it last week: see "deadlines to meet" above).
So I haven't paid much attention to the art world, and I'm going to haphazardly unload a list of the few openings you should go to tomorrow. Starting at 4 PM in Glendale tomorrow, don't miss Mama San at the always excellent Glendale College Gallery (hi Roger!). Right after you can go to Pasadena and enjoy the unveiling of David Schafer's public project at the Huntington Hospital. If you decide to go please RSVP on the Facebook page so David can get enough food and wine. If you drive a bit further West don't forget to stop in Chinatown for JP Munro's opening at China Art Objects. If you'd rather be on my side of town there's an opening at Steve Turner, complete with the de rigueur "Mexican Chinese Fusion taco truck". Further West in Santa Monica at 18th street, there's a show called "Without A Car In the World" by Diane Meyer, who lives car-less in Los Angeles, something I've done a lot (see: 3 car accidents in 18 months) and as heroic and environmentally-friendly as it may be, I don't recommend doing unless you have lots of time on your hands.
Meanwhile, you likely won't see my Frenchy self at any of these shows: I'm going out to see one of my favorite bands playing tomorrow night, and alas I'm still not in good enough shape to go cavorting all over town on the same day. Have fun looking at shows, and enjoy your social life in LA!
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.
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.
After a lovely lunch with our friendly neighborhood programmer, during which I discovered Sheherazad does have zlabyia for dessert - yay! soooo sweet Aimee couldn't detect the rose water, as it was masked by tons of honey syrup - I unfortunately had to leave Westwood too fast to really see the Francis Alÿs show. But I did peak at the Jamie Isenstein installation and was lucky to be in when she was performing. She kindly agreed to have her picture taken and to let me publish it on the blog. Here it is! Jamie is giving an artist talk at the Hammer on November 10. Go see her! So instead of wasting your time hanging out at openings* in the next few weeks, go to the Hammer enjoy art, and there's also an upcoming lecture on Nov. 29 by artist Glenn Ligon.
Who, incidentally has a show at the MUDAM in Luxembourg (did you see this fab' smooth transition? Aren't I a crafty non-native writer, if a chic little Frenchy? Thanks for the applause! really you are too kind). It opens on October 12 so you just have the time to hop on a plane on your way back from the Frieze Art Fair, that is if you decide to skip the upcoming London auctions.
Which you should, because: - a) you don't want to witness another instance of former-Soviet block mobsters pumping up the prices of undeserving painters (Peter Doig more expensive than Gerhard Richter? Really????) - b) it's impossible to gastronomically survive more than 3 days in London, gastropubs and Britishified curry joints notwithstanding. But you can bring me back loose tea from Fortnum & Mason, and possibly cookies from Duchy Originals. I live under the delusion Prince Charles himself bakes those with his aristocratic white hands. I know, I know, from a man who needs a valet to lay toothpaste on his toothbrush it is unlikely, but I like this particular delusion. c) Luxembourg is really an adorable (in real estate parlance: tiny) cute country**. Food is very good there and people are very nice, warm and friendly. They also have a funny-looking Royal Family, much better than the Windsor if you ask me***. They have cool scandals too! (I'll let you dig this one yourself, just for fun) AND you can also have fun before the opening and go to the Casino-Luxembourg which despite its name isn't a gambling house but an exhibition space where they currently show Wim Delvoye's Cloaca (Hi Enrico!).
After Luxembourg you can have fun going to the FIAC art fair in Paris. Because it is not as exposed as Frieze or Basel, if you are a collector you actually have a good chance to find great pieces by international artists, many of them being represented by French galleries such as Praz-Delavallade, Chantal Crousel or Yvon Lambert. Plus you get to go shopping and to have decent food in Paris (hint: DO NOT RELY ON CHOWHOUND's French Board. It sucks. Ask your friendly French art dealers, curators and critics instead).
On your way back home, what would be better than stopping in Boston? Not only you get to avoid NYC poseurs but you can go to an awesome reception on October 20th at the MIT List Visual Center with two exhibitions featuring mostly video art from the Pamela and Richard Kramlich collection. You will get to mingle with the likes of Daniel Birnbaum (one of the best art critics of the moment), Caroline A. Jones whom I do not know either personally or in writing but whose selection is interesting, and the always awesome Bill Arning! (Hi Bill! Come to LA soon!).
For those of you who are currently in the Midwest, I would like to recommend the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art where the lovely Jane Simon is curator of exhibitions (Hi Jane!Not sure you read the blog). Go visit the museum, and check their website: it's a very dynamic place. It's not far from Chicago where Dominic Molon has just opened his Sympathy For The Devil show at the MCA (Hi Dominic! Hope all went well).
And here at home, opening soon at a museum near you (in a couple of weeks really), Murakami at the Geffen. He's really too overexposed so it will be interesting to see if a large-scale exhibition shows his work to survive the hype. Or not.
Et voilà, your entire social life of the next two weeks laid out before your eyes, no need to even think about it. Merci qui? Merci Frenchy!
*c'est vrai quoi, you could have twice as much fun hanging out somewhere else with the people you truly like, rather than bumping into fresh-faced arrogant art students who can't distinguish Jessica Stockholder from Jason Rhoades. ** Something I always found delightful in Luxembourg: they have underground trash elevators! I kid you not, they put their trash in these cubicles that disappear into the ground and are lifted at street level when the trash collection comes. Awesome! ***No, the funny-attired guy in the middle isn't Grandpa Luxembourg nor Santa, despite being German.
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