Looking at Los Angeles | Andrea Fraser’s Men on the Line
Andrea Fraser. "Museum Highlights: A Gallery Talk", 1989. Video still of performance. Courtesy UCLA.
This week, Andrea Fraser premiered her new performance Men on the Line, KPFK, 1972 in which she reenacts an eponymous LA public radio program from forty years ago. Clad in a masculine shirt and pants, Fraser embodies the voices of four men: Lee Chrismier, Bob Keneger, Jeremy Shapiro, and moderator Everett Frost as they discuss their positions as male feminists and active supporters of the Women’s Movement.
Fraser’s Men on the Line represents part of the Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980 Performance and Public Art Festival. Of course, the timeframe of PST underscores the historical focus of the Performance and Public Art Festival—meaning that most of the works are reenactments or reinterpretations of earlier pieces, as Catherine Wagley cited earlier this month in her most recent Looking at Los Angeles post. But unlike Suzanne Lacy’s Three Weeks in January/ Three Weeks in May piece or Liz Glynn’s Spirit Resurrection performance series, Fraser’s Men on the Line reframes a non-art event in the context of performance art. While the themes of Men on the Line relate to Fraser’s canon of institutional critique-based works, the gesture of transcribing and re-performing this radio conversation aligns with the artist’s more recent video piece, Projection. For the latter piece, Fraser documented, transcribed, performed, and edited an intense series of psychoanalytic sessions, embodying her therapist and re-embodying herself as the patient. Moreover, it is distinct from works such as Official Welcome and Untitled in its separation from themes such as art elitism, classism, and ageism—focusing more narrowly on gender and the shifting efforts of feminism.
Looking at Los Angeles | Top 5 of 2011: Entertainers Who Moonlight as Artists
James Franco, "The Dangerous Book Four Boys" at Peres Projects, Berlin. Installation View. Courtesy The Hollywood Reporter.
5. James Franco, how can we miss you if you won’t go away? Back in 2009 Franco topped our list of entertainers moonlighting as artists when he wrote a book report on performance art and claimed that his guest star role on General Hospital would be his foray into the genre. But since then, Art21 has facilitated his artistic growth, featuring his collaboration with Kalup Linzy in our New York Close Up series. This year Franco even scored shows at Gagosian in Los Angeles and Peres Projects in Berlin. He is even pursuing an MFA at RISD–concurrent with his PhD in English at Yale, because grad school is NBD right? With his penchant for meta, Franco unsurprisingly seems to be delving deeper into the realm of institutional critique. He recently teamed up with art duo Praxis to launch the Museum of Non-Visible Art, selling non-existent works of art through Kickstarter. Be careful if you visit the page—it might just blow your mind!
Phyllis Diller and Jeffrey Deitch in Diller's studio. Courtesy Paper Magazine.
4. Is there something funny about painting? Groundbreaking female comedians Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers both refuse to retire or quit their day jobs–and their weekend hobbies. Both maintain avid studio practices alongside their continued comedy careers, despite mixed reviews. Ever self-deprecating, Rivers bemoaned, “not one person in 10 years has asked me for a painting, that’s how bad I am.” Maybe Rivers just needs to stick it out a little longer, as the more senior Diller recently enjoyed some art world attention, scoring a studio visit from Jeffrey Deitch. According to Paper Mag, Deitch even bought one of her paintings on the spot. Not so surprising–as the producer of television’s first art reality show, Art Star, we wouldn’t expect Deitch to shy away from the often problematic intersection of art and celebrity.
Rosario Dawson's "Misting Vagina" at Burning Man 2011. Courtesy NBC Bay Area.
3. Rosario Dawson tried her hand at installation work—and feminist art?—creating a giant misting vagina at Burning Man this year. Though yours truly attended–and worked for–the orgiastic art festival this year, I did not happen upon Dawson’s piece among the countless large-scale sculptures and interactive works installed around the Black Rock Desert. But the buzz from those who did dive into the giant vulva and complimentary balls and sperm sculpture was pretty positive. Looks like Rosario made her own grindhouse!
Ringo Starr with "Face and Flowers." Courtesy Gallery 319.
2. Each Beatle has been known to make his own visual art, but Ringo Starr is the only one to venture into the realm of New Media, having exhibited his computer generated paintings since the 1990s. Represented by LA’s own Gallery 319, which specializes in leveraging the cultural capital of rock stars such as Grace Slick and Ronnie Wood to sell their art, this year Starr decided to think outside the white gallery box, creating a piece of public art. Ringo dedicated the statue—a colorful gun tied in a knot—to John Lennon, unveiling it on the 31st anniversary of his death. Inspired by Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd’s bronze “Knotted Gun” sculpture, the piece was commissioned by the Non-Violence Project Foundation and will tour schools around the United Kingdom, as part of a program advocating nonviolence. Starr’s background in computer-generated painting came in handy when creating the slightly nauseating psychedelic design for the sculpture. Starr divulges, “I just did my artwork on my iPad, put it on my computer and transferred it onto paper with the outline of the gun.” Though this might suggest a lack of aesthetic rigor in his process, we still have to give props to Ringo for using channeling the loss of his friend and band mate into a strong message. Reflecting on Lennon’s death, Starr recalls “they called and said, ‘John’s been killed. He’s been shot and he’s dead’…It was a bad day. But it was a bad day because someone took one of these and shot John.”
Jenni "JWOWW" Farley of Jersey Shore. Courtesy Gawker.
1. Jersey Shore’s Jwoww was recently outed by Gawker as a onetime artist. The gossip blog uncovered a website from her bohemian college days as an art major, featuring charcoal drawings and acrylic still lives that range from pseudo-pop art (Family Guy of course) to academic figure drawing. Gawker says their favorite is her still life of “a beach towel, stuffed animal, detergent container, and two empty bottles of booze.” But how can you ignore her naked body covered in multicolored paint? Move over Yves Klein!
Looking at Los Angeles | ASCO and Activisim in Pacific Standard Time
Asco. "First Supper After a Major Riot," 1974/printed 2011. Photograph by Harry Gamboa Jr. Courtesy Harry Gamboa Jr. Image via LACMA.
When I moved to LA from Northern California, my Bay Area friends accused me of taking up with a city that was historically cultureless and apolitical. If Pacific Standard Time–the year long collaboration of 60 cultural institutions throughout Southern California–does not seem to protest too much, it might actually manage to address both grievances. Pacific Standard Time promises to represent every major L.A. art movement from 1945-1980. But rather than explore aesthetic movements, many of the exhibitions parse LA’s sprawling cultural history through the lens of political and social activism.
Greetings from L.A.: Artists and Publics, 1950–1980 at the Getty explores the ways in which broader activist movements “mobilized artists to take their messages to the streets,” and features a vast array of prints, fliers, posters, and remnants from artists engaged in protest—from demonstrations in front of the Ferus Gallery, to photographs of Susan Sontag at the Peace Tower installation in Los Angeles, to old exhibition announcements for politically-engaged artists such as Vija Celmins and Judy Chicago. Peace Press Graphics 1967-1987: Art in the Pursuit of Social Change at the University Art Museum at Cal State Long Beach features prints made by the LA artist-run alternative Peace Press. MOCA’s Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974 – 1981 contextualizes its exhibition by confronting viewers with the text of Nixon’s resignation speech. According to curators, the show delves into the transformation of California’s art scene in response to a “collective loss of faith in government and other institutionalized forms of authority.”
Artist Peace Tower installation, 1966. Charles Brittin. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. Courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust.
Still other exhibitions focus on art by marginalized groups seeking change: She Accepts the Proposition: Women Gallerists and the Redefinition of Art in Los Angeles, 1967-1978 at the Crossroads School (an exhibition that Catherine Wagley discussed in her last Looking at Los Angeles column); Otis presents Doin’ It in Public: Feminism and Art at the Woman’s Building; The Japanese American National Museum explores activism in postwar Japanese American Art in Drawing the Line; Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980 at the Hammer Museum delves into work influenced in part by the era’s Black Power and civil rights movements; and various exhibitions at the Fowler Museum, the Autry National Center, and LACMA all highlight work by Chicano artists and collectives. One such exhibition that has gathered a great deal of well-deserved attention is LACMA’s Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972–1987, the first-ever comprehensive museum exhibition of the infamous collective of East LA conceptual artists.
Looking at Los Angeles | Working for The Man: Building Burning Man’s Infrastructure
Porkchop pounds a T-Stake into the desert floor, helping to build the fence that surrounds the perimeter of Burning Man's temporary metropolis, Black Rock City. Via The Burning Blog. Courtesy John Curley.
When I first found out about the Black Rock City Department of Public Works, it was like finding out that Santa Claus did not exist. I was disappointed, and a little bit embarrassed by my own naivete. Of course I loved Burning Man for the limitless expanse of art, but I also felt in awe of its total DIY spirit. The Black Rock Desert, known affectionately as the playa, is one of the largest mud flats on the planet, spanning 1,000 miles. The alkaline quality of the canvas-colored dust is inhospitable to almost any life form, a post-apocalyptic tabula rasa alienscape upon which Burning Man’s Black Rock City develops and disappears each year. Since there is no vending allowed at the event, one has to bring enough food and water. Although there are porta potties, camps must also minimize their footprint by engineering some sort of greywater system for their makeshift kitchens. The sun is merciless, and wind gusts can exceed 50 mph, so you can’t just bring any old pop-up tent and call it a day. Shelter and shade structures must be built with creativity and ingenuity. Geodesic domes, yurts, and wigwams often dominate the architecture of Black Rock City—not just out of some countercultural fetishization of Buckminster Fuller or nomadic indigenous people, but because they are the most practical structures for that environment.
The Sign Shop spends much of July painstakingly creating over 1,000 signs. In August, they install them along the freshly-surveyed roads of Black Rock City. Via The Burning Blog. Courtesy John Curley.
So here I was, thinking that myself and the tens of thousands of other participants at Burning Man were building this whole thing from scratch year after year, without any help from The Man. Our own metropolis, culture, and living art museum all in the span of six days. And on the seventh day, we burned it. Leaving no trace. Whatsoever. End of story.
And for the first 10 years of Burning Man’s existence, that was the end of story. But while the pervasive Leave No Trace ethic of Burning Man stems mostly from an interest in preserving the exquisite public land of the Black Rock Desert, the whole shebang hinges on meeting strict permit stipulations imposed by the Bureau of Land Management. Incidentally, most proceeds from those high ticket prices go directly toward the cost of said land use permits.
The Arctica Crew works on one of the sites where participants can purchase ice--essentially the only vending allowed on the playa. Proceeds from ice sales benefit local schools. Via The Burning Blog. Courtesy John Curley.
As Black Rock City’s population grew each year, it became increasingly difficult to meet the permit stipulations. So in 1997, the Department of Public Works was formed to plan the city, help implement those plans, and make sure that, while most participants pack everything out, no trace whatsoever is left – no tiny feathers, no big dunes, no soot. The original DPW was founded by four individuals: Will Roger Peterson aka Mr. Klean, Flynn Mauthe aka Bobby Wayne, Rod Garrett aka Ramrod, and Tony Perez aka Coyote. (Many Burners have “playa names” for the event, and DPW all but requires it. My alias is Struggles.)
"Rethink/LA," installation view, opening reception, Architecture + Design Museum Los Angeles, 2011. Courtesy Wild Don Lewis.
Los Angeles has a reputation for not only its excess, sprawl, and exploding population, but also for its unruly, anarchic and highly changeable landscape. Rethink/LA: Perspectives on a Future City, an interactive exhibition currently on view at the Architecture + Design Museum, explores that overwhelming potential for metamorphosis. Kellie Konapelsky and Jonathan Louie, co-directors of the eponymous organization, believe that change will be generated by individuals. They invited architects, designers, artists, writers, and policymakers to imagine Los Angeles 50 years from now through photographs, collages, text, video, and interactive installations. Konapelsky spoke with me about the vision of Rethink/LA and the future of Los Angeles.
Lily Simonson: What was the initial inspiration for the exhibition?
Kellie Konapelsky: We wanted to see what the citizens of Los Angeles had to say about the city they live and breathe in every day. We started the conversation by breaking the concepts down in a way that everyone could understand—by representing these ideas visually through collage. Photographs of recognizable locations throughout the city were interpreted through a collage of how that specific location would look in the next 50 years.
"Chain Letter" installation view at Shoshana Wayne Gallery, July 2011. Courtesy Shoshana Wayne Gallery.
Did you receive any unusual email forwards this month? Unrelated to funny cats? Initially sent out by Christian Cummings and Doug Harvey, a chain letter has been circulating among artists and art enthusiasts, inviting recipients to participate in an exhibition. In addition, each recipient was to invite 10 artists who they admired, to participate in the same exhibition. The resulting shows are popping up all over the world this month—in Zürich, Berlin, Boston, London, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Johannesburg, Seoul, Paris, and last but not least, here in Los Angeles. The latter Chain Letter manifestation was the largest of them all, which just opened at Shoshana Wayne Gallery at Bergamot Station, and features close to 1,600 artists.
Harvey and Cummings facilitated a Chain Letter show four summers ago at a smaller gallery, High Energy Constructs in Chinatown, with a similar curatorial principle. That chain letter invite circulated for only 10 days, and resulted in an exhibition of 300 art works. This time, Cummings and Harvey sent the letter more than one month in advance, allowing the tree of curators to fork ever more broadly. Having thoroughly enjoyed participating in the 2006 version, I was eager to fuel the wildfire of this year’s incarnation. But for reasons too boring to blog, I ended up missing the drop-off day—and apparently also missing a raucous block party. The line of artists delivering work snaked around multiple buildings at bergamot, through the parking lot, and out the gate with some artists waiting up to three hours to install their pieces. But by all accounts the mood was jovial and cooperative—how could it be otherwise? Each artist in line knew that he or she bore some responsibility for the chaos–tenfold. By midday, Shoshana Wayne’s vast rooms were already chock full, and the organizers opened two vacant gallery spaces to accommodate the extensive overflow.
Looking at Los Angeles | Revealing “Unfinished Paintings”
Lisa Adams, "Stump Without a Pot," unfinished painting, 2011. Oil on panel, 30" x 36." Courtesy CB1 Gallery Blog.
The nature of painting – its objecthood, its permanence — demands a level of resolution and wholeness to which other more ephemeral art practices need not always answer. Hence the exciting and complex impact of Unfinished Paintings, an exhibition that opened last week at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) featuring paintings by 38 different artists at various stages of completion. I asked curators Kristin Calabrese and Joshua Aster a few questions about the exhibition, which Calabrese fielded via email with input from Aster.
Lily Simonson: What was the inspiration for an exhibition of unfinished paintings? How was curating this exhibition different from your previous projects?
Kristin Calabrese: This project is more focused and specific than the other projects we’ve curated. We’ve been narrowing down each show, and I think it’s starting to get to the place where the criteria for the show really reflect our favorite — or most native — ideas as they pertain to art. Josh and I curated 3 projects together — Lovable like Orphan Kitties and Bastard Children — which was a show of 90 paintings under 11 x 11 inches, as you know and were a part of… We also did the [2010] LACE auction, where our curatorial premise was to find raw, unruly paintings, where someone might say when confronted with them, “What the fuck is that?”
Looking at Los Angeles | Nicole Eisenman and Wynne Greenwood
Nicole Eisenman, "Guy Artist," 2011. Oil and collage on canvas, 76x60 inches. Courtesy Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects.
Digging through Nicole Eisenman’s current show at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, one begins to understand why it’s so perfect that the artist presents us with 77 different titles for the show. And by the way, if you need to liven up your day, I strongly encourage you to read the entire list, found at the bottom of the press release, as they bounce from goofy (I Love K-Fed) to satirical and heavy (For My Dead Father). Likewise, the show bubbles with humor and satire, while consistently driving at big questions. Facing the entryway are three tall portraits, titled Guy Racer, Guy Artist, and Guy Capitalist. Breathing fluidly in Vielmetter’s large gallery, the portraits are comical but at the same time impossibly lonely. The mammoth scale of the faces and viscerally gloppy swaths of paint easily envelope each viewer, and the bulging cartoon eyes on each face feel at once attentive and detached. Guy Artist squints one eye and holds up his thumb, in the classic figure drawing maneuver of sighting, while the capitalist’s assemblaged coin-eyes remain vacant. Collaged photos of African masks float sideways across the series, dwarfed by the pale Guy faces; embedded allusions to Primitivism, Cubism, and perhaps beyond art history.
Indeed Eisenman’s masterful paint handling channels an incredible range of artists, from Goya to Picasso. Yet Eisenman’s voice is entirely distinctive, buoyed by her art historical influences, rather than tethered by them.
Looking at Los Angeles | Flat Affect
William Leavitt, "Spectral Analysis," 1977/2010, set for performance . Photo by Brian Forrest. Courtesy the artist and MOCA.
As I was walking through William Leavitt: Theater Objects, the LA-based artist’s first museum retrospective, a MOCA security guard stopped me.
“Are you a writer?”
It took me a moment to register the question. “I write about art sometimes.”
He looked pleased. “I noticed you writing a lot in that notebook, taking notes.”
“I think I’m going to write about this show.”
He appeared even more pleased. “You should write about the security guard. Say ‘the security guard was really nice.’” We both laughed, and I agreed to his request.
The security guard was really nice. He didn’t even tell me to stop using my pen, and force me to switch to a stubby MOCA pencil (I had that much more standard conversation with another museum guard in a different part of the exhibit a few minutes later).
I wanted to present our dialogue partially to keep my word. But the temporary breakdown in boundaries between us seemed like such an anomaly, that I was immediately inclined to believe the interaction was a response to Leavitt’s work. We were standing next to Cutaway View, which, like Leavitt’s other installations, is a decontextualized domestic interior–essentially a stage set–with walls that are actually theater flats, propped up by exposed lumber. A potted plant rests in the corner, and an unremarkable painting framed horse painting hangs on the gray wall.
Looking at Los Angeles | Vija Celmins’s Visions of Violence
Vija Celmins, "Time Magazine Cover," 1965. Oil on canvas, 22x16 in.. Private Collection c/o Ms. Laura Bechter. Courtesy LACMA.
Last Saturday, March 19—the day that the US began air strikes in Libya—I passed an anti-war demonstration while driving to LACMA to see Vija Celmins: Television and Disaster, 1964-1966. It was a few minutes before I realized that it was also the anniversary of the war in Iraq and these protests had been organized across the country on March 19 for the past eight years. I almost considered canceling my obligations for the day to indulge my political leanings and join the throngs of protestors.
Protestors in Los Angeles on March 19, 2011. Photo by Travis Wilkerson, image courtesy answercoalition.org.
I rationalized my decision to continue with my day as planned, telling myself that I would be showing solidarity by visiting Celmins’s show. Each of the 20-odd pieces in the exhibition capture moments of either horrific destruction or potential destruction—frozen first by photography, and then re-captured by Celmins’ careful hand. The intersection of art and politics is rarely successful, and often artists who attempt it fall into the realm of didacticism and propaganda, or worse, aestheticizing violence. But Celmins’s images of conflict and destruction, painted during the Vietnam War, avoid these pitfalls while retaining their own kind of force and power.
