One room from Pet Shapes at China Art Objects Galleries
If you are in Culver City, tomorrow (12/14) is the last day for this group show. All the works are pet related, and there is even a purring chair (not shown). It’s worth checking out if you are in the area.
One of the paintings from the series The Women by Sarah Awad
Currently at Diane Rosenstein Fine Art, this show closes Saturday (11/30).
Images from Lari Pittman’s From A Late Western Impaerium
From the Regen Projects press release:
Pittman’s From A Late Western Impaerium constructs a loose narrative of nationhood that travels between our present time and the distant past. The compositionally dense works play with the social and current realities of today, with an interest in ornamentation and surface, and draw on the legacy of history as told through the Western canon of painting and the applied arts. Pittman poses the question of what a contemporary “history painting” might be today.
For more information about Lari Pittman, check out this article in Artillery Magazine
The show is up until December 21, 2013.
Today (11/23) at Regen Projects there is also a Raymond Pettibon book signing from 4-6pm.
This is the last weekend for Arts ReSTORE LA: Westwood. There are several events planned for the weekend including Popup Arcade Extravaganza– a free event on Saturday with games designed by former and current UCLA students.
Images from the film L’Enfer by Henri-Georges Clouzot
From the press release for The End of the Night:
LACE is proud to continue the collaboration with Ceci N’est Pas… in presenting The End of the Night, organized by curator Martha Kirszenbaum and designed by Exhibition Designer Marianne Zamecznik, is a bold group exhibition exploring the impact of French filmmaker, Henri-Georges Clouzot and his unfinished 1963-1964 film, L’Enfer, on notions of abstraction, the kinetic, and optical illusions in contemporary French art. For this exhibition, Kirszenbaum has invited five artists whose works reflect on Clouzot’s pictorial and sound experimentation and respond to his visual and sensorial imagination: a historical figure, Julio Le Parc, and four emerging artists, Florian & Michael Quistrebert, Isabelle Cornaro and Pierre-Laurent Cassière. Kirszenbaum’s project is a double exhibition – the other half taking place at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, emphasizing a similarly themed exploration of the work of Los Angeles experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger.
When you see the clips from Clouzot’s film at this show, it is easy to see how it could inspire an exhibition. His use of spinning lights to create the illusion of changes in the actress’s face is one of the more mesmerizing aspects of the film.
One of the standouts from the show is the double channel projection video installation, The Eighth Sphere, by Florian & Michael Quistrebert. The two projections of geometrical shapes merge and separate creating interesting effects.
Also at LACE tonight (11/14) there is a town hall forum that is open to the public.
Image from the film- The Audition- by Candice Breitz
From the press release for her show, The Woods, at Perry Rubenstein Gallery –
The Woods encompasses installations filmed in three of the world’s leading centers of film production – Hollywood (Los Angeles, USA), Bollywood (Mumbai, India) and Nollywood (Lagos, Nigeria). Two of the three installations that make up the trilogy – The Audition (filmed in Los Angeles) and The Rehearsal (filmed in Mumbai) – present aspiring and working child actors, situating them in scenarios in which they ventriloquize voices and personae that would typically belong to adults. The third installation, The Interview (filmed in Lagos), features two adult actors who are best known on the African continent for their portrayal of child characters, and mimics the format of a conventional celebrity interview. As suggested by their titles, The Audition, The Rehearsal and The Interview zoom in on generally unseen show business rituals, which collectively become the loci of meaning through which Breitz reflects on and decodes the myth-making machinery of mainstream cinema.
The Audition, pictured above, has two video sets running at the same time- the child actor’s screen tests on one wall and on another wall, a set of screens with different child actors alternating between performing lines of advice from industry professionals, introducing themselves, and singing songs. The juxtaposition between their reading the words of adults and their free-form (no direction was given) screen tests, really accentuates this world where children grow up early for the sake of fame.
Each of these installations run close to or longer than an hour (the longest is 76 minutes). That said, they make an impression even without being seen in their entirety.
Triumphs Over Trauma: The Scar Prints of Ted Meyer
At the Brewery Art Walk, Ted Meyer’s series “Scarred for Life”, is one that always draws a crowd. His images of the scars, the people who have them, and their stories, are fascinating. The video above shows his process and his personal connection to the subject. It also focuses on one of his models, an Iraq war veteran, who shares his experience dealing with his own scars.
Fallen Fruit: Fruitique!
This art installation/ thrift store is part of Arts ReSTORE LA: Westwood. Everything is fruit themed within the space including the wallpaper, numerous thrift store finds and even the music playing (Cherry Bomb was on when I was there- although that may have been coincidence). They are also planning fruit related activities throughout the event.
Fallen Fruit is an art collaboration originally conceived by David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young.
They are also part of the Ojai Art Festival this weekend.
Clown by Marnie Weber
Mark Handforth
Halloween may be over but you can keep the spirit alive by checking out this terrifying (if you are scared of clowns) section of the show Room to Live currently at MOCA Grand Avenue. The show features works from MOCA’s permanent collection with an emphasis on recent acquisitions, including a room of photos by Nan Goldin and the second work pictured above- Desert Sun by Mark Handforth.
MOCA is free tonight (Thursday) and Marnie Weber is discussing her work. RSVP here.
Want to prepare yourself for the room of clowns- here’s a video of the installation.
Don’t forget to look behind the clown who has lost its dog.
