While we are living in a time where anxiety is prevalent, it’s nice to imagine being as calm as Superchill, the title character of Hannah Epstein’s comic strip, and star of her exhibition Do You Want A Free Trip To Outer Space?at Steve Turner gallery. The show combines hooked rugs, video animation, and a video game that you can play, all creating a fun little world to inhabit for awhile.
Over the years, Ligon has created neon sculptures that illuminate various phrases or words in charged and animated ways. Notes for a Poem on the Third World, Ligon’s first figurative sculpture, is comprised of a large neon based on a tracing of the artist’s hands that takes its inspiration from an unrealized film project by Pier Paolo Pasolini that was to be shot in India, Africa, the Arab countries, Latin America, and the “black ghettoes of the United States.” Pasolini claimed that it was the “discovery of the elsewhere” that drove his identification with the struggles of non-Western peoples and people on the margins of the West. Ligon’s neon, with its ambiguous gesture of greeting, protest, or surrender, is the first of a series of works inspired by Pasolini’s project.
Also featured in the exhibition is Untitled (America), 2018, a black-painted red neon in which the word “America” is displayed upside down, and Synecdoche (For Byron Kim), a neon showing the date of the next presidential election that will be lit on that day.
Jonathan Horowitz– Does she have a good body? No. Does she have a fat ass? Absolutely. 2016
For their current exhibition, Petzel Gallery decided to focus on the issues raised by the recent election by having a group show related to that theme. In addition they are encouraging visitors to “write down their reactions, thoughts, anxieties, hopes for the future.”
There is a lot of great work in the show by a long list of artists that includes Barbara Kruger, Robert Longo, Glenn Ligon, Jenny Holzer, Charles Gaines and Sam Durant. Although it can be exhausting these days to follow politics, it is encouraging to see creative expression thriving in the midst of the chaos.
Things to do in Los Angeles this weekend (11/5-11/8/15)-
Thursday
Artist Glenn Ligon is speaking for free at MOCA Grand Ave about work in their permanent collection, including his own recently acquired Untitled (America, America)
LACMA is screening the feature film Station to Station, about Doug Aitken’s 24 day project of the same name. For this project a train traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific making stops along the way where a “constantly changing group of artists, musicians, and performers took part in a series of unique happenings”. The screening is followed by a conversation between the film’s director, Doug Aitken, and Film Independent curator, Elvis Mitchell with an opening performance by Sun Araw. $25 general admission tickets available here
For CraftNight: Handmade & Foraged, L.A. Papermaking at the Craft & Folk Art Museum you can sample edible creations using foraged ingredients from “food revolutionaries” Josey Baker, Mia Wasilevich, and Pascal Baudar. Afterwards dye pulp with local plants and materials under the guidance of Hiromi Paper International to create handmade paper samples- $8 includes food, drink and supplies. RSVP here
Eleanor Friedberger (of The Fiery Furnaces) is playing El Cid with Fay
Reptar are playing Club Bahia with Holiday Mountain, Breathers and Green Gerry
Thursday-Sunday
Only in Hollywood Music + Arts Festival has a HUGE list of events going on throughout the weekend, most of them free. One of the opening night parties is at Festival Hub Space 15 Twenty and there are multiple art gallery pop-ups, live music and comedy as well. Also make sure to get a button for $1 that gets you great discounts including 2 for 1 drinks at Aventine, $3 off any purchase over $5 at Amoeba Records, free truffle fries with your burger at Umami, percentages off purchases at many local businesses, and more.
Friday
Sleepless: The Music Center After Hours has an impressive amount of late night activities (beginning at 11:30pm and running until 3am), including Daniel Lanois performing a “breakthrough ambient/electro visual experience” on the penthouse floor, DJ sets on the 2nd and 3rd floors, a dance party, a music and scent experience curated by The Institute of Art and Olfaction, on site screen printing and lots more- try your luck on standby line to get in for free or pay $20 to skip the regular lineand get a pillowcase to screenprint
Beach Party are playing a free show downtown at One Santa Fe
Friday and Saturday
The Hammer Museum is having ENGAGE MORE NOW!, a free international conference on the subject of public
engagement. “The symposium will convene a group of experts to consider ongoing practices initiated by artists and museum professionals—both within and outside of institutions—that are designed to engage the public in discursive projects that may take the form of social practice, performance, or artistic intervention.”
Saturday
Top Acid in Santa Ana is throwing the free Way Too Fun Fest with 4 music stages and bands including The Lovely Bad Things, So Many Wizards, Gap Dream and more
Saturday and Sunday
To start your Christmas shopping early there’s The Jackalope Art & Craft Fair, which returns to Old Pasadena with over 200 local artisans who were hand selected by jury members. Free with free art workshops as well.
Sunday
Kendrick Lamar is part of 92.3′s The Real Show at The Forum along with Future, Rae Sremmurd, Jeremih, Rich Homie Quan, Ty Dolla $ign and Jidenna. Tickets are only resale but there are plenty of those as of this writing ( $76+)
At LACMA author Nina Ansary and artist Shirin Neshat discuss women in Iran in general, as well as Neshat and her work followed by a booksigning for Ansary’s book Jewels of Allah (free)
