Los Angeles Weekend Planner 9-19-19

 Los Angeles Events, Los Angeles Music, Los Angeles Weekend Planner, Music
Sep 192019
 

Jess Cornelius- No Difference

Things to do in Los Angeles this weekend (9/19-9/22/19)-

Thursday

Kilo Kish will be performing free (with registration) at Dr. Martens Studio City Store in Studio City

LACMA CEO Michael Govan will be in conversation with artist Thomas Joshua Cooper at LACMA about the exhibition he co-curated-Thomas Joshua Cooper: The World’s Edge (free but ticket required)

CAAM and Art + Practice are hosting a program on contemporary art writing with panelists- author Lynell George; Carolina Miranda, Staff Writer at the Los Angeles Times; and Lindsay Preston Zappas, founder, publisher, and Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (Carla); moderated by Harry Gamboa Jr., artist, author, and educator. (free)

Ex Hex are playing at Zebulon with Seth Bogart (of Hunx and his Punx) and Rose Dorn

Celebrate the work of musician Daniel Johnston (who sadly passed away on 9/11/19) at The Hi Hat with Haunted Summer, Mirrorball, Nick Thorburn, Daniel Brummel, and more, performing covers of his songs with proceeds going to The SIMS Foundation which helps musicians and their families cope with mental illness.

Sita Bhaumik, artist, writer, curator, and co-founder of the People’s Kitchen Collective; Dani Burrows, curator of the Politics of Food series at the Delfina Foundation; John Echevestes, CEO, La Plaza de Cultural y Artes and La Plaza Cocina; and Laura Fried, founding executive director and curator of Active Cultures will be discussing the intersection of art and food at ICA LA before the opening of CURRENT:LA FOOD, their public art triennial in October (free). The panel discussion will be moderated by Asuka Hisa, director of learning and engagement and co-curator, CURRENT: LA FOOD and Danielle Brazell, general manager, Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles.

Daniel Lanois will be performing a free live show with his band Heavy Sun at Amoeba Hollywood to celebrate his work on The Music of Red Dead Redemption 2: Original Soundtrack

 

Friday

UCLA Film & Television Archive is screening exploitation films all weekend at Hammer Museum’s Billy Wilder Theater- tonight they are focused on drugs- She Shoulda Said ‘No!'(1949),  Narcotic (1933), and Marihuana (1936) ($9)

Tijuana Panthers are playing at The Regent Theater with No Age, The Hurricanes and Mu$ty BoYz

Ty Segall & Freedom Band are continuing their residency at Teragram Ballroom– tonight playing his new album First Taste and his 2014 album Manipulator. DMBQ are opening.

Jazz quartet Broken Shadows will be performing the music of Ornette Coleman at Zebulon

Lower Dens is playing at the Lodge Room

Kamasi Washington is performing at The Theatre at Ace Hotel

There’s a free screening of Captain Marvel on the fantail of Battleship IOWA located on the LA Waterfront in San Pedro

Flying Lotus is playing at The Novo with Brandon Coleman Spacetalker and Salami Rose Joe Louis

Boogarins are playing at the Bootleg Theater with Winter opening

Odd Nights at The Autry continues with live music, drinks, food, art gallery access, a market and more ($5)

 

Saturday

Jess Cornelius is opening for Cones at the Bootleg Theater

dublab is joining Bedrock LA in Silverlake to celebrated their respective 20th and 10th anniversaries. The fundraising event will include live performances, DJ sets, sound installations, activations, food trucks, drinks, and more. Performers include Shlohmo, Los Retros, Baths, DJ Koala, Peanut Butter Wolf, and many more

The Los Angeles LGBT Center is celebrating its 50th anniversary at The Greek Theatre with entertainment by Sia, Rufus Wainwright, Jennifer Lewis, Lily Tomlin, Tig Notaro and more

The Black Madonna is headlining a night of DJs at 451 Gin Ling Way in Chinatown

Orchin and Storefront Church are opening for Hatchie at the Echoplex

 

Sunday

Barnsdall Art Center is hosting an Art and Craft Fair, a nice way to support local artists and check out some art  (free)

dublab continues its anniversary celebration at Grand Park’s Sunday Sessions, a free afternoon DJ dance party

Stone Irr is performing at The Love Song with Daniel Talton

Tweens and Total Heat are opening for Sheer Mag at Teragram Ballroom

Blackalicious is performing at The Roxy Theatre with Roots & Tings, and Bukue One

The Intelligence are playing at The Satellite with Earth Girl Helen Brown and VNLVX

David Hammons at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles

 Art, Artists, Conceptual Art, Drawing, Los Angeles Art Shows, Los Angeles Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Performance Art, Photographers / Photography, Sculptors / Sculpture, Video and Film
Aug 092019
 

 

When trying to talk about the David Hammon’s exhibition at Hauser and Wirth Los Angeles, his first in Los Angeles in 45 years, it’s hard to know where to start. There are no titles or descriptions of any of the works in the show, although there is writing on the walls in certain places. The press release, shown below, is a mass of lines and a dedication to jazz musician Ornette Coleman.

Before you enter either of the two massive galleries housing the exhibition you encounter a courtyard filled with tents, some with “this could be u and u” stenciled on them. Tents also line the corridor under Martin Creed’s neon piece, EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT, with a rack of fancy vintage coats nearby. Once predominantly in Skid Row, Los Angeles’ tent cities have been growing rapidly on street corners and under bridges and highways all over the city, but they often just blend into the background for people walking and driving past. What does a fake tent city in the courtyard of a high end gallery in a newly gentrified neighborhood mean? Is its fake version more affecting than the real one to gallery and restaurant patrons wandering by?

The work in the show feels at times random, clever, humorous, and confounding, but also impressive, thought provoking, and most importantly never dull. There are stacks of art history books sitting on scales. A water filled bowl that contains what once was a snowball Hammons had sold on the street at one point in his career, sits on a wooden shelf. A room with empty glass cubes on wood columns requires you to bend down to see the feet underneath. A book titled A History of Harlem is filled with empty black pages.

In the room pictured below is a three legged chair next to a wall of photos of women sitting in it. Nearby, one of Ornette Coleman’s suits is surrounded by glass.

Another room is filled with paint splattered and damaged fur coats, one facing an antique mirror that is covered. The symbolism feels a bit heavy handed, like the tents, but it works in that there are still several ways to interpret what Hammons might be saying.

Throughout the exhibition paintings are covered in various ways. One in paper, ripped with a bit of the painting visible. Others are partially hidden with tarps, plastic, different fabrics, even an antique rug (shown below). Once again, you can interpret the meaning of this in several ways. With the rug, for example, it’s turned so that only a bit of its design is visible in front of a painting that is not completely visible. These rugs are often associated with old money and sometimes are hung on walls themselves as artwork. Or is it just another assemblage, a visual combination to be taken at face value.

Ultimately the interpretation of all of the work is up to the viewer. There is something freeing in that, not being given answers. Sure, it’s nice to have an explanation of an artist’s intentions sometimes, but you often add your own ideas anyway. Art should make you think, question things, look at the world from a new perspective- this exhibition does all of that and more.

David Hammons at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles closed 8/11/19.