Fernando Llanos and Felipe Ehrenberg: MANCHURIA

MANCHURIA, MANCHURIAR, MANCHURIANDO,

TU MANCHURIAS ?

Felipe Ehrenberg and Fernando Llanos Manchurian. Do you?!


I will never forget the pleasant opportunity I had to tag along with Cal State LA students who "jammed" out with Felipe Ehrenberg, in a recent mural for The Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. A jammed out session mural that now belongs in MoLAA's permanent collection.


A long time had passed since I had been excited for an exhibition at a local art museum. Most of the exhibitions I'm dying to see are always out of state, and I only get the chance to endlessly read reviews.


I'm still working on my MANCHURIA review. Treat this as an outburst of uncontrollable excitement.

NEXT: MANCHURIA: PERIPHERAL VISION: A FELIPE EHRENBERG RETROSPECTIVE




Now, crack open your Geography textbook and find Manchuria!!

Leandro Erlich: The Lost Garden

Long Beach has more than the old Queen Mary. Yes, it’s true. It’s my lack of non accessible transportation, but soon I’ll venture to further places. After all, I’ am known for my curiosity. I’m just a curious, curious girl. However, it was not my first time at MOLAA. I had visited the museum before in numerous occasions.

Argentinean artist Leandro Erlich is the first to celebrate The Projects series at The Museum of Latin American Art. La Sala de Proyectos thrives to introduce the most contemporary and inventive artists of Latin America. It’s quite hard to believe that it’s Erlich first west coast appearance. If I’m wrong, please correct me.

Some folk are either born ahead of their time or in the wrong decade. That is the case with Erlich.

Architecture is necessary when speaking of Erlich work,but illusion is the artists main goal. The arrangement of mirrors give the viewer the chance of some sort of self evaluation-- a psychoanalysis. In other works such as Le Cabinet Du Psy where Erlich explores just that, by optical illusions that seat the viewer in a quotidian space. The viewer soon becomes one with the artwork . Whether it reaches self evaluation or not , one sure leaves with that illusion.


Jardin Perdido(The Lost Garden): El Infinito a la Jorge Luis Borges

Jardin Perdido ( The Lost Garden) is Erlich latest known work, completed in 2009. The Lost Garden seems infinite in space, and invites the viewer for that same experience. Don’t believe everything you're told, but who forgot: don’t believe all of which you see?! The human vision is merely meek next to Erlich The Lost Garden. Synthetic foliage takes the inside space hostage while the viewer figures out the algorithm.

FEBRUARY 14 - JUNE 6 2010
MUSEUM OF LATIN AMERICAN ART
628 ALAMITOS AVE, LONG BEACH,
CA, 90802

Wed, Fri, Sat, Sun : 11 am - 5 pm
Thu: 11 am - 9 pm
Sunday: FREE

AT1 Projects: VOLUME

Sometimes enjoying art shows without any source of photographic documentation serves the body good. That was the case this past Friday night, I was not in the mood of documenting my surroundings, but rather for the sole enjoyment of my own pleasure. Not to mention that my health was not one hundred percent that night, but loyalty prevailed. Expectations are always vague, but I was in for a treat this Friday night without being aware-- just my kind of surprise.

After long traveling around the Atwater Village neighborhood we finally came across Casitas Avenue. Be warned that it’s a labyrinth of direction, but you might already know the area, if not be prepared for play. Play that will only bring more play once you arrive at AT1 Projects.

The space is truly grandiose in scale and VOLUME surely takes hostage of the vast space. In collaboration with the project New York’s very own Super/Prime Collective curates a show in the name of pop up spaces- now that’s not to be missed. If you’re in Los Angeles I urge you not to miss this show, given that like many pop up spaces it’s short time span will come to an end, in this case only two weeks ( May 21- June 2).



VOLUME is an experimental and expansive exhibition featuring a wide spectrum of LA and NY-based contemporary artists of diverse media — painting, sculpture, site-specific and multi-media installation, performance, sound art, and video — whose collective bios boast prestigious bi-coastal, national and international exhibitions, including at the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the New Museum New York, Performa, Deitch Projects, and documenta.

The picture below is the only piece of documentation I worried to document that night. Visit AT1 Projects this Saturday evening to find out why. A sort of scavenger hunt, I suppose. I prefer play!!


Performance Residue: Play!


This Weekend:
Saturday, May 29, 9 — 11 PM: Music and performance by Party People (w Keith Rocka Knittel) and Carl Pomposelli



AT1 PROJECTS: VOLUME
Wednesday — Friday, 2 — 8 PM
Saturday — Sunday, 12 — 6 PM, and by appointment
3229 Casitas Avenue
Los Angeles CA 90039

In Conversation w/ Dan Graham, A Survey of Pavilions Documented

Lately there's been a buzz surrounding Dan Graham-- anything to do with the artist. A buzz that's perhaps only apparent with myself and my dear friend Mooky, then again it's an art nerd inclination. What I'm trying to say, is that lately my tired discussions have led Graham's artist persona to strangely appear constantly in my life-- in a cosmical level. Or I'm just deeply infatuated with Graham that I have led to believe just that. You know when you have a huge crush, and this person's name appears everywhere, but it has always been there, you just haven't noticed? ... Well, I stand to differ in this case, solely because my art world news is always kept up to date--I'm a genuine art nerd.


At the beginning of a new decade, guess who performs one of his most famous performances? Dan Graham, of course... In part of a one night performance set Graham performed his infamous Relax- Lax (1969), for an audience that appreciated his presence and participation. Not to mention his influence in about every artist after the most romanticized period in the history of art, in the United States -- The Sixties.



Overduin and Kite: Joint Dialogue Opening.. Oh man that toddler is playing it cool next to Dan Graham!!!

Towards the end of January, Graham was apart of an exhibition show over at Overduin and Kite, just off Sunset. In the heart of Hollywood, who would have thought that Dan Graham would be mixed with such a crowd. Then again, it's Los Angeles, anything goes. Never loosing it's raw ingredient, just that ingredient that allows anything to go, every scene to flourish in our city.


Instantly when I found out about the opening of the DAN GRAHAM Gallery in Chinatown, I couldn't miss it.

Dan Graham Gallery

These events are always a love/ hate situation for many, but not myself. Sometimes, I wonder if I would ever get tired, If I will ever grow bored?

Nonetheless, I was here.. Wish you would have been there too.

At some point I came to believe that Graham had opened his own gallery. Oh how pretentious of him to go ahead and name it after himself-- It's a brand after all?

I did my research, and contacted Aaron Wrinkle. It turns out that it's not owned by Graham, but Graham himself contributed to the gallery's current exhibition. So get a hold of them and go see for yourself.



hi arely,

dan graham is an artwork presented as a gallery. it specifically functions as a research site framed within the context of dan graham and with artists who show work in the space. so... shows do surround dan graham or vise versa. the artist is aware of the project as we collaborated on the current show of research and documentation on his pavilions. he doesn't own the space and or contribute financially.
thanks you for your interest,
aaron wrinkle



In the eighties Graham made a name for himself through architecture, or his best known works-- his pavilions.

Dan Graham Gallery has surveyed the artists work, serving as a type of documentation for it's current show: In Conversation w/ Dan Graham, A Survey of Pavilions Documented

I don't know if I would ever grow tire of art shows, or the history of theory as a whole, but I will remain in the boat until it sinks.








May 1 – May 25th, 2010

DAN GRAHAM
506 Bernard St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
DanGraham1842@gmail.com
(323)-600-5731
By Appointment Only

You Tube Selections: Marcel Duchamp

There has been several moments where friends, or even strangers for that matter, call me out on how odd I' am due to my liking for art/history. Many can understand and work with the idea of visiting a museum, looking at art, but only a swell event that occurs once in a while. I mean what kind of folk will you be if you deny art? It's the equivalent of not liking music. Art, as music is inevitable and a liking is always grown. It gets out of hand sometimes, friends take fancy on my odd personality. Playful a la jeopardy games are always common. There's the shouting of artists names, and I do it best.

"Arely, you're like a volcano" - Miguel Olivares

I'm shy, quiet, private, but when there's a subject I incline to the most I explode, and there's no one to stop me. Vocals are no longer monotone, but they have paired to the sounds of loud music. Perhaps, an alarming trumpet... You decide.

The same events took place in the privacy of my own four walls this Saturday afternoon. However, this time in the company of my sister. She calls me out, "you're so strange, and BORING!" she yells. It's not enough to make me stop watching a youtube upload of Marcel Duchamp.


Yes, You'll find me with the older crowd


At the peak of the January art fair agenda in Los Angeles, I was lucky enough to be able to attend Art Los Angeles Contemporary not to be confused with Stephen Cohen's Art LA. ACLA in it's first year did great for visitors embracing the contemporary art scene in Los Angeles. Out of it's tiny in scale art fair, there was huge panels presented. One of those panels consisted of FERUS Gallery speakers, either through the academia, the actual gallery itself, or friends.. People that helped the L.A art scene flourish.

With a mindset of a young city, constructing what was to map Los Angeles as a major art world destination. The Pasadena Museum of Art, now The Norton Simon was the first art museum to have the first Marcel Duchamp retrospective. The museum was run by young people, the same young people that were running Ferus Gallery. It was not all fun and games after all. FERUS was also the first Los Angeles based Gallery to bring Andy Warhol to the west coast. Many FERUS artists are now in collections at LACMA, MOCA, and others. It's art history that which keeps me going.

And today, while browsing youtube I came upon Marcel Duchamp's "A Game of Chess" documentary; Rare, raw goodness!!

Yes, call me a weirdo, but this made my day.

What Not To Miss This Weekend!

SUSAN VIELMETTER

Susan Vielmetter Projects organized a panel this past Thursday at Royal T Cafe in Culver City. It was my first visit to Royal T hence I'm not familiar with the location. I’m skeptical of places like Royal T. Not that I have anything against breaking the barriers of the gallery, or the museum space, but clouds of KITSCH invade the location… The owner has an eye for the arts, as I sat in back of her during the panel I understood that Yes, she loves art,this is my viewpoint: the owner enjoys art then good for all, but it seems like she enjoys anything, that's still good - no ?!

I was there for the panel after all…


Panel at Royal T


Yale's Sarah Lewis served as host to both Yale graduated artists, Mary Reid Kelly and Mickalene Thomas.

Mary Reid Kelly "a triple threat" as stated by Lewis. Kelly serves the areas of poetry, performance, drawing. Clearly Lewis statement is dualistic. Alike other artists Kelly swims in past history and re invents historical documentation, always served with humor. Rhyming lyricism, recreating puns. Using herself as the characters.

Mickalene Thomas who's paintings transpire the role of woman, through the depictions of old masters such as, Manet. Thomas is somewhat the Cindy Sherman of painting, with an approach to pop art. She first photographs her models, ending the creative process onto the canvas. Exploring the borders of photography and the actual appearance of the surrounding environment she places her models in.

DON'T MISS !!!
Opening reception for both Thomas and Kelly's new work will take place this Saturday May 8 at Susan Vielmetter, from 6- 8 !



FIVE THIRTY THREE


From My Inbox




IN THE EYES OF LIONS

PRESS RELEASE:
Skin houses the body and it is figured as the ultimate boundary, the material that divides and defines the inside from the outside. Visibility is the index of skin; it is a physical border but a symbolic membrane where the interior and exterior flow between present and submerged, objective and subjective. The skin of a person, the hide, forms the surface through which the interior is housed; identities emerge, desires and drives become evident, sickness and decay rise to the surface. Its legibility allows us a peek at the construction of otherness out of raw materials of desire, fear, resistance, fragility, aging, and so on while its construction of bone, muscle, blood and hair/fur reinforces our own completeness; skin makes us aware and connects us with the idea of others while alienating us in our own bodies. The artists chosen for this exhibition create works that deal with surface and have a relationship to skin. Thematic concepts range from skin as a disguise, as gender, as transformative, as a metaphor for transformed subject positions, to the appropriation of surface to create new identities, to camouflage and the individual’s relationship to environment, to death, decay, violence, and so on.

SATURDAY NIGHT, MAY 8TH, 7PM - 11PM

CURATED BY:
ADAM MILLER

ARTISTS:
BRIAN BRESS
SARAH CONAWAY
ERIK FRYDENBORG
BRETT LUND
SAMANTHA MAGOWAN
ADAM MILLER
BOBBI WOODS

A FREE CATALOG WITH WRITINGS FROM:
SARAH CONAWAY
SPENCER DOUGLASS
ADAM MILLER



MOCA: THE COOL SCHOOL


05.09.10 3:00 PM
MOCA Grand Avenue, Ahmanson Auditorium

Through vintage footage, photographs, and interviews with artists John Baldessari, Frank Gehry, Dennis Hopper, Edward Ruscha, and others, The Cool School tells the story of L.A.’s Ferus Gallery, which launched the careers of several artists featured in Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years, including Ed Moses, Billy Al Bengston, John Altoon, and Wallace Berman.

FREE: With Museum Admission
General Admission: $10
Students with I.D.: $5
Seniors (65+): $5
Children under 12: Free

Hang around after the screening. End your lazy Sunday museum visit by walking through MOCA's gallery rooms. In less than a month Arshile Gorky will call MOCA home. We have complained about MOCA's last curatorial moves.... but I'm already missing Rothko.





Turn A Lazy Sunday Into A Museum Day!!

Kathryn Brennan: The LAst Show

I have decided to make this post strictly pictures for two reasons.

1. The LAst show is more of a documentation of all it’s artists rather than a “survey” on a particular topic. Yes, a group show, but more with a flair of documentation, from the artists that served the gallery during it’s Los Angeles chapter. Hence, it’s title: The LAst Show.

2. My above comment should not incline you to miss this show. It’s a discourse of history, this being Kathryn Brennan’s history in the city of angels.

Many of you may be familiar with the previous name SISTER, but after some partners decided to move on Kathryn renamed the space. It’s a shame to see Kathryn Brennan go. Just last summer I remember reading two articles on The Los Angeles Times, one article which celebrated Jeni Spota’s genius and early success. The other particular article discussed the newly Malibu Annual Contemporary Art Fair which played in the boundaries of the gallery space. Long story short, my fascination with SISTER brought me to become an intern, not that it matters.

On a last note, through the course of the exhibition different performances including screenings will take place. Be on the lookout for my updates…




























COTTAGE HOME
410 Cottage Home Road
Los Angeles, CA 90012
www.cottagehomela.com

Los Angeles Art Association GEM Fundraiser

“ Tomorrow’s going to be a good day, I can feel it” .. Written via Twitter. To my surprise the next day, I won “VIP” entrance to an art event the upcoming weekend. Thanks to ForYourArt for the free entrance, that was advertised through Twitter… All week I had been looking forward to Saturday, the day of the event. Not knowing what to expect. I had no idea if it was going to be posh, posh, or a community based event. To my surprise it was a mix of the two.

The Los Angeles Art Association opened it’s doors in 1925. Building a broad art community for Los Angeles, embracing modernism in a world where the institution was still the nucleus of what fell into the category of art. Institutions are now taking new roles. Collectives are the new trend, diminishing the institution. Oh, yeah the GEM party/fundraiser!!

The Los Angeles Art Association honored it's 85th year anniversary with a fundraiser at Gallery 825, LAAA's main working grounds. The Los Angeles Art Association annual GEM social marks the beginning of 825's Spring art cycle in Los Angeles. And no other April Los Angeles afternoon was more ideal than on April 24th.




Gallery 825: Los Angeles Art Association's main grounds



85th Birthday: No other way to celebrate, but with delightful red velvet cupcakes

Mediums ranged from photography to sculpture. Sadly, no video nor film. The fundraiser promotes affordable prices for a good cause, only on this night. However, prices ranged from $100 prints to $10, 000 which in the art world market, they are considered affordable priced works. The city of West Hollywood was fully embracing it’s art community and it’s social status. I met a charming man who introduced me to Louis Stern from Louis Stern Fine Arts. Stern and I shook hands and exchanged friendly smiles.



The Herd: Let's Talk Art?

Many came and went, others chatted. While outside the rest were photographed for the fancy of the press, documentation. Art was actually sold, a hot topic in Los Angeles indeed. Interestingly, many bought small scaled works, I’m guessing prints, but some were brave or had the cash to spend on ideal eye candy.I was not able to buy any works, but the future seems promising. I mean, if a librarian and post office worker did it back in the sixties so can I. Art is for everyone, and anyone interested.




Art World Market: A Happy buyer, with an adorable smile


GEM was the perfect way to start my Saturday night...