Photography

At LACMA on Saturday night, a girl in a white Victorian dress sat on a bench with her hands folded, looking pissed off. A photographer from the clothing company Clockwork Couture stood a few feet away.
“Want to sit in her lap?” the photographer asked me.
“I think I’m okay,” I said. The girl looked so familiar, I had to ask. “Have you ever watched True Blood?” I asked.
She stared at me. “I know what you’re going to say,” she snapped. “Lorena, right? I hear it all the time.” She looked coldly into the camera as it flashed.
I guess I don’t blame her for being pissed off. I would be too, if I had to pose with bystanders at the fourteenth annual LACMA Muse ‘Til Midnight event, where the clothing was Victorian, the food supplied was chips and salsa, and there was an open bar. The tickets were $40 for non-members, $25 for Muse members, and it was hard to see what all the fuss was about.
The event sounded great, in theory: a neo-Victorian dress-up night at the museum, coinciding with the Thomas Eakins and Catherine Opie show, Manly Pursuits. Eakins painted wrestlers and rowers in intimate situations in the late 1800-early 1900’s, while Opie currently photographs teenage football players and surfers. Connecting the two artists requires a stretch of imagination, but the show is a valuable statement about the forced efforts and vulnerability of masculinity.
However, the Muse ‘Til Midnight event didn’t have much to do with the show, or with anything at the museum. The event was described by a Yelp user like this: “A full line-up of entertainment with open bar in an unique environment for $25-$40? On a Saturday night? In Los Angeles? Even including parking? Do I need to keep asking rhetorical questions?” Unfortunately, the event became a Los Angeles situation in which too many good ideas were not executed properly, with too many people in attendance to leave such margin for error.
After waiting in a long line, guests were ushered into the museum’s main plaza where Dusty and the River Band played and video projections flashed on the walls. Two performers on stilts made their way through the crowd, surrounded by a thick circle of photographers, documenting the “insanity” for various nightlife blogs. Two stilt-walkers, a couple of dancers and some people in costumes didn’t seem like enough to justify paying $40, but let’s not forget about that open bar, which included “100% Agave Tequila, Blackheart Spiced Rum, Hpnotiq Liqueur, Pernod Absinthe, and FIJI Water.” It seems that people will spend any amount of money to get sloshed while wearing a corset.
Maybe next time, LACMA should make dressing up for the event mandatory, as the people who were wearing full neo-Victorian garb looked to be having the best time. Many people wore costumes from Clockwork Couture, a “steampunk” line that mixes Victorian clothing with modern touches, while others had improvised their own costumes. A thin blonde woman and her chunkier date wore matching top hats and lace-up boots, trailing long feathers behind them. Another woman wore a corset and a matching flowered neck brace, and many men (and women) sported fantastic moustaches.
At ten o’clock, everyone was ushered into a much longer line leading to the roof of the Penthouse suite, only accessible by an elevator. (Too bad for the claustrophobes.) The roof offered a nice city view of the Variety building, along with some mysterious devices, including a giant telescope and various contraptions used to “measure electrical phenomena.” A stage was set up for a burlesque show, and a dancer in chalky makeup tiptoed around the crowd en pointe as flashbulbs popped all around her.
Nearby, a man wearing suspenders rested his foot on a stack of pillows. “I sprained my foot, but this is awesome,” he declared, looking at the dancer. “Look at this. Look at her. Can you believe it?” I could believe it, though next time I would prefer to look at photos of the event rather than attend. Despite the congestion, chips and salsa, long lines and limited number of performers, it seemed like many people had a wonderful time. Never underestimate the power of a little absinthe.

- By Cassandra McGrath

For mose information about LACMA, and any upcoming Muse events, please visit www.lacma.org/membership/Muse.aspx, or call 323-857-6000.

I met artist, curator, and all-around art enthusiast Esteban Schimpf when he came out to the FineArtsLA: Panel of the Muses event we hosted back in June. He was there to support his friend, panelist, and co-board member of the Chinatown gallery, Actual Size LA, Lee Rachel Foley. Schimpf made himself known as the first—and most voluable—volunteer of the after-panel Q&A session. His passion for supporting art and artists was intense, genuine, and immediately recognizable (he railed against the idea that the physical limitations of Los Angeles—traffic, isolation, etc.—should in any way prevent an artist from doing their job). Following the discussion, he was quick to introduce himself, revealing a chummier, more casual side of his personality, yet still brimming with that same passion.

On Thursday, August 19^th, at 7:00 PM, Esteban opens his (to my knowledge) first personal exhibition in Los Angeles at the Carmichael Gallery in Culver City, and not surprisingly, his own work is nowhere to be seen. Instead, Schimpf, with the help of Stefan Simchowitz, has chosen to spotlight the work of fifteen other young, up-and-coming artists in an ambitious group show he has titled “Instant LA Summer.” Upon names only, I was admittedly unfamiliar with the artists on view, but after some instant LA research, the show looks to be extremely diverse in mediums and theme, but cohesive in pure enthusiasm. Essentially, it’s Esteban without Esteban. Here’s a quick, flip-through preview of what’s in store, but don’t hold me to it:

Los Super Elegantes: this musical duo, one male and one female, present three of their own videos, which are as much a part of their overall presentation as are their costumes, their on-stage theatrics, their public demeanor, sexual chemistry, and of course, their music—a Latino-influenced type of pop that owes a lot to show-tunes. Their videos, too, remind me of low-rent movie musical numbers (in one, a romantic, garbage-man Romeo belts out his love to a passing, balcony-perched Juliet).

Eric Yhanker: his piece, “Bizarro Picasso,” is a charcoal and graphite depiction of an old, wide-eyed bald man who looks kind of like the titular painter, but, in its tactility, more like something Jan Svankmajer would mold from clay. Photographic in its Chuck Close detail and sense of perception, the close-up portrait briskly departs from realism with its over-sized, features, namely the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears—the portals to our senses.

Josh Mannis: works in a variety of mediums, but his series of HD videos are the most striking. Like Yhanker, they concentrate on the frozen exaggeration of facial features, but in the style of a Japanese advertisement. Bright pastel colors, fleshy and freaky masks, limited body movement, and intense repetition characterize such works as “If You Don’t Know Anything, You Don’t Know This.”

Charles Irvin: a multi-instrumentalist as they say in the music world. He draws, paints, performs, makes videos, and simply exists. His works tends to be cartoonish, extremely colorful, and detailed, but in a soft way. It’s dream-like, psychedelic, and in-your-face. No subtleties here, save the man behind the man.

Kenneth Tam: another video-maker, but of the Dadaist ilk. His mundane, often single shot slices of life tend to take place in one setting, have a documentary feel to them, and are so direct and normal that they border the line on the absurd.

Maya Lujan: to look at pictures of her large-form, graphic patterns—architectural in nature—one would be quite surprised to hear that her installation in a 2008 UCLA exhibition was taken down due to the fact it included a simplified mandala that bore striking similarity to a swastika. In actuality, the piece was more akin to a kind of apocalyptic spacecraft, and it’s this exact questioning of shapes and patterns that shows up in most of her work.

Sarah Sieradzki: speaking of the architectural, her work presents mashups of varying shapes, materials, and textures—wooden frames, cement blocks, photographs—that look like models for massive monuments of future post-modernism (whatever that is). She seems to take joy in chaotic geometry, as well as the re-contextualizion of basic structures.

Pascual Sisto: also a multi-platform artist, he appears to specialize in playing with and subverting the viewer’s expectation. Much of his work starts off as a seemingly one-note image/idea—cursive neon lettering, a single-shot video of a motionless fruit tree—but will then either climax unexpectedly in a sudden spasm of movement (as with the fruit tree video) or double-back on its initial meaning (as with the phrase in neon: “Let us be Cruel”).

Daniel Desure: in his prints and photographs, there’s a cold, stillness that tends to break down time into single moments, whether its a car crash refracted into centrifugal prisms, or a can of paint in the midst of spilling. Desure seems to distill catastrophic moments into the way we often remember catastrophic moments: as single images.

Emily Mast: time is of the essence to this choreographic artist as well. She sets up complex, theatrical installations utilizing actors, props, lights, and costumes, which collide into a kind of Beckett-ian sense of nihilism. But within these dramatic interpretations is a clear sense of narrative, which is inherently married to time, and thereby, meaning.

Emily Steinfeld: a sort of found object artist who seems to enjoy the accidental/purposeful layering of solid things—how one thing can mold into another as if a chemical compound. Her series of structures entitled “Covert Cells” utilizes sheeting to cover objects like wine bottles and telephones so that they may be confused for a single entity.

Simon Haas: mainly primitive, muted browns and melancholy. As the title of his piece “A Brief Moment After a Bath” suggests, he finds subtle beauty in the skipped-over moments of life. The lead surface and the wide, gestural brush strokes of this oil painting have a wavy, watery feel to them. Like waking up from a dream and dealing with its immediate aftermath.

Mark Hagen: intricate, graphic designs made for specific technological uses. He designed a 360 wrap, for instance, to be hypothetically used on the antiquated bowling shoe so as to maximize arch support for the bowler. As a child, he helped his father part out and restore Post-War Studebakers, and he seems to have been elaborating on this work ever since.

Sean Kennedy: also works in design, but in a much more tactile sense. He builds layers of both abstract designs and found objects to create geometric patterns that are simple at first glance, yet wildly complex upon inspection.

Orlando Tirado: exotic, striking photographs and/or collages of imagery. The title of his piece, “ShamanColash or Land, Sea, and Air (Self Portrait)” speaks to the bizarre juxtapositions framed in the would-be tired genre of self-portraitry. To borrow a reaction once used to describe the first artist on this list (Los Super Elegantes), Tirado “[makes] the audience nervous. Nobody does that anymore.”

-By Joshua Morrison

Stefan Simchowitz presents “Instant LA Summer,” an exhibition by Esteban Schimpf, runs until September 10, 2010 at the Carmichael Gallery. The opening is  on Thursday, August 19^th, at 7:00 PM. For more information, please visit www.carmichaelgallery.com, or call 323.939.0600.

In the underrated classic Los Angeles film L.A. Story, Steve Martin fails to get a reservation at L’Idiot, a fictional hot L.A. restaurant with a line out the door, ticker tape reading the income level and importance of each dinner guest, and paparazzi at entry and exit. As Martin and his dinner guest leave, paparazzi back away, screaming, “Never mind! They’re nobodies!”

At the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, the opening of “Dennis Hopper: Double Standard” felt more like a cinematic tribute to Los Angeles stereotypes than a serious exhibition. Before passing away at the age of 74 due to complications from prostate cancer, Dennis Hopper had an uneven career in art, mostly dedicated to imitating his slightly older artist friends. But at the opening, it didn’t seem to matter.

The opening was much more exciting than the show itself. Curated by Julian Schnabel, the exhibition drew an eclectic crowd from all corners of the city, everyone obsessed with the scene moreso than with Hopper’s art. Wearing gowns of peacock feathers and skintight high-waisted bandage shorts, guests took pictures of people outside, pictures of themselves, and pictures inside the gallery. Waiting by the bar, a woman wearing six-inch red high heels whispered to me, “Just to let you know, Diane Keaton and Liv Tyler and the lady who used to be married to Charlie Sheen are inside. Diane Keaton! I almost peed my pants!”

Inside, Diane Keaton was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she was obscured by the giant fiberglass sculpture of a Mexican waiter looming in the entrance, which might have been a cultural symbol of fear, or stereotypes, or something. Either way, it rang hollow. Hopper began his artistic career with painting in the 1950’s. Some early abstract pieces on small canvases show promise, or at least, the promise of promise, which fades later on. Equally unsuccessful works use found objects and graffiti, including an early drawing of a woman with a mustache scribbled above her upper lip. As commentary on femininity and pop culture, it falls flat and graceless.

Hopper was most renowned as a photographer though, and the black-and-white photographs from the 1960’s are the best part of the exhibition. In one of the loveliest pictures, a young, golden Jane Fonda wears a bikini and aims a bow and arrow into the distance, full of promise. Other subjects include Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ike and Tina Turner cheerfully posing with a giant inflatable Coke bottle.

After the year 2000, however, Hopper reproduced some of these earlier photographs to billboard size, with garish results. “I kind of hate this,” said one woman, standing next to a giant black and white reproduction of Andy Warhol, who is holding a droopy iris flower and oozing self-importance. The piece seems preoccupied with itself, more like a painting in a Hollywood comedy about the L.A. art scene rather than actual art.

And after looking at the umpteenth photo of Warhol, the title of the show begins to make sense. One wonders, did Hopper’s creativity lead to his fame, or was his fame a result of his access to renowned artists and celebrities? Are the two qualities really inseparable from one another? Was Dennis Hopper’s artistic fame a double standard? After all, Hopper starred in everything from Easy Rider and Blue Velvet to “classics” like Speed and Super Mario Bros., and dabbled in all types of art, equally embraced for his creative eccentricity as he was exiled for his drug use. But Hopper’s cinematic career was more interesting than his artistic one, and as a big survey exhibition, the show sells Los Angeles short. The art scene in the city is much more complicated and intriguing than this exhibition gives it credit for, and MOCA must have access to many more talented artists.

But as the night wore on, no one at the opening seemed to care. The guests stood at tables outside, drinking from clear plastic cups, and everyone watched one woman yelling and dancing to DJ tunes by herself. A plump MOCA photographer leaned against the wall, waiting to capture the L.A. moment.

- By Cassandra McGrath

“Dennis Hopper: Double Standard” is on view at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA until September 26. For more information, please visit www.moca.org, or call 213-626-6222.

After unknowingly attempting to attend a film during the release of the new Twilight Saga movie, Eclipse at the Arclight in Hollywood last night I was shocked to find the parking garage closed with a sign saying “full”. Aggravated in disbelief, I turned around to head home, and noticed a metered spot had just become available outside the theatre. I swerved into the space, scooped my sweater out the back seat and went to read the meter only to find that it is now $3.00 an hour to park in Hollywood (or 5 minutes a quarter). I took off to try to make the film only to discover the prices at the Arclight had gone up again.

In a town where change is omnipresent and the increase of day-to-day expenses make us feel we are in New York, there are less and less opportunities to experience the arts on a budget (did I mention the yellow plastic sunglasses in a 3-D film that will cost you your Popcorn and Diet Coke?) However, there is a beacon of hope nestled in the heart of Century City beneath the towering buildings that won’t cost you a penny and is sure to blow your socks off without wearing any yellow sunglasses.

The Annenberg Space for Photography, which has been open for a little over a year now, is as much an experience wandering through the curvy, camera-shaped building as it is seeing the photographs inside. Much more than just a traditional display area for prints, the digital projection gallery has two 7’x14’ seamless glass screens with real-projection imaging systems that exceed the level of image quality offered by Blu-Ray players. Watching photographs appear and fade with this caliber of stunning clarity and saturation paired with surround sound music will make your eyes and ears meld into one – taking the photographic image to the next level.

For the second year running the Annenberg Space for Photography is proud to host ‘Pictures of the Year’, a collection of the most outstanding documentary photography from 2009, recognized by Pictures of the Year International (POYi). With over 45,000 entries submitted from all over the world, the show is a pure visual story that explores humanity far beyond the greatest headline stories of 2009. Held for 65 years in Missouri, Los Angeles is fortunate to have the 67th annual exhibit return after it’s west coast debut last year.

With so many photographic stories being covered, the show is broken into four Categories: The United States War and Economy, The Human Experience, Ecologies and Economies, and The Globe. What makes the Annenberg Space for Photography unique is the digital features that play in the projection gallery. No longer is photography just a printed subject in a frame, but a visual story being told in a cinematic way, giving the viewer a greater insight to what is occurring inside the frame.

Be sure not to miss Stephanie Sinclair’s “Polygamy in America” about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) community in Eldorado, Texas. Also, Kitra Cahana’s portraits of teenage runaways who gather once a year in a different American national park are sure to drop your jaw.

Every now and then we come across photographs online or in magazines and newspapers that we cannot escape – they stick with us and often become permanent representations of a time or place. The images from ‘Pictures of the Year” may only exist for one moment but can last a lifetime. And that’s totally worth a free admission.

- By Gray Malin

The exhibit runs through October 10th and more information can be found on the Annenberg website, http://www.annenbergspaceforphotography.org/. Hours are Wednesday – Sunday 11:00-6:00pm.

In the early 1960’s, special operatives from the CIA secretly recruited and trained over a quarter of the Hmong people—a minority ethnic group who lived in the mountains of Laos and were known for their combat skills—to fight against the north Vietnamese Communists. They were dubbed the “Special Guerrilla Unit,” and by the time of the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975, over 12,000 of them had died fighting in battle, many more injured. The remaining survivors were left to fend for themselves in Communist territory, and under constant threat of governmental persecution. Many were forced to flee to Thailand, and in the 1990’s-early 2000’s, were again forced to return to Laos. Fearing sustained persecution, thousands of Hmong  fled to the jungles to live a nomadic lifestyle, where they remain targets of attack.

For three weeks in early 2010, artist/photojournalist KC Ortiz willingly joined and lived with the last surviving members of the Hmong people in the jungles of Laos. The process of gaining access to this seclusive, nomadic, and persecuted group took Ortiz two years.

Ortiz’s images—all in black-and-white—which hang in the back room of the newly established Known Gallery on Fairfax under the title “Forced Rebellion,” reveal a stark, multi-generational, Flying Dutchman society. Constantly on the move, the Hmong cannot afford to plant crops, or build permanent shelters; the jungle, their only real home, serves as the background for almost every photograph. Most of the subjects hold AK-47’s in their arms, sometimes alongside a newborn baby. Their entire demeanor is one of defense. They stare into the lens of the camera solemnly, almost judging it—and by extension, the viewer.

Ortiz got his start documenting graffiti artists in the Chicago area (the work of his former subject, Pose, a major name in the street-art movement, is on view in the front room of Known Gallery), and his journey toward covering more remote, often subjugated cultures in the world is one of extreme courage. He has shot photographs of Vietnamese cancer patients, Burmese migrant workers, the Hong Kong lower class, and Delhi Tuberculosis victims. Word has it that his next mission is the Colombian drug trade.

Here in LA, it’s often too easy to dismiss socially conscious photojournalism, as if it were simply some type of clever “hook.” But seeing Ortiz’s work, and reading about what went into it, one can see it is just as personal as any other form of photography—or artwork, for that matter. He, much like the Hmong soldier posing center-frame with his rifle, stands for rebellion: a conscious, slow, determined, little-seen, and worthwhile rebellion.

Known Gallery is located at 441 North Fairfax Avenue. KC  Ortiz’s “Forced Rebellion” is on view until June 12th. For more information, please call (310) 860-6263, or visit www.knowngallery.com.

LACE, or Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, is located on Hollywood Boulevard, next to one of many local stripper clothing stores, down the block from a massive adult book outfit, and bordering that sticky, glitter-crusted, cement row of dead peoples’ names known more famously as the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Needless to say, it’s an odd place to hold a prestigious, annual art auction exhibiting more than 120 separate works from artists around the world (though mainly working in Los Angeles) as chosen by 21 different participating curators. And what’s even more surprising is that the art is good—no, beyond that—refreshing.

The actual LACE Benefit Art Auction, both live and silent, is set to take place on May 20^th, beginning at 7 PM and ending at 10 PM—though the corresponding online auction has already begun, and the works have already been put up for view to the public.

I know I found myself wandering through their spacious, unobstructed galleries on Tuesday night—for the opening reception of a huge, multicolored mural by artist Nick Lowe, entitled Wall Work (which spans the entirety of the west wing of the lobby)—thinking if I had some money, I’d for sure buy an auction number.

Mostly paintings and photographs with a half-dozen or so sculptures, as well as one video for good measure, the pieces are smartly organized along the walls by curator. This provides the viewer/potential bidder with a sense of context, and general breathing room between the sheer amount of art. Also, one finds themselves judging both the work of the artists and the eyes of the curators simultaneously.

I, for one, found a few of my personal favorites in this manner—the artists being Karl Haendel and Mara Lonner (as curated by Andrea Bowers), as well as Alice Jackel and Claudia Parducci (as curated by Kim McCarthy).

Haendel’s piece, Questions For My Father was, by far, the painting in front of which I spent the most time. And while this might have been because it is simply a paragraph of text to be read, it’s also because it had the most immediate effect on my emotions. It consists of a series of blunt, often disturbing queries, ostensibly addressed to the father of the artist. Some are deeply personal (“When were you the happiest?”). Some are political (“What did you think about Nixon?”) Some are sexual (“Did you ever jerk off while thinking about one of my girlfriends?”) And some are just questions (“Have you ever eaten foie gras?”) But all of them strike a deep-rooted chord connected to the idea that we might not know our own parents as well as we think we do. Or possibly, we know them all too well.

Mara Lonner’s drawing, entitled Between Green, interested me for the sole reason that it showed me something simple and obvious I hadn’t thought of before (what I often feel good art should do). The picture depicts a finely-crafted, Japanese-style tree branch, encircled by a kind of haunting, floral mandala. And though it’s quite clear the tree branch is separate from the mandala, they seem to mesh almost seamlessly. It left me with the impression that there is no separation between the two—the geometric is inherent in the natural and vice-versa. Between the green, as it were, lies a world of delicate furniture designs.

Cosmos, another colored pencil drawing—this one by Alice Jackel—depicts a crystalline, amorphous amoeba as the outline, and then within its swirling atom-like universe: fragile pop-ups of objects and locations. A farmhouse on a meadow, a snaking tree by a river, a turquoise peppermint, some water reeds, etc. It reminded me of what a feminist friend of mine had said to me about how she thinks females perceive time—not as a chronology, but as a subconscious categorization of moments. Whether this is true for all females, or solely females I’m not one to say, but it does present a quite beautiful portrait of memory.

Lastly, Claudia Parducci and her painting Pleas(e) Me. I like this piece for its unique sense of mystery. In it, Parducci presents a definite frame of a moment—where the viewer is put in the position of a highway voyager looking up to the sky, and beyond the alien, geometric lamp posts, a faint trace of an  airplane’s vapor trail spelling out the message: “pleas me.” The implied “e” in “please” is set off frame, adding a whole other poetic layer to the otherwise minimalist piece. It’s the kind of painting you can look at for days and still never quite figure out.

Other notable works include Emilie Halpern’s Hiroshima 2010, Ivan Terestchenko’s The Listener, Lily Skolnick Simonson’s Busy Body, and Andrew Berardini’s “Dead Letter” series.

Of course there are many more great pieces to explore—possibly to bid on—but I’ll let you do the exploring (and definitely the bidding) for yourself. There is an intentional reason, in light of my experiences, that LACE is located in the eye of the Hollywood storm: it’s to bring art out of its protective membrane of elitism, and present it to the people, letting us find our own way in.

The LACE Benefit Art Auction takes place on May 20^th, beginning at 7 PM and ending at 10 PM, though you may start the bidding now at the online auction. For more information, please call (323) 957-1777, or visit www.welcometolace.org.

We may be geographically far from, well, everywhere in the world, but that doesn’t mean we can’t keep up with all the arts endeavors across every which pond.  So here’s a bit of news (for the very serious and elite readers) and a bonus round of what’s going on in LA that really deserves your attention (for those who care about little outside LA county).

First, a stop in Paris at the Petit Palais.  The Parisian museum brings to the fore the artistic achievements of none other than Yves Saint Laurent.  Curated by Florence Muller and Farid Chenoune, the exhibit, called Yves Saint Laurent Retrospective features gowns, menswear, some of the designer’s treasured personal items used in creative pursuits, and it highlight themes used throughout the many collections in Saint Laurent’s illustrious career.  One ticket to France, please! {Global Post}

Onto Italy.  In Milan, our very own Placido Domingo’s Operalia competition has commenced.  Founded in 1993, Domingo’s opera competition is meant to find the cream of the crop amongst new talent in opera.  The singers represent not only a range of vocal categories (from coloratura soprano to the lowest bass), but also an array of countries around the world.  The competition ends May 2 (this Saturday), so you’ll have a new vocalist’s career to follow starting Sunday, May 3rd.  We have a feeling it will be meteoric.  {Culture Monster}

Not to shower the French with too much attention, though they don’t mind, Sotheby’s has made quite the announcement prior to the upcoming auction season.  The storied (and once thought lost) private collection of legendary Parisian art dealer Amrboise Vollard is set to meet the auction block.  His career was spent promoting such up-and-comers as Picasso, Cezanne, and Renoir and Vollard’s collection includes not only paintings, but such enticing items as prints, drawings, and artist books.  The sale will be held in London on June 22, so brush up on your British colloquialisms.  {ArtInfo}

Back at home, there is much to celebrate.  Dig into your pockets just a bit to buy yourself a ticket to the Architecture and Design Museum’s official Grand Opening!  For $75, you’ll mingle with a veritable who’s who of the architecture and design world in LA at the reception tomorrow night (April 27), (hint: you can also find them anywhere from Father’s Office to Tar Pit on weeknights), check out the first exhibit, and bid on things at the silent auction.  {A+D Museum}  Also, if you haven’t uploaded his schedule into your iCal already, Gustavo Dudamel has returned to the LA Phil – he’s conducting pretty regularly from now through May 8 on a number of concerts all worthy of splurging for tickets.  {LA Phil} This is your last chance to see LACMA’s exhibit Renoir in the 20th Century.  The exhibit closes May 9. {LACMA} Last, but certainly not least, turns out that parodies of Wagner and his Ring Cycle abound.  LA Times’ Culture Monster shows us the best of the best. {Culture Monster}

What is it about cities in the night-time? Without fail, they seem to possess a kind of magical, haunting quality—the scattered matrices of illuminated office windows, the splash of light from a street-lamp upon a deserted intersection, the blurs of red and white night-traffic, the sharp shapes of buildings making shadows of moonlight on an empty sidewalk.

I suppose one could try to explain this beauty rationally; talk about how urban environments are designed for large masses of people, and how the nightly absence of such populations is bound to create a sense of surrealism. Or maybe how the necessity for artificial light in a city-setting reminds gazers of civilization’s simultaneous dominance and fragility. But I prefer to just look, and so do photographers Helen K. Garber, Ginny Mangrum, and Bill Sosin.

In their combined exhibition, entitled “Night Lights,” which is on view at the DNJ Gallery right by the intersection of Beverly and La Brea until May 1^st, they have collectively opened their F-stops wide enough to capture the mysteries of life during night-time. The images range from abstract studies of light and shadow, to more relatable scenes of eerie desertion, where most people wouldn’t dare walk without an added quickness to their step.

Helen K. Garber, who is a member of the San Fransisco-based Nocturnes—a group of photographers dedicated to taking pictures at night—will be giving a talk at the gallery this Friday, April 17^th at 5:00 PM as a part of the Miracle Mile Art Walk. Her photographs—mostly black-and-white urban landscapes—have been published in the Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, and LA Weekly. She has exhibited all over the country, and been the recipient of numerous photography awards. So come out to hear what she has to say, browse the myriad images of night and light, then take a stroll around the rest of the art walk—if for no other reason than to enjoy the beauty of sunny Los Angeles when there is no sun.

“Night Lights” features photographs by Helen K. Garber, Ginny Mangrum, and Bill Sosin. The exhibition runs until May 1^st at the DNJ Galley located at 154 1/2 La Brea Ave. Helen K. Garber will be speaking on Friday April 17^th at 5:00 PM. For more information, call (323) 931-1311 or visit www.dnjgallery.net.

I’m going to go ahead and call it like it is: there is a lot of crappy theatre out there.  I have befriended a lot of dramatic types over the years, and thus have attended many not-so-hot productions.  I know it’s hard sometimes to find something truly wonderful, so when my unnaturally talented best friend Brandon Alter told me about a play he was in, I was prepared for a mediocre “underground” production where he would unquestionably shine while the rest of the cast faded into the background. I thought that this play would be one of the theatrical memories I’d store in my black hole of unimpressive shows.  Knowing what I was getting myself into and with a hearty dose of cynicism, I hopped in my car on a rainy Sunday night and schlepped to the final performance of Cuba and His Teddy Bear.

From the moment that the show’s lead character Cuba (Brian Burke) delivered his first line, I knew my presumptions were way off. Immediately I was transfixed. I was no longer sitting in a cozy theater auditorium nestled off Hollywood’s Santa Monica Boulevard, but was transported to the fall of 1985, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.  It all began with Teddy (David Alfono), Cuba, and Jackie (Kyle Heffner) shooting the shit, on what I assumed was a lazy weekend afternoon, in a way that was immediately recognizable. On stage, your typical family dynamic: a teenage boy trying to mind his own business while his dad and Godfather pester him ceaselessly about what he is planning to do with his life.  From the moment the play began, I loved these characters. I got the sense that they were heartfelt and heartwarmingly close, but it was in a matter of seconds that things started to turn very dark and the true story of Cuba and his Teddy Bear began to rapidly accelerate.

When teenage Teddy leaves the stage for the first time, the audience learns that Jackie and Cuba are cocaine dealers.  The chitchat between the two continues as if nothing is amiss, but I was on edge with every passing moment, hoping that Teddy wouldn’t return to the room before Cuba could hide his stash.  Then, the inevitable inevitably happened, and Teddy came back on stage while I held my breath.  Cuba and Jackie remained unfazed, continuing their discussion about recent deals and the addition of weed to their inventory.  Just like that, the family dynamic that warmed my heart just minutes prior turned dysfunctional.

Drugs were the only way that Cuba could provide for his family, and his aversion to deception was surprisingly refreshing.  The relationship between Cuba and Jackie, and their struggle to make a living, evoked a great deal of empathy and sadness.  My heart broke for Jackie, beautifully portrayed by Kyle Heffner.  The way he would hold his hands, breath, even blink was so believable and so in tune with the character that I wanted to write a letter to the Academy then and there.

The ensemble cast worked so well together and the performances were all so remarkable that it’s difficult to call any one a “standout.”  If I had all the time and liberty in the world, I still could not do justice to the cast of Cuba.  David Alfano’s troubled Teddy and Brandon Alter’s lost Che were flawless portrayals of how far the brilliant can fall and how quickly genius can turn to failure. Melissa Camilo’s effervescent and volatile performance of sex kitten Lourdes breathed a much needed sensual element to an otherwise male-dominated cast.  Still, this is not a story told in parts, but is an amalgamation of characters.  The chemistry between the cast was explosive, even for a bunch of Cubans.

The witty banter and perfectly executed comic timing throughout Cuba and His Teddy Bear made it a thrill to watch. If I’ve belly-laughed more than 5 times during a production I know that I don’t have merely fabulous acting and directing to thank, but also dazzling writing. The director, Charles Reed (former Artistic Director of the Detroit Center for the Performing Arts and a winner of the International Thespians Award) did an excellent job interpreting writer Reinaldo Povod’s painfully honest script, one which is not afraid to reveal the dark side behind a complicated, well-intentioned family.

Povod’s script begged the audience to find compassion and affection for a family that would otherwise fall prey to endless scrutiny and judgment.  Cuba and His Teddy Bear explored themes such as failure, illiteracy, self-loathing, closeted homo-sexuality, and drug addiction, but taught the audience as well as the characters that sometimes, as the epigram at the beginning of the script states, “a man must descend very low to find the force to rise again.” Cuba and His Teddy Bear reminded us that we all do indeed have our cross to bear, but that doesn’t make us failures, it makes us flawed.  Finding redemption and hope despite our flaws gives us all something for which to incessantly strive.

I have to tip my hat to the Actors’ Collective. The latest presentation of Cuba and His Teddy Bear was the debut production of the new company and these were, by far, some of the best performances I have ever seen on the stage. All of the actors were so exuberant and genuine that the line between acting and reality was extremely hard to distinguish.  I felt as if my world was turned upside down at curtain call, when the actors, in celebration of their final night, were not the loud, rough and drugged-out New Yorkers I had just witnessed on stage, but rather Angelenos like me, cramming up to the bar to toast a surprisingly profound performance. A performance that I would, in a heartbeat, drive through whatever amount of rain and traffic Santa Monica Boulevard would dare throw my way, best friend or not.

-By Brittany Krasner

Cuba and His Teddy Bear played at The Actors’ Collective Theatre through April 4^th. For more information on upcoming shows visit www.theactorscollective.com.

Capturing the magic of the jazz age can’t have been too hard.  From Duke Ellington at the piano to Frank Sinatra on stage, cigarette firmly in hand, it’s easy to see the je ne sais quoi that was ubiquitous in the days of bow ties and soul singers.  To read articles about jazz legends, to listen to their music, and to see photographs of their personal moments, we can catch a glimpse of the spirit of the music; the pain and the passion that made the jazz age so spectacular.

Not that you’ve ever needed a new reason to fall in love with Frank Sinatra or Billie Holiday, but on view now at Fahey/Klein Gallery are two exhibits by legendary photographers who got a chance to capture musical icons from jazz greats like Miles Davis to rock stars like Mick Jagger.  In the big gallery space, you’ll find a plethora of black and white images that make you wish you’d worn your white gloves and perhaps a broach.  One image that stands out among the rest is the one above, of Frank Sinatra in silhouette on stage in a smoky room – the photo is large and the effect washes over you.

In the smaller room, find brightly colored, bold, and fantastical images of Jimi Hendrix on his knees on stage, the Allman Brothers sitting with their equipment outside a venue, and a young Santana in his element.  The photos in this room look like stories in and of themselves; if they were taken during indifferent moments, they surely created stories after having been captured.  The represented jazz photographers are such household names as Herman Leonard, William Gottlieb, and William Claxton with rock and roll photographs hailing from the lens of Jim Marshall.

If you’ve ever wondered what getting someone under your skin or what Billie’s “Stormy Blues” actually looks like, this exhibit is for you.  Walking through the exhibit, you may spontaneously feel like you hear a saxophone playing faintly or Ella Fitzgerald’s sultry voice.  You may wish the room suddenly became darker or filled with smoke and whispered stories about the scene at Musso and Frank’s or the old Dominick’s.  Good thing this exhibit’s a little easier to get into.

“Legends of Jazz Photography” and Jim Marshall’s “Trust” are on view at Fahey/Klein Gallery now through May 15, 2010.  For more information, please call (323) 934-2250 or click here.