Right now my brain is thinking of a way to describe this new-age, medical concept while sending signals to the muscles in my fingers in order to type out, letter by letter, the words and eventual sentences to communicate this notion to an imagined, future audience. Oh, and I’m hungry. That’s Mindful Awareness: the “moment-by-moment process of actively and openly observing one’s physical, mental and emotional experiences.”
To hear more specific information about the proven health benefits of such exercises, as well as how to do them, head to the Hammer Museum at 12:30 PM this Thursday for their free weekly “drop in” session. Leading the discussion is the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center’s Director of Mindfulness Education, Diana Winston, alongside Dr. Marvin Belzer, an expert practitioner of Mindful Awareness.
Well, Gesamtkunstwerk, pronounced ‘guess-amt-kunst-verk,’ is a term made famous by German composer, conductor, director, anti-Semite, and writer Wilhelm Richard Wagner, and it’s usually translated to mean “total artwork.” Wagner, in all his “Ride of the Valkyries” gusto, had a vision of a kind of ‘future art,’ in which the end-result would be a synthesis for every art-form known to man (i.e. music, performance, drama, architecture, poetry, etc.). It’s debatable whether or not Wagner actually achieved a true Gesamtkunstwerk in his work, but his deep influence and brilliance as a composer/writer of opera is hard to match, let alone perform.
At 7:00 PM on Thursday night at the Hammer Museum, Wagnerian singers Linda Watson and John Treleavan of the on-going Ring Festival LA (an enormous cultural compilation of lectures, exhibitions, shows, and conferences revolving around the first-ever Los Angeles performance of Wagner’s four-opera masterpiece, The Ring of the Nibelung) will discuss the intricacies of belting out complex tonal and chromatic changes, while still remaining a simple piece of the overall Gesamtkunstwerk.
What is the connection? And why would you attend both lectures?
Besides the obvious similarity in setting, there does seem to be a thematic crossover between these two programs. Both attempt to explain the whole in terms of its parts, and those parts in terms of their smaller parts, and so on. This mode of thinking assumes there’s a greater organism at work, spinning wheels inside wheels, and what better way to get lost inside these rotations than to spend a day at the Hammer? Either that, or write an opera.
“Mindful Awareness” starts at 12:30 PM on Thursday, March 11. “Ring Festival: The Challenges of Singing Wagner” begins at 7:00 PM. Both programs are free of admission, and take place at The Hammer Museum, located at 10899 Wilshire Blvd. For more information, please call (310) 433-7000, or visit hammer.ucla.edu.
There is something about our daily commute these days that is visibly different. Actually, now that we think of it, the streets of Los Angeles have changed, and we are thinking this change is for the better.
The MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House has decided to turn Los Angeles into a gallery space. Instead of hanging paintings, they commissioned artists to create 21 billboard-sized artworks that will replace normal advertising spots. So you can get a daily dose of public art without ever leaving the comfort of your car’s leather seats.
The exhibition How Many Billboards? Art In Stead — much like Clockshop’s Billboard Series, which also transformed Los Angeles’ landscape with artist designed billboards — is spread across the city, but is concentrated in West Hollywood and the Pico/Fairfax area.
We are hoping these artist billboards are a habit Los Angeles will keep.
The opening reception is this Saturday, February 27, 1-6pm at the Schindler House. On Sunday, there will be panel discussions with participating artists from 1-5pm. Also, make sure to check out their calendar for other programming accompanying the show. Click here for more information.
Image: Artist Kerri Tribe’s billboard on La Brea Ave., north of Venice Blvd., on the east side of the street, facing north; photo: Gerard Smulevich
When you stop to think about women in countries like Argentina or in the countryside of Spain, what do you picture? If you’re anything like me, it’s a romantic vision of a flamenco dancer in a black dress with dramatic makeup, a lace fan, and the attitude of a seasoned temptress. Ruven Afanador knows this woman – in fact, he knows many of them.
Photographed in a desert looking uncomfortably hot in long black dresses and striking wigs, Afanador’s women are the bold image of Latin women that remains burned in our brains from John Singer Sargent paintings and films by Luis Bunuel and Federico Fellini. They are the women who look like they could teach you about the ways of the world in the most basic sense – they look like they’re from the earth. That’s particularly why Afanador’s photographs, in his “Mil Besos” exhibition are so memorable, enticing, and true. He photographs women of all shapes and sizes in various forms of undress at their most intense – one image shows two women nearly kissing, one shows three women who look like they’re on the verge of spontaneously imploding (in good and bad ways), and one shows two women in the midst of a certain kind of dance and wearing long skirts that almost seem connected.
In his “Torero” exhibit, showing in the smaller of Fahey/Klein’s two rooms, the images are more portrait-like and show the young men who become bull-fighters in all their embroidered, detailed, costume-like majesty. There are the simple parts, like a dusty pair of shoes with a bow, there are images that celebrate the male body, and there are images that show the emotion behind such a dangerous and historically rich sport.
All in all, Afanador’s images, from both exhibits, succeed in so many ways. They not only enhance the melodramatic and quixotic vision of Latin men and women, but they also seem to show the familiar and human side of these gorgeous specimens.
Ruven Afanador’s “Mil Besos” and “Torero” will be on view atFahey/Klein Gallerythrough March 27. Please click herefor more information.
If you’re like me and already dreading the mere idea of Valentine’s Day (and this dread may or may not have anything to do with your relationship status on Facebook), then it’s best to stop ignoring the inevitable, hunker down, and fight back! Bill O’Reilly once coined the phrase “war on Christmas.” Well I’m declaring a war on Valentine’s Day, and in the spirit of modern, American warfare, it’s going to be a preemptive attack.
One of Valentine’s Day’s strongest and most enduring weapons is music. It could be Bryan Adams, it could be Ryan Adams; either way, there’s nothing more debilitating than hearing that one song on the radio at 2:00 AM, and having to pull over the car to wipe away the tears. Fortunately, Richard Thompson never plays those kinds of songs. His eerie and oft-imitated guitar noodling, along with the deep, British hymn-like vocals can definitely be depressing, but depressing in the kind of way that a dark, full glass of Guinness is depressing. So head down to the Largo this Thursday at 8:00 PM for a special performance from Thompson and his band, order a glass of something thick, and drink in the wounds English-pub-style with one of the true greats of folk-rock music.
Earlier this year, actress/comedienne/song-and-dance-woman Charlyne Yi made a romantic quasi-documentary with her ex-boyfriend Michael Cera called Paper Heart. I hate this film, and for no other reason than it’s the one I took my ex to see on our first date (the Valentine’s Day WMD: Women’s Movie Date). But 8:00 PM this Friday at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre, Charlyne smashes those bitter memories to the stage with her live show, World of Pain (a Very Masculine Play), co-written by Yi and the hilarious, unknown Allan McLeod. Choc-full of videos, comedians, and silly music, this Valentine’s weekend installment of her monthly UCB gigs might just be the scissors to Charlyne’s paper…heart.
Did you know Quentin Tarantino owns The New Beverly Cinema? Explains a lot about their choice of films, and why it may just be the destination for a perfect Valentine’s Day Eve destruction. They’re showing The Last American Virgin, the 1982 teen sex-comedy that puts American Pie, Knocked Up, and Juno to shame, if only for being more shocking than all three put together, and at least two decades ahead. After the ending of this movie rolls to credits…well, let’s just say ‘mission accomplished.’
Come Sunday, if Valentine’s Day isn’t buried as far into the ground as Saint Valentine himself was on this day back in the year 270 AD, then we may have been defeated once again. There’s always next year. That is, unless you meet someone special on one these preemptive outings, and per chance switch sides on the whole matter. In which case… well, good luck.
The relationship between people and animals, domesticated and wild, is endlessly fascinating. Some we admire from afar with awe, like the cuddly-looking but ferocious polar bear, while others play ball with us on the front yard or beg us incessantly for a bite of our burrito. Living closely with an animal reveals just how intelligent, emotional, and unabashedly different they are. Currently, Louis Stern Fine Arts is hosting an exhibition that through a number of critically acclaimed black and white photographs, captures the physical reality of animals with remarkable emotion.Anima:The Photography of Jean Francois Spricigo explores the relationship between animals and nature, but also provokes the viewer to contemplate our place amongst these wonderful creatures.
Belgian-born Spricigo, winner of the 2008 Laureate of the Prix de Photographie de l’Academie des Beaux-Arts, is one of the art world’s most eloquently outspoken animal advocates. His admiration and respect for his subjects is evident in his photography. Many popular animal photographers subject the animal to human confines a la Hallmark (kittens in picnic baskets), but Spricigo’s photographs capture more candid and intimate moments. It’s easy to forget that he and his camera were present—his photographs evoke such an untouched solitude.
The first images that I experienced on entering the gallery were a combination of animals and natural objects, displayed in a double-triptych form. This series of six images, some of abstract landscapes, others of animals in motion, immediately set the stage for the exhibition’s narrative. Two ducks swim along their way, utterly oblivious to the camera, while the sweet and vulnerable eyes of a dog stare right at the viewer, beckoning compassion and understanding. In another photograph, a single dog almost lost in a blanket of night sky, offset by blurred city lights in the distance, serves as a harsh reminder of the divide that separates the manufactured human world from the visceral animal world.
The cats, dogs, birds, leopards, horses and cows represented in Spricigo’s work are captured as if caught off guard. Spricigo’s photographs reveal a deep, soulful quality in his otherwise “common” subjects. One piece captures the hearty laugh of a bah-ing billy goat with such depth that you feel as if you’re in on the joke. Other heartwarming images include a fluffy, tiny, inquisitive square-shaped bird, and a playful, rambunctious dog, equipped with a stick and ready for the chase. These images call to mind feelings of companionship, and at times lend a “family portrait”-like quality to the exhibition.
The interesting thing about Spricigo’s approach to hissubject matter is that while his photography does call to mind the connection we have for animals, it also exposes them in moments of isolation and reflection. Many of his photographs resemble impressionistic paintings in that they are mildly surrealist, blurred, and depict the animals in their natural, daily, and often private activities. The third room of the exhibition houses the greatest number of these photographs, where Spricigo’s skill is just as impressive as his subject matter. A lone horse at pasture is practically absorbed into the mist—something Spricigo depicts as hundreds of softly focused dots, while across the room, a sharply focused shot of a bird’s feet on a fence seamlessly coexists. It is this diversity and range, not only in the photographs of Anima but also in the natural world, that make the psychological complexity of animals so enthralling.
-by Brittany Krasner
After a two month run at the Palais de l’Institute de France, Anima: The Photography of Jean Francois Spricigo has made quite a splash at its American debut in West Hollywood and is on view at Louis Stern Fine Arts through February 13. For more information, please call (310) 276-0147 or click here.
Pretty much all of last year you watched art fairs come and go in other cities. The Armory, Art Basel, Frieze, and Art Basel Miami Beach left you reading minute-by-minute updates online and feeling a strong sense of wanderlust. They all were so close, yet so far away…
Now you needn’t look any further than your own backyard because there’s a batch of Angeleno art fairs to serve all of your artistic inclinations. There’s Photo LA, Los Angeles Art Show, and Art Los Angeles Contemporary.
First up, Photo LA starts this Friday at the Santa Monica Civic. It features galleries based in Los Angeles (Fahey Klein Gallery, Frank Pictures, Rose Gallery) as well as galleries coming as far as the Czech Republic (Czech Center of Photography) to exhibit works of emerging, mid-career, and established photographers.
The Los Angeles Art Show is next week (January 20 – 24) and will take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown. The Los Angeles Art Show will feature more than 130 international exhibitors, an engaging lecture series and special events program, a sculpture garden, and special exhibit spaces, and fun-filled evening mixers.
And finally, Art Los Angeles Contemporary will be taking place at the Pacific Design Center the last week of January (January 28 – 31). This fair will feature top international blue chip and emerging galleries with a focus on Angeleno spaces. There will be a programming series that includes artist talks, panel discussions, and artist film screenings that will make you think you have died and gone to art heaven.
So, to put it another way, you’re booked until February.
Madonna said it well. Everyone wants to know what it feels like for a girl… Now, at New Image Art gallery in West Hollywood, you can get that much closer to figuring out what life must be like on Venus. Called Put Your Finger On The Button: Women Photographers, their current exhibit is a group show featuring fourteen photographers who’ve covered a respectable amount of ground with cameras in hand.
On now through February 6, 2010, the show’s underlying theme isn’t necessarily the content, although many images feature somewhat haunting faces of women in varying states of disarray. The message of the show is more focused on revealing what it is these women saw, how they present their subjects, and then what that all says about women in general – if anything. Jeaneen Lund’s haunting image of a woman in fishnet stockings, character shoes, and some kind of lacy black ensemble, for example, is significantly less sexy than it sounds – its really more sad. Then, Lauren Dukoff’s image makes you want to play “Put Your Records On,” by Corinne Bailey Rae while Rebecca Wright’s photo basically says “potty training doesn’t have to be so complicated.” It’s Alma Carmina Marquez’ photo of a black cat in front of a TV on the side of the street that speaks volumes in just an instant. According to suspicion, you should never cross the path of a black cat. Similarly women, often associated with the feline nature of cats, shouldn’t be crossed. Don’t forget it.
In typical female fashion, that the photographs don’t all cover the same subject matter just shows how adept we are at multi-tasking.
If you still haven’t felt the holiday spirit this year, you’re a little late on the uptake. The weather isn’t helping much – listening to “White Christmas” as you peel off your unnecessary scarf, for example, doesn’t encourage drinking hot chocolate and singing carols. Well, where the weather disappoints (in a way), our fair city’s art scene comes to the rescue.
The quintessential ballet experience known far and wide as The Nutcracker is upon us again and Los Angeles Ballet’s production will be on view at Royce Hall and Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center in the coming weeks. Click here to check out our behind the scenes look at what goes into such a magical production as theirs with Sugar Plum Fairies, Snow Flakes, Fighting Mice, and Princes to delight your child’s (and your inner child’s) every whim.
Musically, there’s nowhere that does the holiday season like the LA Philharmonic. On Sunday, December 20, you can warm up those vocal chords for a Messiah Sing-Along with the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Then on Tuesday, December 22 at 8:00pm, they’re presenting Holidays with Sweet Honey in the Rock – aka not your mama’s holiday songs, followed by Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s A Creole Christmas on Wednesday, December 23 at 8:00pm. Those are also, not your mama’s holiday songs. Unless your mama is Creole. If you’re at a loss for what to do on New Year’s Eve, spend it with the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at Disney Hall.
Not everything that puts you in the holiday spirit has to scream Santa Claus, little elves, and red ribbons. There are some films that put a smile on your face regardless of the time of year and two of them are on view at the Egyptian Theatre on Saturday, December 26 – maybe to take your mind off the family dysfunction from the night before. Singin’ In The Rain and An American in Paris make up the double feature starting at 7:30pm.
Did we mention that Christmas can also be funny? The Largo at the Coronet has an All Star comedy show on Monday, December 21 at 9pm benefiting St. Jude’s Christmas Charity. It can also be whimsical if you get yourself to Royal/T in Culver City. Now through December 31, their Winter Wonderland pop up shop
They say we’re all created equal. Then they say that none of us are the same. They also say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Maybe “they” are all too good at splitting hairs and making generalizations.
Mark Laita is the photographer version of “they,” it seems, with his exhibit at Fahey/Klein Gallery called “Created Equal: New Work.” Each print presents two sides of a similar coin juxtaposing two people and the garb of their occupation. For example, in one frame, you’ll see a fortuneteller on one side and an executioner on the other. Keep going and you’ll find a shot of an astronaut next to one of an alien abductee. Some are witty, others a little sad, but all of them are truthful about not only the staunch differences between types of people in our diverse world, but also about their sometimes surprising similarities.
It’s also interesting to see the pairings that Laita came up with – an abortionist next to a garbage man, a woman in a bar next to a gold prospector, and opera patrons next to moonshiners. It’s all about perspective, see? Especially when you check out the young ballerina next to an older go-go dancer. It’s about the only time you’d even want to see them together.
Mark Laita’s “Created Equal: New Works” will be on view at Fahey/Klein Gallery through January 23, 2010. For more information, please call (323) 934-2250 orclick here.
Fuel up your car and pack some snacks because come this weekend, you will be zipping around Los Angeles to stay on the pulse of the art scene. It may be easier said than done, but you can be the judge of that…
Start your Saturday at the Honor Fraser Gallery in Culver City with a panel titled “Pop Art and Ethics,” which will be moderated by Ed Schad and include Irving Blum, David LaChapelle, Holly Myers, and Catherine Taft. This discussion will explore what makes pop continually vital, continually hated, and perhaps a state of art practice that will always exist. If you have two or three cents, be sure to throw them in. [Panel is Saturday, December 12 at 2:00. Click here for more info.]
Over at Regen Projects in West Hollywood, Glenn Ligon’s new exhibition Off Books is made up of paintings that continue Ligon’s study of James Baldwin’s seminal 1953 essay Stranger in the Village. Ligon’s work focuses on themes found within this text, including cultural identity, the decipherability of the other, and the burden of history. [Opening reception is Saturday, December 12, 6 – 8pm. Click here for more info.]
Grab a drink at the Mountain Bar as you continue the adventure in Chinatown. The doors for Chinatown galleries will be wide open during Chinatown Art Nights. At FOCA, the exhibition All Time Greatest, curated by Natilee Harren, explores how an artist’s musical tastes add another dimension to his or her work. We are hoping to find someone’s guilty musical pleasure. Beyoncé, anyone? [Opening reception is Saturday, December 12, 7 – 9 pm. Click here for more info.]
Continuing northward, in Highland Park, workspace is playing it digital in “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened,” curated by Graham Kolbeins, which features a looped screening of videos. These films explore reviving and exorcising the recent past. [Event is Saturday, December 12, 7 – 10pm. Click here for more info.]
If you are still on your art high from Saturday, swing by MOCA to watch Herb & Dorothy on Sunday. This film features a couple, a postal clerk and librarian, who amassed one of the most important collections of contemporary art by buying art work “we liked, what we could afford, and what would fit in our one-bedroom apartment.” [Film is Sunday, December 13, 3–5pm. Click here for more info.]
Those are the rounds to be made. It’s a hard job, but someone’s got to do it.
There is something about our daily commute these days that is visibly different. Actually, now that we think of it, the streets of Los Angeles have changed, and we are thinking this change is for the better.
When you stop to think about women in countries like Argentina or in the countryside of Spain, what do you picture? If you’re anything like me, it’s a romantic vision of a flamenco dancer in a black dress with dramatic makeup, a lace fan, and the attitude of a seasoned temptress. Ruven Afanador knows this woman – in fact, he knows many of them.
One of Valentine’s Day’s strongest and most enduring weapons is music. It could be Bryan Adams, it could be Ryan Adams; either way, there’s nothing more debilitating than hearing that one song on the radio at 2:00 AM, and having to pull over the car to wipe away the tears. Fortunately, 
Earlier this year, actress/comedienne/song-and-dance-woman Charlyne Yi made a romantic quasi-documentary with her ex-boyfriend Michael Cera called 
Did you know Quentin Tarantino owns The New Beverly Cinema? Explains a lot about their choice of films, and why it may just be the destination for a perfect Valentine’s Day Eve destruction. They’re showing 
The relationship between people and animals, domesticated and wild, is endlessly fascinating. Some we admire from afar with awe, like the cuddly-looking but ferocious polar bear, while others play ball with us on the front yard or beg us incessantly for a bite of our burrito. Living closely with an animal reveals just how intelligent, emotional, and unabashedly different they are. Currently, 
Pretty much all of last year you watched art fairs come and go in other cities. The Armory, Art Basel, Frieze, and Art Basel Miami Beach left you reading minute-by-minute updates online and feeling a strong sense of wanderlust. They all were so close, yet so far away…
Madonna said it well. Everyone wants to know what it feels like for a girl… 
They say we’re all created equal. Then they say that none of us are the same. They also say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Maybe “they” are all too good at splitting hairs and making generalizations.
It’s also interesting to 
Fuel up your car and pack some snacks because come this weekend, you will be zipping around Los Angeles to stay on the pulse of the art scene. It may be easier said than done, but you can be the judge of that…
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