A New Kind of “Drive-In” Movie: Site-Specific Billboard Installations on Sunset Strip

Posted on by Diversions LA

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Driving down the Sunset Strip, the billboards have always been eye-catching, featuring product advertisements, premiering Hollywood films, even the iconic self-homage of Angelyne. But the City of West Hollywood has taken Sunset Strip billboards to a new level with their site-specific digital billboard project, part of a continuing partnership with curator Jessica Rich and their “Art on the Outside” program.

Through the program, which provides an ongoing initiative to present original and experimental visual content, viewers will find two fiveting films, Alison O’Daniel’s “The Tuba Thieves (Variations)” and Basma Alsharif’s take on “Democracy.”

These outdoor showings are made possible through an agreement between the City of West Hollywood and the owners of the screens. Featuring 13 minutes of artistic content each hour, both sites are curated with Jessica Rich through the IF Innovation Foundation Los Angeles, a new non-profit arts organization helmed by IFLA founder Lauri Firstenberg.

Both films screen through December 31st, and IFLA plans to continue an artistic vision for both locations after that date, seeking to place “remarkable time-based work in the cityscape…to support experimental interventions that respond to the complexities of urban space.” IFLA founder Lauri Firstenberg strongly believes that artists have the ability to occupy, contest, and play with the boundaries and use of public space, challenging preconceived ideas about what art is and where it belongs. “By placing provocative work along the most traveled thoroughfare in Los Angeles, there is a far-reaching impact on viewers across the city.”

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Alison O’Daniel’s “The Tuba Thieves (Variations) is viewed on tandem, 2-channel digital billboard screens at 9039 Sunset Blvd., on the facade of the 1OAK nightclub. O’Daniel is a visual artist and filmmaker who works across sound, narrative, sculpture, installation, and performance platforms.

Here, her work is made up of a series of eight separate 64-second videos commissioned by IFLA for this Art on the Outside project. The films play on both screens simultaneously, in tandem, and in various combinations.

The works are excerpts from O’Daniel’s riveting feature film project, “The Tuba Thieves,” which was created following a series of tuba robberies in Los Angeles schools. The film connects the story of a deaf drummer with that of the students, band directors, and larger school communities who are forced to accept missing sound following the tuba thefts. O’Daniel is herself hearing-impaired, and she believes that because of this, her own mind fills in hearing gaps when they occur. While she has experienced frustrations, she’s also discovered a supreme sensitivity to sound. Her original film plays on a conceptual audio score, and converges her private experiences and performed sequences into one narrative.

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The film (still, above) is composed of portraits of music and silence in Los Angeles and beyond, interrupted by fictionalized re-enactments of two historic concerts: the 1952 premiere of John Cage’s 4’33” at the Maverick Concert Hall in Woodstock, N.Y., and a 1979 punk concert hosted by Bruce Conner at The Deaf Club in San Francisco. O’Daniel commissioned musical scores by three composers and used these to create a narrative structure through the process of deep listening.

The filmmaker is excited about the City of West Hollywood billboard project, this new reconceptualization of her story, and its piecemeal presentation. “I love the way this non-linear experience of a linear narrative explodes normal viewing patterns,” she says.

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The Los Angeles-based artist, above, is a part of the performance series “In Real Life” at the Hammer Museum, and recently presented her “Centennial Marching Band Forwards, Backwards, Pause, Silent,” a collaborative performance with the Compton-based Centennial High School Marching Band at Art Los Angeles Contemporary.

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A few blocks away at 8410 Sunset Blvd., viewers can take in “Democracy” by Basma Alsharif on the 2-channel digital billboard screens. This work is made up of two HD digital motion videos that are each three minutes long.

Alsharif’s work centers on the human condition, shifting geopolitical landscapes, natural environments, and history – “Democracy” is no exception, according to curator Rich. “Like landing on the moon – democracy – a word coined in 5th century Athens – is an icon,” she states. “This piece is a gesture towards undoing icons linked to ideas we have held onto for too long… at a moment when sea changes are impending. In this fraught political climate, universal truths transcend geography and ideology.” Alsharif’s work raises age-old questions about freedom and its modern manifestation, according to Rich. “Her fearless world view is unwavering.”

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Like O’Daniel, Alsharif,  above, is based in Los Angeles. As a visual artist she uses moving and still images, sound, and language to explore the anonymous individual in relation to political history and collective memory. Born in Kuwait, she recently received a jury prize at the Sharjah Biennial 9; the Marion MacMahon award at Images; and was awarded the Marcelino Botin Visual Arts grant. Her work transcends the boundaries between political and experimental filmmaking, delving deeply into the rifts between perception, reality, and representation in her work.

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These stunningly affecting installations – and their dynamic outdoor presentation – creates an entirely new type of “drive-in movie.” The films are a part of a curatorial collaboration which began in 2015 for the City of West Hollywood. Since that time, public art projects created with Jessica Rich and IFLA have included works by artists Jillian Mayer, John Knuth and Andy Featherston, Cole Sternberg, Amy Jorgenson, Adam Mars, Martine Syms, and Jen Liu. Upcoming installations for 2017 will be announced soon.

For more information, visit http://www.weho.org/residents/arts-and-culture/visual-arts/art-on-the-outside/electronic-billboards-on-sunset-blvd.

  • Genie Davis; Photos: City of West Hollywood

Feeling Blue? The Loft at Liz’s Has What You Need

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Above: artist Gary Brewer

Feeling blue? Then it’s time to immerse yourself in the wondrous rush of the color, emotion, and vibrations of blue at Loft at Liz’s. The show features the work of artists

Brad Howe
Angel Chen
Gary Brewer
Barbara Kolo
Shana Mabari
Miguel Osuna
Stephen Rowe
June Edmonds
Campbell Laird
Moses Hacmon
Bertil Petersson
Michael Hayden
Crystal Fischett

Blue is a seminal show, a rush of sky, sea, flowers, planets, windows to the spirit. The only question is, how blue are you?

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Above, Gary Brewer’s work evokes both water and light,  a moment captured in freeze frame, motion and emotion, both transcendent and incandescent. It’s a love affair with the color of spirit. His “Alchemical Language,” above, is alive and transformational.

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Above and below, the work of June Edmonds.  “Aquatic Pastoral” and “Royal Roost.” Like a feathered kaleidoscope, Edmonds spins viewers into her richly textured work.

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Above, Miguel Osuna dazzles with a vortex of blue light, a planet spinning outward. The oil on canvas work is both fragile and strong, something gestating.

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Above, Angel Chen gives us stoneware, earthenware, sculptures that capture a wave, a seahorse, a goddess, a portal, blue coral – fossils that represent the color blue, glorious stepping stones into another dimension.

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Above, Brad Howe’s abstract blue sculpture is built of stainless steel, aluminum, and urethane, 23 separate pieces linked like mysterious alien musical notes.

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Above and below, Barbara Kolo creates Sky, Harbor, Tide in ink and colored pencil so rich that they appear, at first glance to be paint. These shades are like a Rorschach test for color. Each piece has an inward glow.

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Below, Gary Brewer with wife and artist Aline Mare (Mare has her own exhibition across the street from Loft at Liz’s at the Jill Joy Gallery).

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Below, power art couple Osceola Refetoff and Shana Nys Dambrot.

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Above, Michael Hayden uses encaustic mixed media to create, in his words, “rough, smooth, bright, dark –  in my mind the kind of way that it works for me.” Using resin and beeswax melted together contrasts the burlap and thin layers of wax over burlap.  “I’m so attracted to the ever-changing, hypnotic horizon line. You never get tired of getting lost on the horizon line. I just moved from West Hollywood to the Marina just to experience it.” Viewers can experience it in his art, which also employs silver leaf for high gloss and shine.

Not pictured but equally powerful are the works of Campbell Laird – his resin film print Blue Beneath the Pier, Venice CA is a stunner; Stephen Rowe, who uses dots, lines, and a pointillist technique to create acrylic on canvas works of complex abstraction; Crystal Fischeti’s geometric blue acrylic and oil pieces which have the quality of stained glass; Moses Hacmon’s archival pigment on aluminum panels which capture the wonders of the deep; Bertil Persson’s painted steel and lucite cubes; and Lauren Kasmer’s mesmerizing silk and chiffon dresses and jackets as wearable blue art.

Go for the color of creation…and check out Kasmer’s exciting December 8th presentation of Not So Blue, an evening  of small bites, R&B, hip-hop, video, and wearable art. The event is free but be generous – donations benefit two local charitable organizations dedicated to feeding and sheltering women and children in need.

Loft at Liz’s is located at 453 S. La Brea Ave., and the show itself runs through January 9th.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Jack Burke

Waiting for Grace: Looking for Love at the Odyssey

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Above, actress and writer Sharon Sharth.

In the late ’70s, Joni Mitchell sang in the transcendent Hejira, “I know, no one’s going to show me everything/We all come and go unknown/Each so deep and superficial/ Between the forceps and the stone.”

 

In some inchoate but poignant way Sharon Sharth’s semi-autobiographical play, Waiting for Grace, reminded me of that song. While the play is often brilliantly funny, it’s also moving; the search for love and marriage by a no-longer-young, yet still attractive actress is both personal and universal, filled with longing and delight, despair and hope.

Directed by Lee Costello, the play is essentially a one-woman show, albeit ably supported by a brilliant cast playing various roles as Grace’s boyfriends, therapists, and parents.

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The plot is simple: Grace (Sharth herself, a burning spark both searing and sexy) long focused on her career, now wants marriage and motherhood, but cannot find a man able to provide her with a ring or a child. Some are too clingy, some angry, some distant – all are played by the chameleon Jeff LeBeau. Therapist, parents, and relationship counselor all come into play trying to advise her, until at last she meets “the one,” David (Todd Babcock).

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Her dream man isn’t perfect either, and in fact, until the last moments, the audience is never sure that even David will prove worthy of Grace’s somewhat neurotic love.

The play is warm and affectionate overall, with acerbic and bittersweet asides. The weakest link is when Grace tries to have a child with David, but that’s a quibble. The script is sharp, witty, powerful, and brave.

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Sharth takes on the pain of looking for love (in all the wrong places and with all the wrong guys), aging, feminism, the meaning of marriage — and comes up with the only conclusion that can possible be reached: waiting for grace isn’t easy, but in the end, she/it can be found.

Quoting Mitchell again, “I’m traveling in some vehicle/I’m sitting in some cafe/ A defector from the petty wars/Until love sucks me back that way.”

Running through December 11th, don’t miss the chance to find Grace.

  • Genie Davis; Photos: courtesy of the Odyssey

 

Mardi de Veuve Alexis: Abstraction as Perfection

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According to abstract artist Mardi de Veuve Alexis, her art “often evolves from an emotional response I have to current events and the human condition.” Using patterns and texture in works of mixed media and collage, Alexis creates intricately layered themes and palettes that burst with shape; as tactile as they are transformational.

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Born and raised in California, Alexis studied art and design at UCLA, and has been painting for more than a decade. Exhibiting and traveling internationally, she’s found “the freedom to express without judgment or boundaries. Thoughts and ideas spill out on canvas, panel, or paper as drawings, layered patterns, shapes, colors and textures that are merged, transformed and energized with paint, papers, mylar and other elements.”

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Her work is often a study in contrasts. Witness her recent “After the Earthquake,” a mixed media collage in which houses, boats, and humans float in delicate drawings riven by thick black and brown sinewy lines. Thinner lines that look like a tangle of electric wires also emerge from the contrast of curved and harsh shapes. While everything is askew, it is also transformed, there is a grace in the chaos.

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Such peace in the middle of change appears often in Alexis’ work. Her “Santa Fe Cool” is an example. It uses more pastel shades and plays like visual jazz, blossoming from patterns of pale lime green, pink, and a splash of bright magenta. Curves that could be human forms, thin black lines, and above all else, a vibrating energy reminds the viewer of puzzle pieces coalescing. However, the predominant feeling is one of serenity in the midst of change.

“I love working with contrasting as well as complementary textures and patterns by combining various materials in my work, both organic and man-made,” Alexis says. “ Irregular lines and remnants of ripped paper or newsprint, fabric, tree bark and the coarse hairs of a palm tree become exciting designs and focal points – their beauty recast. Even those irregular globular shapes from thickly dried acrylic have become abstract elements on their own accord.”

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Her “Cocoon” looks like a butterfly about to explode its boundaries. Bright aqua, amber, and a rich black divide what could be stained glass, feathers or butterfly wings, something about to ripen, about to be birthed. There is the tension of waiting, of a happening, of a precipice about to be crossed, but again there is a sense of stillness.

“I’m inspired by nature and diverse cultures. Human emotion, expressions of joy, sadness and despair capture my attention and are often revealed in my work,” Alexis explains.

The artist’s current works are created on canvas, panel, and paper, with collage elements adding an extra layer of depth and exploration to her images.

One of the most interesting aspects of Alexis’ work is a feeling of vibration emanating from them. As already mentioned, some remind the viewer of visualized jazz, or of the calm and craziness of giving birth, gestation, tumult and transcendence.

Working with acrylic, charcoal and mixed media, Alexis defines her work in shapes, lines, patterns, and palette.

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Feel the hum of power and persistence in “Pecking Order,” in which a bird with a red wing on the right of the work is poised before a jungle of black, aqua, and red. Within that jungle are forms that could be the clenched fingers of a human hand, a portal to another dimension, an open window, a closing door. These abstract shapes pull the eye from the otherwise dominant bird into the void, into a promise of meaning. Is the bird trying to get in, to get out, to crack the shell that contains existence itself?

Many of Alexis’ works incorporate animal or human shapes, almost totemic figures; there’s a swirl inside of which an unseen meaning spins, circling in and out of the viewer’s vision, something magical and captured almost at the edge of understanding.

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The shapes are more defined and geometric in Alexis’ “Behind the Scenes,” where circles, triangles, and squares float through what could be a world inside our own world in this acrylic and collage work on wood panel.

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“My new body of work is inspired by an evolving local urban environment, urbanization as a condition, and contemporary culture,” Alexis says. “There is the noise and energy of new construction. Resulting structures are rising vertically to unexpected new heights, marginalizing once amply sun lit creative spaces. Graffiti of all shapes and sizes most often depicted on the grey backdrop of concrete has become rampant as an exciting urban art form communicating an evolving cultural diversity. This is change and evolution, disturbing and exciting at the same time.”

Disturbing and exciting could also describe the artist’s own work. See for yourself: viewers are compelled to study, assess, and in the end simply succumb to the inchoate pull of Alexis’ art.