Beginning with a gala opening tonight, and running through the weekend, one of the biggest art shows around revs up at the Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles. There’s so much to see, from performances and panels to stellar exhibitions, that it’s going to be difficult to decide exactly what to see – but here are a few suggestions to make it the most art-tastic weekend ever – and naturally, we’ll have plenty more coverage from the event floor.
The Way of Modern Man is an evocative, participatory look at cell phone use by artist Jana Cruder. Observing crowds in Hong Kong staring at their cell phones, hunched over and Neanderthal like, Cruder created an art experiment: 30 minute live performance sessions and a photography exhibition, which begins in an isolation booth. Stripped down participants spend 30 minutes in a private session with the artist, bringing their mobile devices into an enclosed space and allowed to communicate only through text. Images of these encounters are shown as a series of panels, backlit, manifesting the surreal glow of a smartphone.
Assemblage artist Catherine Coan combines sculpture and assemblage with taxidermy, placing taxidermied critters in surreal settings. Is it possible? Is it what life in another world reveals to these creatures? No Natural History museum display has ever looked like this!
One of Japan’s leading calligraphy artists, Issai Tanaka of Gallery Kitai, performs Beyond Kaisho, Sumi-ism. Daily throughout the show, he’ll writes in the large printed calligraphy style known as KAISHO, creating ten foot words one word at a time. His participation is one aspect of a large curated selection of Japanese galleries.
What if Disneyland was post-apocalyptic? Or if cookies and cakes were non-edible art? Let your imagination wander through Littletopia, a collection of related but diverse art featuring work from the Daniel Rolnik Gallery, Coagula Curatorial, Red Truck Gallery, and Gregorio Escalante Gallery, among many others. Enter through Banksy collaborator Jeff Gillette’s Desert Debris Dismaland Castle, and leave your preconceptions behind.
Street Art is burgeoning art scene niche in LA culture, and the Virtues and Vice exhibition looks at the path of seven boundary pushing LA artists whose urban landscapes, abstracts, and patterns create a whole new world right out in the street.
This is the smallest taste of a very broad canvas – pun intended – so get on down to the LA Art Show.
And remember – art will be everywhere this weekend! Art exhibits such as Fabrik Expo and the LA Contemporary Art Show are joined by stART Up art fair, and on Saturday night only, Night on Broadway in the Spring Arcade Building in DTLA.
