Women Around Town, March 2016

Women Around Town, March 2016 by Karen Schifman

IN THE GALLERIES

There will be an “Art and Feminism” Wikipedia Edit-a-thon hosted by LACMA on Sunday, 3/6/16 from 11 am to 4 pm. For those who wish to participate in this one or sometime in the future, click on this link: wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/ArtAndFeminism

California State University at Channel Islands is presenting a program titled “Celebrating La Mujer,” a visual and literary dialogue with well-known Chicana artist Yrenia Cervantes. This academic presentation will explore intersectional feminism by engaging with race, class and the trilingual diversity of the mestiza cultural roots within postmodern Chicana visual art. The program will be held at the John Spore Broome Library on Wednesday, 3/16/16 from 1:30 to 5 pm.

“Kieko Fukazawa: Culture Clash” is a mid-career retrospective at El Camino College Gallery. Her highly energized ceramic works span a period of approximately 30 years and seeks to represent a broad view of this fascinating artist who moves from culture to culture, assimilating ideas and techniques while simultaneously poking fun at the present-day sacred cows she encounters. Thru 3/31/16. Note that Fukazawa’s work is also featured in “Made in China” at CAFAM. See “In the Museums” section below.

The distinguished Cuban painter, sculptor and photographer, Aimée Garcia, presents a new body of work titled “Suprematist Speech” at Couturier Gallery. The exhibition is comprised of mixed-media collages consisting of embroidered information that is culled from newspapers to create spaces of silence and meditation. The exhibition will include photographic self-portraits printed on canvas intervened with embroidery describing women’s dual roles in world history as life-giver, nurturer and teacher as well as oppressed and subjugated. Thru 3/25/16.

“Pizza, Bagpipe, Carburetor” is an exhibition of new work by Meg Cranston at Meliksetian/Briggs Gallery on Fairfax. For this exhibition, Cranston used a random noun generator program on the Internet and created a list of nouns and used the list to create the paintings, drawings and objects that make up her latest body of work. In our image saturated culture, the avalanche of images that we are bombarded with daily can be overwhelming. As Cranston states, “I have 10,000 JPEGs on my computer not counting all my photographs. Any one of them could be a starting point for a work but how to choose? Using the random noun generator isn’t really a new strategy but it does help.” The artist’s subjects are released from over determination through the use of the algorithm and widening of the decision makingprocess to randomness and chance. Cranston goes on to say, “It is liberating to work from a neutral anonymous source. Paradoxically neutral information can produce the most unpredictable results.” Runs thru 3/26/16.

Meg Cranston

Flower Pepper G al l ery is a venue in Pasadena well worth visiting. Currently they are presenting “Moment In Color: Paige Jiyoung Moon & Sally Deng.” Thru 4/12/16.

Loft at Liz’s is featuring new work by Diane Silver titled “Paragons”. In her mixed media paintings, Silver uses binary code to emphasize the juxtaposition of the physical and virtual world. According to the artist, “Whether it is electronic, religious, symbolic etc. we are all constantly fluctuating between the two.” Thru 4/12/16.

Diane Silver

Elam Sulkowicz‘s first solo exhibition is currently at Coagula Curatorial in Chinatown. Sulkowicz is known for her performance work, in particular carrying a mattress around Columbia University to protest sexual assault on campus. To read more about this artist and the exhibit, see Carolina A. Miranda’s article in the Los Angeles Times. Thru 4/3/16.

“Spacelines” is an exhibit of work by SCWCA member, Seda Saar at the Neutra Institute Gallery in Silver Lake. This series of black and white digital images and mixed-media paintings are inspired by the work of architectural historian Reyner Banham (1922-1988). Runs from 3/17/16 thru 4/05/16. Opening reception on Saturday, 3/19/16 from 6 to 9 pm. Artist talk and closing on Sunday, 4/3/16 from 3 to 5 pm.

Micol Hebron’s “(En)Gendered (In)Equity: The Gallery Tally Poster Project” is presented as an exhibition at Los Ang eles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE). It is a retrospective of all Gallery Tally posters created to date – including over 400 original, artist-designed posters that visualize gender ratios in the contemporary art world. Since 2013, Gallery Tally has collected and visualized data pertaining to the ongoing underrepresentation of women in all facets of the art world and beyond. (See example below left) Runs from 3/10/16 thru 4/17/16.

Opening reception on Wednesday, 3 /9/16.

Sal Taylor Kydd

Gallery 169 on Channel Road in Santa Monica and specializes in exhibiting photography. Currently they are exhibiting work of artist Sal Taylor Kydd. The series titled “Origins” explores themes of transformation and change, both change observed in the natural world and in her children and immediate family. Kydd specializes in making Salted Paper prints, an antique photographic process pioneered by British photographer Fox Henry Talbot in the 1800s. This hand-wrought process brings the hand of the artist into each print, producing unique, ethereal and timeless images. Runs from 3/5/16 thru 5/15/16.

“Artis Lane: Motherdust,” curated by Rosie Lee Hooks, is the upcoming exhibition at Watts Towers Arts Center Gallery. Sculptures by this noted local artist will be featured. Runs 3/13/16 thru 8/7/16. Opening reception on Sunday, 3/13/16 at 1 pm. There will be an Artist Talk on Sunday, 4/10/16 at 1 pm.

PØST presents “Kim Abeles: Portraits and Autobiographies.” Abeles is certainly well-known for her public art, however this exhibition provides a more intimate view of her art production. Biographical sculptures of Gertrude Stein, Rosa Parks, Carmen Miranda, Eva Perón, Beryl Markham and St. Bernadette provide a space for staking claim to a spirited core while constructing a body to house it. Selections of Abeles’ artist books and publications from exhibitions will be including along with these works. Note that PØST’s new location is in the historic Bendix Building. Runs3/20/16 thru 5/21/15.

Kim Abeles

“Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women, 1947-2016” is the opening exhibition at the new Hauser, Wirth & Schimmel Gallery in Downtown LA. The exhibition will feature about 100 works made by 34 artists over the past 70 years. It will trace ways in which women have changed the course of art by deftly transforming the language of sculpture since the postwar period. Radically new forms and processes that privilege solo studio practice, tactility and the idiosyncrasies of the artist’s own hand are highlighted. The exhibition examines how elements that are central to art today – including engagement with found, experimental and recycled materials, as well as an embrace of contingency, imperfection and unstructured play – were propelled by the work of women who, in seeking new means to express their own voices, dramatically expanded the definition of sculpture. Among the many women artists whose work will be displayed are Claire Falkenstein, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Ruth Asawa, Louise Bourgeois ,Eva Hesse and Louise Nevelson.

Runs from 3/13/16 thru 9/14/16. Grand opening Sunday, 3/13/16 from 2 to 6 pm.

Louise Bourgeois

IN THE MUSEUMS

“Made in China” at The Craft and Folk Art Museum is a solo exhibition of recent work by Los Angeles based artist Keiko Fukazawa. This is a “must see” exhibition which demonstrates the artist’s intervention into Chinese culture through her skill and conceptual approach. These ceramics are not only exquisite, they also provide commentary on consumerism in China and beyond. Thru 5/8/16.

“Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957” at the U CLA Hammer Museum is the first comprehensive museum exhibition in the U.S. about the experimental liberal arts college. The exhibition includes works by Ruth Asawa, Elaine de Kooning, Anni Albers and others along with documentary photographs and archival materials. There were four main instructors at the college – Josef Albers, Buckminster Fuller, John Cage and Charles Olson – and the exhibition shows works by each, alongside works by their students and other faculty. It is an expansive exhibition of the very significant contributions of the artists who taught and attended Black Mountain. Thru 5/15/16.

“Catherine Opie: Portraits” at the UCLA Hammer Museum features 12 large format portraits of familiar art world figures, known well by the artist. Included are images of artists John Baldesarri, Kara Walker, Mary Kelly, Glenn Ligon and others. This remarkable body of work demonstrates Opie’s engagement with old master portraiture. Quite wonderful! Continues thru 5/22/16.

Catherine Opie

An important exhibition of the work of renowned California artist Helen Lundeberg (1908-1999) is presented at The Laguna Art Museum. This is a systematic survey of her paintings with over 50 examples including her Post-Surrealist paintings of the 1930s. Runs thru 5/30/16.

Helen Lundeberg

Catherine Opie‘s “O Portfolio” is on view at LACMA. This project was a response to Robert Mapplethorpe’s X Portfolio. The photographs depict sadomasochistic scenarios derived from her participation in San Francisco’s bondage community. Despite their sexually explicit sources, Opie declares their content as that of intimacy. This small sampling of her work on this topic offers imagery of details that invite the viewer to wonder of the context. It will be interesting to see these along with the Mapplethorpe Exhibit. Continues thru 9/5/16.