Los Angeles: Take a local art break

James Franco at Art Platform LA

This holiday season find time to explore art in your neighborhood, as local support is what keeps the visual and performing arts viable.   

        

Galleries: Although numerous art galleries have closed or moved in Silver Lake, Los Feliz and Echo Park—Thinkspace to Culver City for one—many of those that still dot the neighborhood follow a hybrid model of artspace plus commerce. Give them some love this holiday season and give yourself a visual treat.

Sancho in Echo Park at 1549 W. Sunset Blvd.

Two new storefront galleries opened this year. Weekend (at 4634 Hollywood Blvd.) is an artist run gallery. Look for Jay Erker’s multi-media collages at photographs at This is So Much Better, which opens Dec. 2. Sancho, at 1549 W. Sunset in Echo Park, showcases new artists inside and new bands outside at its small backyard performance space.

Celebrating 25 years, a visit to Wacko's La Luz de Jesus Galley in Los Feliz is a step into the wild and imaginative work of talented illustrators, comic book artists and animators and well-known artists such as Shag and Gary Baseman.  Selected by owner/curator Billy Shire, there’s always a twist to every exhibition.

           

Subliminal Projects in Echo Park had a thrilling year of exhibits from Art, Access & Decay: NY 1975-1985 revisiting the highly original 1980s downtown New York art scene to the current show of painter and collagist Billy Al Bengston’s latest work (through Dec. 11).

Alias Books in Atwater features a single artwork show

Bloom at M&A on Silver Lake Blvd.

 

Materials & Applications (M&A): Since 2002, a Silver Lake Boulevard courtyard has been home to an art lab of inspiring architectural and sculptural installations. Bloom is M&A’s current installation—a 20-foot tall metal flower with solar petals that open and close in response to the sun’s heat. 

Stop by and watch the sculpture bloom.

Museums Link Up for Pacific Standard Time: Art in Los Angeles 1945-1980

Charles & Ray Eames @ LACMA

 [Excerpted from November 2011's Los Feliz Ledger]


A grand retrospective of post-war art to the 1980s—that also encompasses architecture, design, street and performance art and more—the Getty Foundation-sponsored Pacific Standard Time is well underway with dozens of exhibitions across town. As mixed media snapshots of an era, the exhibitions reflect differing emotions from sunny post-war optimism to the disaffection of the late 1970s punk rock era.

Take home a souvenir Barbie

At LACMA, California Design, 1930-1965: “Living in a Modern Way,” is a must see for fans and fanciers of mid-century modern design. The casual California way of life, where the gentle climate led to letting the outdoors in, impacted design and material culture.

There are some key contributions from Silver Lake residents such as furniture from both Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler. “Silver Lake was an incubator of ideas,” advises Bobbye Tigerman, the museum’s assistant curator of Decorative Arts and Design.

Interesting Silver Lake-made pieces include a prototype for a  “Camel” desk (so-called because legs could be altered) from the Neutra-designed VDL house and rarely seen Rudolph Schindler furniture, crafted for the un-built Shep house. So many works on display are very familiar, from the first-ever Barbie and Ken dolls to Heath Ceramic tableware to Eames chairs, demonstrating the lasting power of good design.

The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA hosts "Under the Big Black Sun" (named after an “X” album) that surveys California art from 1974-1981. Dark is the only way to describe the mood of the show, as the art explored reflects the tumult of the 1970s and the questioning of sexual identity and gender roles colored by disturbing geo-political events. Large screens click through historic snapshots—slideshows of chaos. Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination, the fall of Saigon, the Jonestown mass suicides are backdrop to work by Mike Kelly, Ed Ruscha and Robert Arneson’s famed but long-hidden ceramic portrait of San Francisco mayor George Moscone.

Archival pieces are added in for context including President Richard Nixon’s letter of resignation. In a far corner, a video loop from San Francisco’s Target Video showcases seminal punk bands of the era and artist Raymond Pettibon’s flyers for Black Flag form a colorful collage. [Extremely amusing to those who may have lived through that era.]

Miranda July writes and directs "The Future"

Miranda July's "The Future"/Courtesy of Roadside Attractions

Excerpted from the Los Feliz Ledger:

Opening today (August 5, 2011) at the ArcLight, Hollywood.
 
All romantic relationships evolve. When there’s a crisis, there’s also drama. Performance artist, author, blogger, screenwriter and director Miranda July’s second film "The Future" investigates one of those pivotal moments couple’s face: when the future seems pre-destined and mapped out. Her approach, mixing abstract and literal, with sci-fi elements and a very engaging talking cat that narrates throughout, results in an original film that’s hard to summarize but emotionally true.

Although some of the film’s pivotal scenes were filmed just south of Sunset on Parkman Avenue, July does not try to make the Silver Lake location or the city a character in the film. Rather, "The Future" stays internalized and focused on character. “I’m never a huge place person,” she said. “I can barely find my way around and I’ve been here for seven years,” said July, who lives in Silver Lake. She finds it telling that when the film’s location changes to Tarzana, “it could seem like another planet.  And that’s so L.A., and is so different.”

Inspiration for the film came from a sudden break-up and the utter devastation of being broken up with.  The desire to stop time was a feeling that July wanted to address. “While nothing in the movie is literally true, I was trying to capture the anxiety of those new feelings and the finiteness of time,” she said.

Perhaps the most fantastical element to the film is a talking cat named Paw Paw, whose predicament weaves the film together. Paw Paw is quite the memorable feline. Protected by her own enthusiasm, July felt pretty bold about her talking cat. “You can’t hide it or downplay it,” she surmises. “And now we have the cat in the trailer.”

Neutra Architectural Practice @ 85 to be celebrated in Eagle Rock and Silver Lake

2440 Neutra Place. Photo by Don Higgins courtesy of Dion Neutra.

Lovell Health House, Los Feliz

Upcoming on April 10, 2011 is a rare chance to tour 10 buildings designed by architect Richard Neutra and his son Dion Netura in Los Angeles, including homes in Silver Lake along Neutra Place.  Los Feliz's Lovell Health House (a memorable location in "LA Confidential") will also be open to the public as well as the Neutra Architecture office on Glendale Blvd. The tour is one element of a busy weekend commemorating the 85th anniversary of the practice organized by the non-profit Neutra Institute for Survival Through Design.  Activities on Friday night and Saturday will be at the Eagle Rock Recreation Center Clubhouse, also designed by the firm.

Richard Neutra's VDL Research House II, Silver Lake

Saturday night there will be a reception at the VDL Research House II, which is now owned by the Cal Poly Pomona College of Environmental Design. The last time there was a public tour of many of these homes was in 2001.  Don't miss out on this chance to look inside these iconic modernist structures that helped establish Silver Lake's reputation as an architectural enclave.

Neutra Architectural Practice at 85 Weekend Celebration: April 8 - 10, 2011

The Kids are All Right gets Los Angeles' bohemian side just right

Shot in-and-around Los Angeles, director Lisa Cholodenko captures Silver Lake and Echo Park's boho aesthetic in "The Kids Are All Right." (With spot-on, smart and funny performances from Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, too!)   It's a very well art-directed version of reality with looks that seem torn from the pages of architect Barbara Bestor's Bohemian Modern: Living in Silver Lake. Pictured above is the Echo Park vintage-tinged dining room of Mark Ruffalo's character. Kudos to production designer Julie Berghoff for making his hillside home so believably lived in.

Who wouldn't want to stop in at the locavore restaurant--supplied via a bountiful community garden-- that Ruffalo's character owns? (Exteriors shot in Echo Park). There's a lovely, artfully-lighted outdoor patio, rustic wood panels and a cozy lounge/bar.  Imagine Forage's menu meets Malo's bar vibe set in the outdoor garden at Cliff's Edge, complete with a Santa Barbara County-made wine list.

Perhaps there will be a "Sideways"-like bump in sales for the Santa Barbara wines featured in the film including Alma Rosa and Fiddlehead Cellars' Pinot Noir.  The movie will be in theaters this Friday. If only the fictional restaurant would open soon too.

Silver Lake's silent film history at Farmlab public salon Friday 3/10

From Farmlab: HOORAY FOR EDENDALE!

Image: Mack Sennett directing "Stolen Magic" (Keystone, 1915), Hans Koenekamp is the cameraman. Courtesy: Robert Birchard

A celebration of the birth and early growth of the movie industry in Los Angeles. Award winning film editor, writer and film industry historian Robert S. Bichard presents over 100 images exploring the first movie studios in L.A--which were established a century ago. The Selig Polyscope, Keystone, Pathe, Mixville and Norbig studios constituted L.A.’s first “Studio Row” in the 1910’s, and Hooray For Edendale! will take you inside the gates of these long-vanished pioneer film factories. This is a must attend event for anyone interested in the history of Los Angeles and the movies.

Farmlab Public Salon

Farmlab, 1745 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, 90012

Robert S. Birchard
Friday, March 12, 2010 @ Noon, Free Admission