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.]

Happy camping: Ultra Light campers on Silver Lake Blvd.

Ultra Light campers

* Upadated 1/7/12: Daily Candy profiles Happier Camper too.

Driving along Silver Lake Blvd. you may notice two colorful campers parked in the auto repair shop that belong to Happier Camper's Derek Michael.  Available to rent or to buy (the orange one only) the fiberglass campers are made to be towed by a car (both weigh less than 1200 pounds).  Interiors are compact but the windows and solar-powered fan keep them airy.  Derek is super-enthusiastic about his travel trailers that he restored--he's driven them to Yosemite, Big Bear and to beach BBQs.  You can too!

Colorful Ultra Light campers

Derek shows off the solar-powered interior.

More information at happiercamper.com

Social smarts: Spacecraft’s nightlife designs

Back patio at Mohawk Bend

If you've been out in Hollywood in the last couple of years, then you’ve probably been inside a building remade by Spacecraft.  Founded by Kristofer Keith, the design/build firm is responsible for Hollywood spots like The Bowery, Kitchen 24, Stout and Boho, which recently moved to the third floor of Hollywood & Highland.

Excerpted from the September Los Feliz Ledger:

In August, Keith’s latest and most ambitious project opened: the 10,000 square foot Mohawk Bend in Echo Park. Owned by Los Feliz’s Tony Yanow and his wife Amy, the already wildly popular gastro pub features a crowd-pleasing menu with savory vegan and vegetarian specialties, and a changing selection of artisan cocktails from California spirits, craft beer--72 kinds--and wine on tap.

I beams frame Mohawk Bends' interior

Mohawk Bend now occupies a 100-year old brick building that once was the Estudio Theater—longtime locals may recall how it sat empty and decaying for 26 years. To use the building and meet current building codes, Keith essentially built a building within the vast space.  The exposed steel I beams framing the interior are not only a design element but meet a structural requirement.

Vintage beer signs at Mohawk Bend

Although there are retro touches, Yanow’s personal collection of vintage beer signs for instance, Keith purposefully avoided a fake nostalgic look. “I didn’t want something too slick either,” he explains. “So I went for something down the middle, an industrial but stylized direction,” he notes.  Custom built seating is made from plywood (also exposed); upholstery has a mid-century orange hue. The floors are concrete and the kitchen is open to view from the long polished concrete bar cast on site.

Dividing the back third of the vast room from the main bar and dining area is a 20’ high mosaic glass wall. The patterned glass wall also defines Mohawk Bend’s interior patio, lit by skylights and a concrete fireplace. The room’s exposed brick walls help create an urban, citified vibe. As Keith explains, he wanted the space to recall restaurants he’s visited in New York and Toronto that have taken over and enclosed a back alley.

Naya will emerge from Tantra space

Among Keith’s other commissions is an ongoing transformation of Tantra restaurant, also on Sunset Boulevard.  To be renamed Naya,  Keith is reconfiguring the Indian restaurant, creating an all white dining room and an adjacent lounge in regal colors. There will also be a back patio for dining.  As with all his projects, he stays away from theme-y type designs or a signature personal style that doesn’t necessarily translate to every assignment.  “I like to create a sense of place,” he confirms.

Mohawk Bend

2141 W. Sunset Blvd.

213/483-2337

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.”

Tim Burton at LACMA

Tim Burton's site specific animated sculpture for LACMA

Edward Scissorhands costume by Colleen Atwood: magnificent in its details

Balloon Boy by Tim Burton at LACMA

Film fans, this one is for you. Tim Burton at LACMA is a not to be missed exhibition of 700 works (models, drawings, costumes and more) from film director Tim Burton.  Extraordinarily creative, Burton is one of the few directors who has maintained his singular visual style throughout his many films. Among the highlights are: Johnny Depp’s costume for Edward Scissorhands (which showcases the talents of costume designer Colleen Atwood), models from The Nightmare Before Christmas and storyboards for Burton’s upcoming film Frankenweenie. Now through Oct. 31^st. 

Art walking in Culver City

Pagoda by Zhang Huan at Blum & Poe

From the Los Feliz Ledger:

Culver City’s annual art walk (held in June this year) was a revelation. Not only was there a vibrant street scene and eclectic galleries, the art was inspiring. Thinkspace Gallery, which moved from Sunset Junction, is now there too and thriving in what has become L.A.’s contemporary art Mecca. On La Cienega’s Gallery Row you’ll find the city’s most renowned and impressive contemporary art space: Blum & Poe. Chinese artist Zhang Huan’s 49 Days exhibit (now through July 9^th) features monumental gray brick sculptures throughout the museum-sized gallery. His work Pagoda, which recalls a stylized Buddhist stupa, is a massive piece and centers around a taxidermied pig and occasionally emits smoke.

LeBasse Projects is presenting street artist Shark Toof’s first solo show: a series of dense and layered paintings that mix graffiti and animal portraiture. If you can’t make the trek to Culver City, the gallery recently opened an annex on Chun King Road in Chinatown.

LeBasse Projects Chinatown L.A. gallery