think, collect, disseminate
  • Blog
  • Work
    • 2-D
    • Installation
    • Time-Based >
      • Video
      • Participatory
      • Relational
  • About
  • Contact
  • Links

Postscript - LA weekend

11/1/2011

0 Comments

 
Picture
As many of you know, LA has a lot to offer in its wide range arts & culture programs. It makes sense to dedicate at least a day to have a walking practice of seeing and experiencing artwork. What I try to gain from these kinds of experiences is to be able to discern one or two interesting ideas and concepts and reflect on them further in relation to my practice. 

I carpooled with a few of MFA colleagues to Los Angeles during the first weekend of October, and like hundreds others, survived the nasty traffic on the freeway. This weekend marked the opening of Pacific Standard Time, a multi-city art program across Southern California. Many participating museums and institutions exhibited works relating to the complex history of artists and movements in mostly LA but other parts of Southern California from 1945-1980.


Our first destination to the MOCA at the Geffen proved to be a good break from a lengthy car ride.  Its featured exhibition, “Under the Big Black Sun,” showcased an extensive collection of works of 125 artists from 1974-1981. I got to see an older work of Eleanor Antin called "The Nurse and the Hijackers," (1977) where she used crude cardboard cut-outs of stock personas and created a video impersonating a terrorist threat inside of an airplane set also created out of cardboard. I saw a few of Ilene Segalove’s personal and feminist works that she made with "The Mom Tapes," (1974-78). The video snippets of her interviewing her mother for advice was in a way confessional, but it showed a speculative view on the customs of women growing up in two different generations in America.

Also at the MOCA Geffen was a large room of Theaster Gates retrospective works. A large portion of these were sculptural forms with charged undertones of history, class and race in Chicago, IL. The use of decommissioned fire hoses coiled into a large circular object was a simple and elegant visual. The same could be said of his cross-sections of mortar and concrete, with fragments of crumpled rebar and glass layered in the carefully constructed pillars that resembled towers with exposed materials of deconstruction.

Other works that stood out to me in the remainder of our trip were the Hammer’s featured exhibitions and programs. The Libros Schmibros Lending Library opened up a “branch” inside of the lower level gallery space next to the museum lobby. Yoshua Okon's video installation “Octopus” was also thought provoking: day laborers miming soldiers in a battlefield along the background of a Home Depot parking lot seemed politically charged.

The next day we drove out to Culver City and viewed the Museum of Jurassic Technology and its neighbor, The Center for Land use Interpretation. We concluded our LA trip with a “walking practice” in Robert Irwin’s garden at the Getty, as well as walking around another PST exhibition and Bruce Nauman's "Four Corner Piece" (1970).

Overall, it was a heavily art saturated weekend, but a few of these mentioned pieces got me thinking a little more on various methods of public and social practice and the specific use of context, site that enables for an investigation of the embedded.


0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Van (rhymes with "fun") C. Tran

    2012 MFA - Intermedia 
    (Installation, Drawing, Digital, Video) with Socially Engaged Practices




    Archives

    October 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    March 2013
    January 2013
    October 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    November 2011
    October 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    October 2010

    Categories

    All
    1st Year Review
    Admiration
    Alan Cook
    Anne De Vries
    Architecture
    Armando De La Torre
    Artboxed
    Art History
    Article
    Artist As Community
    Artists Books
    Art School
    Arts & Culture
    Associated Students
    Badasses
    Balibar
    Basil Twist
    Beamer
    Bessie
    Books
    Boom
    Brett Stalbaum
    Burned Mattress
    Byob
    Caa
    Candidate
    Canon Art Gallery
    Careers In The Arts
    Carlsbad
    Catalyst
    Chain Letter
    Charles Dickson
    Clifton
    Coming Soon
    Community
    Concept To Career
    Conference
    Contemporary Arts Forum
    CSU Channel Islands
    CSU CI
    Daily Nexus
    Daniel Tucker
    Desiree D
    Donate Please
    Downtown Santa Barbara
    Eleanor Antin
    Email Chain Letter
    Events
    Everything Is Scrambled
    Exhibition
    Fall For The Arts
    Friday Academy
    Gallery
    Gallery 479
    Gangnam
    Gangnam Style
    Gas Stations
    Giant Puppet
    Graduate
    Greetings
    Groupwork
    Gyroscopic Horizons
    Halloween
    Head Shots
    Higher Ed
    Higher Education
    Hobey Ford
    Hospitality Industry
    I Believe
    I Hate Lagging
    Ilene Segalove
    Intern
    Interview
    Isla Vista
    I Still Don't Get It
    It's Cool To Be A Nerd
    Iv
    Joshua Tree
    Karen Atkinson
    Katherine Dexter
    La
    La Events
    La Jolla Playhouse
    La Jolla Shores
    La Urban Rangers
    Laurel Beckman
    Lending Library
    Liberty Station
    Libros Schmibros
    Light
    Ljp
    Local Author
    Lookin Good
    Los Angeles
    Los Angeles Events
    Made For Iv
    Marriage
    Marvelous Metaphors
    Marxist Theory
    Media
    Mfa
    Mfa Exhibition
    Mfas
    Michelle Hyun
    Mobile Shadow Theater
    Mobile Things
    Moca
    Music Festival
    Neil Denari
    New
    News Press
    Not As Bad As Waiting In The Dmv
    Ntc
    Oceanside Museum Of Art
    Office
    Oma
    Oma Exploring Engagement
    Open Studios
    Pacific Standard Time
    Party For The Arts
    Penny For The Arts
    Pirate
    Pods
    Point Blank
    Point Loma
    Postcard
    Post-Halloween
    Presentations
    Prints
    Projections
    Protest
    Public Education
    Public Good
    Pumpflix
    Puppet Exhibit
    Rafael Rozendaal
    Rally
    Recycling Bins
    Red Cup
    Reflection
    Report
    Re Purposing Space
    Re-purposing Space
    Review
    Rimas
    Riven Rock
    Ruby
    San Diego
    Santa Ana
    Santa Barbara
    Sdaff
    Sdgp
    Seafoam Sleepwalker
    Shadow Performance
    Shadow Puppets
    Shadows
    Shoshana Wayne Gallery
    Show
    Simon Rodia
    Space 4 Art
    Stanley Mccormick
    Suhail Malik
    Summer
    Symposium
    The Bottom Line
    Thesis Project
    Tot
    Transition
    Uag
    Uc Fee Hike
    Ucsb
    Ucsd
    Ufos
    Upcoming
    Update
    Urban Issues
    Utk
    Vaala
    Video
    Video Art
    Walker
    Watts Towers
    We'd Love Your Company
    We'd Really Love Your Company
    Welcome To The Thunderdome
    Whats Up Santa Anab15c8d94d3
    William Hung
    Winter Wonderland
    Without Walls
    Work
    World On A String
    Youtube

    RSS Feed

Powered by
✕