Image courtesy of Bettina Allamoda | SPIN ECHO, sketch by Monika Lyko
LAXART and the Office of Aesthetic Occupation (officeofaestheticoccupation.blogspot.com) are pleased to announce the fourth iteration of Warren Neidich and Elena Bajo’s Art in the Parking Space. Entitled Special Actions in Varied Parking Lots in Variable Time, it will focus on several ephemeral performances occurring at various times and locations across Los Angeles over the course of two weeks. Please check the Art in the Parking Space blog site for specific dates and times. As with each project before, each work will renegotiate the meaning, context, and cultural specificity of the parking space.
Participating Artists: Bettina Allamoda, Eric Anglès and Tori Wrånes
ABOUT THE PROJECTS
open edition Bpy (2012 - ongoing)
Conversations: Tuesday, March 20th and Wednesday, March 21st, locations variable (please check website: http://artintheparkingspace.blogspot.com)
Three benches are placed in various public parking spots and three-way conversations ensue on the following topic: What is public space? These conversations will be recorded, transcribed, anonymized, lightly edited for fluency and printed as separate booklets. As with all of the artist’s work, the booklets will be available as unlimited editions. Every participant will receive at least one booklet. Participants can be passers-by as well as anyone who wishes to schedule an appointment. Please RSVP to info@laxart.org if you wish to join the artist.
Eric Anglès lives in Berlin and New York.
Performance Collage: Bauhaus Performance
Screening: Saturday, March 31st at LAXART (2640 S. La Cienega Blvd)
A projected film collage is a study of urban planning in the Third Reich and its connections to the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau, Bettina Allamoda’s video reflects images and details of architecture from the 1920s and 1930s up to the present. The “Haus am Horn,” the “Halle der Volksgemeinschaft,” and Oskar Schlemmer’s frescoes in the Bauhaus building by Henry van de Velde are intercut with less well-known monuments such as Nazi-era administrative buildings or garden fence posts originally found at concentration camps. The artist projected this film collage onto a wall, then recorded herself performing in front of, and together with, the moving picture. Allamoda at times becomes part of the projection - even part of the architecture itself. Each frame in this documentary-style video incorporates related bits of news, text, and quotes from Bauhaus masters culled from the artist’s extensive research. An accompanying soundtrack suggests a link to postwar Californian model homes, featuring 1960s psychedelia, ’70s Krautrock and ’90s British electronic instrumentals.
Bettina Allamoda is a Chicago-born artist who has lived and worked in Berlin since 1982. Her wide-ranging body of work encompasses sculpture, relief, installation, collage, photography, video, performance, artist’s books, and curatorial projects. Allamoda’s interest lies in the politics of the surface, the body, and physical and public space. Her work attempts to display and present how history is written, excavated, reinterpreted and rebuilt – and sometimes exploited by future generations.
SPIN ECHO
Opening: Wednesday, April 4th, location TBD
SPIN ECHO is a moving sound sculpture in the form of a choir on bicycles. Working with the voice and body as multifaceted instruments, a cast of performers will explore possibilities of range, timbre, gesture, resonance, character, landscape and rhythm in this roving orchestrated yet improvisatory performance.
Tori Wrånes (b.1978 in Kristiansand, Norway) lives and works in Oslo, Norway, and graduated from the National Academy of Fine Art, Oslo in 2009. The artist works mainly with voice, and identifies as a sculptor primarily based in the performative. She has exhibited in venues such as Colombo Art Biennale, Sri Lanka; Haninge Konsthall, Stockholm; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; Bergen Kunsthall, Norway; Palais de la Découoverte, Paris; Human Resources and Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; SXSW, Texas and Den Frie Center of Contemporary Art, Denmark among others. Wrånes received grants from Art Council Norway and the Office for Contemporary Art, Norway, and to complete this project in the States.
ABOUT LAXART
Founded in 2005, LAXART is a leading independent nonprofit contemporary art space in Los Angeles, committed to the production of experimental exhibitions and public art initiatives. Responding to Los Angeles’ cultural climate, LAXART produces and presents new work for all audiences and offers the public access to the next generation of artists and curators. LAXART supports challenging work, reflecting the diversity of the city and stimulates conversations on contemporary art in Los Angeles, fostering dynamic relationships between art, artists and their audiences. LAXART produced and commissioned over 100 projects in its first five years.
In 2012, LAXART will launch its Vision Campaign including The Occasional – a city wide exhibition and public art initiative. This platform for LA continues the organization’s ongoing commitment to supporting artistic and curatorial freedom while focusing on commissioning new work in experimental contexts.
