Pacific Standard Time: Week 6
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We are now in the sixth week of the Pacific Standard Time art event, and the awesome exhibits just keep on coming. One of the things I have checked out this week is the Pacific Standard Time blog, which you can link to from the official website. The blog shares news about exhibits and other Pacific Standard Time information. I find that following the blog is a very easy way to stay in the loop about Pacific Standard Time happenings. Useful posts like “Five Exhibitions Closing Soon. Catch them before they’re gone!” make is easy to stay on top of what’s going on for PST without even having to look through the events individually. Now I know that the exhibits “She Accepts the Proposition: Women Gallerists and the Redefinition of Art in Los Angeles, 1967-1978“, “The Radicalization of a ’50s Housewife: A Solo Project by Barbara T. Smith“, “Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972-1987“, “California Art: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation“ will soon be closing and that ”It Happened at Pomona: Art at the Edge of Los Angeles, 1969 – 1973, Part 1: Hal Glicksman at Pomona,” had just recently closed at the time I had read the post. Here are some of the exciting exhibits happening right now.
The Maria Nordman Filmroom: Smoke 1967-Present exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) seems very interesting.
“Shot on a beach in Malibu in 1967, this film features two professional actors, a man and a woman, who were asked to be present at the given location at a certain time. No script was provided to them but the artist gave them specific props: a cigarette lighter, a box of cigarettes, and a chair. The Pacific ocean and the sun are also actors in the scene, Nordman says. Two cameras-one static on a tripod, the other one following the movement of the actors-recorded the situation. The films are shown side by side with a wall in between that creates three defined spaces. The room to the left features the film shot with a hand held camera and the chair used as a prop in the film. The room to the right loops the film made with the fixed camera. There is a third room where the viewer is able to look at both screens, witnessing a situation that keeps unfolding in time and space.”
Here is a shot from the exhibit.
Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA)’s exhibit “MEX/LA: “Mexican” Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930-1985″ provides a glimpse into the Mexican experience in Los Angeles in the post-WWII era.
“MEX/LA: Mexican Modernism(s) in Los Angeles 1930-1985 focuses on Mexican modernist avant-garde art created in Los Angeles between 1945 and 1985 with a prologue on Mexican muralists and painters of the 1930s. Mexican modern art has often been viewed with particular stereotypes that have perpetuated a commonly simplified perception. This exhibition challenges that perception and offers an open-ended revisionist history of Mexican Modernism. Presenting a wide array of media, the exhibition’s historiography and non-linear narratives explore the production, content, and ideologies of diverse art forms. The exhibition shows how these media are intertwined with each other in various contexts and time-periods. Artists include: Carlos Almaraz, Louis Carlos Bernal, Graciela Iturbide, David Levine, Yolanda López, Alfredo Ramos, Martínez, Mónica Mayer, Adolfo Mexiac, Roberto Gil de Montes, José Clemente Orozco, Adolfo Patiño, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Millard Sheets, David Alfaro Siqueiros, John Valadez, and Max Yavno, among others. This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Latin American Art and curated by Rubén Ortiz-Torres with Jesse Lerner and coordinated by MOLAA’s Chief Curator, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill.”
This lithograph from the exhibit is called “Heroic Voice (ca. 1972)” by David Alfaro Siqueiros.
The “Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972-1987″ exhibit at LACMA showcases some of the work from Chicano performance group Asco from the late 70′s into the early 80′s.
“This exhibition will be the first retrospective to present the wide-ranging work of the Chicano performance and conceptual art group Asco (1971-1987), which began as a tight-knit core group of artists from East Los Angeles composed of Gronk, Harry Gamboa, Jr., Willie Herron, and Patssi Valdez. Taking their name from the forceful word for disgust and nausea in Spanish, Asco set about through public performance art and multimedia to respond to turbulent socio-political developments in Los Angeles and within the larger international context.”
This piece is called “Instant Mural” by Asco.
Check back next week for more coverage on Pacific Standard Time!
