Machine Project Field Guide to the Gamble House (via machineproject.com)
This week, we have artistic interventions in a classic Arts & Crafts house, jazzy mid-century animation, a dark picnic in Silverlake, and artist talks. We’re spanning LA, with events from Monterey Park to Westchester, and all points in between.
The Machine Project Field Guide to the Gamble House
When: Performances, Saturday, September 27, 12–10pm (last entry 9pm)
Where: The Gamble House (4 Westmoreland Place, Pasadena, California)
As part of Pasadena’s AxS festival, nonprofit arts space Machine Project has enlisted 57 artists to utilize the historic Gamble House, an iconic Arts & Crafts building designed by Greene & Greene, for contemporary interventions. Visitors can expect “experimental tours and dances, group naps, operatic bird beaks, seances, videos, architectural lawn furniture — and a secret Swiss-Japanese fusion restaurant,” as well as workshops and a host of visual arts throughout the house (full disclosure, my girlfriend is one of the artists). Though their Field Guide to the Gamble House runs from September 19–October 5, this Saturday is the first of two performance-filled dates that are free and open to the public.
The Magnificent Hubleys (via cinefamily.org)
The Magnificent Hubleys
When: Friday, September 26, 7:30pm; Saturday, September 27, 4pm; Sunday, September 28, 7:30pm
Where: The Cinefamily (611 North Fairfax Avenue, Fairfax District, Los Angeles)
Fans of mid-century animation will not want to miss Cinefamily’s weekend-long retrospective of the films of John & Faith Hubley, who director John Sayles described as “pioneers, as much as Gillespie and Miles Davis and Charlie Parker were in music, and their influence is enormous.” Each day will present a different program of their Oscar-winning work, which ranged from Mr. Magoo to jazz-influenced experimental shorts. Daughters Georgia (of Yo La Tengo) and Emily, an animator herself, will make appearances.
Roya Falahi: Hoy Space
Roya Falahi, “Headbang/Holding Space” (2011), Silver gelatin print, 11×14 in. (via vincentpriceartmuseum.org)
When: Opens Tuesday, September 23, 6–8pm
Where: Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College (1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez, Building S1, Monterey Park)
As part of the Los Angeles/Islam Arts Initiative, the Vincent Price Art Museum is presenting a solo exhibition of work by LA-based artist Roya Falahi.
Her large-scale photographic portraits often feature obscured or shrouded figures, relying on gesture to convey a nuanced sense of ambiguity. The work often blends geo-politics, Iranian-American perspectives, and pop culture.
Steve Kado & Keith Rocka Knittel: Works on Paper
When: Opens, Thursday, September 25, 7–10pm
Where: metro pcs (422 Ord Street, 2nd Floor, Suite D, Chinatown, Los Angeles)
The press release for this show is somewhat inscrutable but we have to say we’re intrigued. It is apparently related to the pair’s work “1992 TOYOTA COROLLA (BLACK),” which they describe as a “sour objection to the LA boosterism that attended the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative.” Their contrarian take on something so universally loved in LA takes the form of “performance, sculpture, video, photography, sound, painting, and a book.” The show opens on Thursday, but will close with a flag-raising on Halloween.
Opening, House – Dark Picnic
When: Thursday, September 25, 6-8pm
Where: Neutra VDL Research House (2300 Silver Lake Boulevard, Silver Lake, Los Angeles)
Host: Natural Histories for Los Angeles is a series of exhibitions and events that explores “the multivalent meaning of ‘host’ though spectacle, parasitic opportunism, and domestic landscapes.” The program kicks off this Thursday with a dark picnic on the Silver Lake Reservoir across from the Neutra VDL House, which will be lit up. Guests are encouraged to bring food and a light source, though no flames. Organizers suggest something as simple as a flashlight, or as unique as phosphorescent algae.
Kenturah Davis: Artist Talk
Kenturah Davis at Papillion (via papillionart.com)
When: Sunday, September 28, 3pm
Where: Papillion gallery (4336 Degnan Blvd., Leimert Park, Los Angeles)
Kenturah Davis creates detailed portraits of individuals paired with extensive written texts.
“”Part of my interest in creating portraits by writing a text rests in the idea that language aligns the mind with the body. It gives me a platform to consider the ways in which it permeates all human acitivity. How we use and navigate language structures determines how we perceive and experience reality,” she notes.
Her artist talk moderated by Shawanna Davis coincides with this Sunday’s Leimert Park Art Walk.
Lucy + Jorge Orta, “OrtaWater – Fluvial Intervention Unit” (2005) (via otis.edu/ben-maltz-gallery)
Lucy + Jorge Orta / Food-Water-Life: Conversation & Reception
When: Thursday, September 25, 3–6pm
Where: Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College (9045 Lincoln Boulevard, Westchester, Los Angeles)
This first major traveling exhibition in the US of work by French duo Lucy + Jorge Orta explores environmental and humanitarian concerns through “humorous, jerrybuilt contraptions.” In doing so they “demonstrate the importance of art as a creative agent for awareness and change.” On Thursday afternoon, the artists will be joined in conversation with exhibition curators, followed by a reception open to the public.
