DIVERSEartLA | LA Art Show

The 2021 edition of DIVERSEartLA, curated by Marisa Caichiolo, will focus on the presence, contributions, research and documentation of women and non-binary artists at the forefront of work at the intersection of art, science and technology represented by guests Museums and Institutions.

Some of the institutions participating this year include The San Marcos Museum of Art (MASM) from Lima, Perú, bringing a new media project by Peruvian artist Angie Bonino, titled “THE SYMPHONY OF NOW”, which consists of a video installation, and interactive sound installation, focusing on the Andean techno De-colonial shamanism.

“DIVERSEartLA will be an examination and a compilation of material, as well as an exhibition featuring the work of women and non-binary artists who have played a central role in the development of new media practices within art institutions and through history,” says Caichiolo.

Museum La Neomudejar from Madrid is bringing work created by artist Ana Marcos. DATA | ergo sum | RELOADED is an interactive art installation that visualizes the capability of viewing machines using Artificial Intelligence to extract data by a simple observation of visitors.

Art Museum of the Americas (AMA) has joined with a special project curated by Fabian Goncálves, that will feature a compilation of material and an exhibition of the work of women artists who have played a central role in the development of new media practices throughout history and women and non-binary people whose forward-thinking practices are currently reshaping the field. More institutions and exhibits will be added shortly.

MOLAA, Museum of Latin American Art will bring a very interesting project, The Technological Revolution in Muralism: Judy Baca & the Digital Mural Lab, curated by Gabriela Urtiaga. Baca’s work with youth took on renewed meaning in 1996 when she founded the digital mural lab within the premises of SPARC (Social and Public Art Resource Center). Officially called the UCLA/SPARC Cesar Chavez Digital Mural Lab, this facility introduced digital technology to the community mural movement as a new tool for the creation of public art.

Dignidad, National Archive of Chile performance, series of Dignidad, 2018
by María Verónica San Martín
Curated by Fabian Goncalvez
AMA Art Museum of the Americas, Washington DC

The AMA presents a group of emerging women and non-binary artists and photographers who are working at the crossroads of art, social issues, technology, and science. These women make technical decisions when they use their cameras and develop their film, use specialized computer programs to digitize their work, and complex chemical reactions for printing.

DATA | ergo sum | RELOADED Installation
by Ana Marcos
Museum La Neomudejar/ Madrid, Spain

DATA | ergo sum | RELOADED by Ana Marcos is an interactive art installation that visualizes the capability of viewing machines using Artificial Intelligence to extract data by a simple observation of visitors.

The Symphony of Now
by Angie Bonino
San Marcos Museum of Art (MASM), Lima, Perú

The San Marcos Museum of Art (MASM) from Lima, Perú will bring a new media project by Peruvian artist Angie Bonino, titled “THE SYMPHONY OF NOW”, which consists of a video installation, and interactive sound installation focusing on the Andean techno De-colonial shamanism.

DIVERSEartLA 2020

For 2020, Marisa Caichiolo’s curatorial focus for DIVERSEartLA will be expanded to embrace and celebrate those art institutions and art collectors who support LA’s blossoming art community.

DIVERSEartLA is dedicated to bringing together some of the most important local and international art institutions, museums and non-profit organizations for an elevated and thoughtful dialogue.

The communities of Los Angeles reflect an impressive variety of ethnic backgrounds, and it’s iconic natural environs are equally varied and vast. To honor this unique biodiversity we are focusing on the representation of contemporary artists from around the world as a part of each institution.

As we approach the 2020 US presidential election, I believe the importance of this year’s curatorial focus should remain committed to fostering and learning about the organizations supporting inclusion and diversity.

DIVERSEartLA will be expanded to embrace and celebrate those art institutions and art collectors who support LA’s newest and largest iteration of art community, as well as to create a strong conversation around a variety of events and programs. Thus serving as a platform and resource for diversity best practices and leadership, including ALL of Los Angeles’s communities.

This year, we are thrilled to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the LA Art Show with a magnificent event that will reflect LA’s expansive natural habitats and cultural diversity, as well as DIVERSEartLA as an essential part of making museums and cultural institutions models for pluralistic communities. There is nothing more important than inclusion in a moment where U.S. political and social culture is defined by division.

Pyramids by Gronk
Curated by Chon Noriega
Presented by LACMA & UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center

For his new work called “Pyramids,” L.A. artist Gronk will be re-imaging the opera stage he originally designed and painted in 2013 for Peter Sellar’s adaptation of Purcell’s semi-opera “The Indian Queen (1695). That work connected Purcell’s fanciful notions of the Conquest with current issues of immigration and authoritarianism. During the run of the LA Art Show, Gronk will be painting on a full-size mock-up of a theatrical stage, providing visitors with a behind-the-curtain view of his artistic practice as well as of the set making involved in performance and media culture. Unlike a theatrical performance, the set design will be completed only after the exhibition closes and the audience is gone. Rather than see a finished work, visitors will be able to interact with the artist, participating in the process of making a “political theater” for our contemporary moment. Programs will include a dialogue between Gronk and Peter Sellars, and an impromptu performance, both using the theatrical space created by “Pyramids.”

I See You, I Am Seen: On the Impact of the Diversity
Curated by George Luna Peña
Presented by The Broad

In recent years, initiatives to diversify art museum staff have accrued considerable currency. Although more work is still needed, the calls for greater diversity have rippled through the art world. In Los Angeles, The Broad has been a leading institution in this work through its innovative Diversity Apprenticeship Program (DAP). A full time, paid apprenticeship in art handling and preparations for those underrepresented on museum staffs, the DAP is shifting demographics and changing the landscape of equity in the museum field.

Taking its title from a speech by educator and former Black Panther party member Ericka Huggins to the American Alliance of Museums, this space features immersive photography and video which highlight the first-hand experiences of DAP participants as they build museum careers..

The Birth of the Niemand
by Viktor Freso
Curated by Marisa Caichiolo
Presented by Danubiana Museum | Bratislava

The Birth of the Niemand consists of monumental large sculptures. They represent a whole range of negative emotions that people try to hide in their lives, such as maliciousness, inferiority complex, and unhealthy self-confidence. The artist studied in Bratislava at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava and in Prague at the Academy of Fine Arts. Frešo belongs to the most remarkable figures of the contemporary art in the region of the former Czechoslovakia, Europe. His work and overall approach to art is rather untypical but at the same time they reflect the situation in the society and culture.

The artist creates sophisticated concepts and projects presenting them as seemingly simple closed “Pieces of Art”. He is often critical in his works and aggressively expresses his contempt of the art scene itself and its processes but with a light, humorous and playful undertone. One of the most fascinating elements of his creation is the seeming counterpoint of emphasis on huge, grandiose EGO connected with a Gesture in combination with disarming self-ironic humility. His ability to reveal dark sides of his soul, or stumbles and throws them to the world regardless of consequences, shifts the author ́s concepts to broader possibilities of perception of the reasons of his work. Viktor Frešo is interested in direct, efficient, visual tools. He creates a certain space between action- reaction and the conditions of quick recognition of relations between the expressing of me and the indication of others.

From The South
Portraits: Punta Arenas and Valparaíso
By Vicente González Mimica
Curated by Fabian Goncalvez
Presented by AMA | Art Museum of the Americas

The artist presents black-and-white portraits from two cities in the south of Chile. Like in the Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities, one city (London) is described as law-abiding and orderly— analogous to how the artist presents Punta Arenas—and is contrasted with a largely politically agitated city (Paris), which is how González sees Valparaíso. As the artist describes: “The city is violent to me at first sight, perhaps with the character of who has made himself. It grows every day like the jungle that penetrates its streams in all the hills that make it up to reach the sea. It is not planned, it only occupies the spaces left by nature, like plants in an abandoned garden.”

In González’s Liceo series, he celebrates the individual achievements of each student, while seeing the fruits of hard work of families, teachers, and friends. They have been suspended in a time defining adolescence and hope. These students’ portraits in school uniforms, in long Liceo hallways and in workshops wearing trade uniforms, is reminiscent of a hopeful past. It is as if González were evoking the ancestors who arrived to these shores to fulfill dreams and prosper. As Alfred Doblin wrote on August Sanders’ portraits of German people: they are a maximized expression of the combined efforts of a social class, where the greatest achievement is the taming of individuality. He adds that it was their desire to succeed that brought them to this point, and that belonging to this place ultimately held them back as people.

Dactiloscopia Rosa: Video Art and QUEER Constructions
Curated by Nestor Prieto
Presented by Museo La Neomudejar (Madrid, Spain)

The exhibition will be from the archive materials, documentations and teachings from the transfeminist/Queer archive of the Museum, didactic materials from the constructions of social movements that managed to pass the social perspective that existed on the LGTBQ community in the 70s, 80s and 90s in Spain under Franco Dictatorship, the audiovisual material is a compilation of demonstrations, celebrations and activisms, vintage posters. The first version of this installation outside of the Museum La Neomudejar was in 2018 at the Matadero Space in Madrid, parallel to the world pride celebration in the city.

It will be a chronology of the movement of sexual liberation / LGTBQ in Spain (1970-2016)

Celebrating Diversity
By Chiachio & Giannone
Curated by Gabriela Urtiaga, Chief Curator at MOLAA
Presented by MOLAA | Museum of Latin American Art

In order to commemorate local and international LGBTQ+ communities around the world, the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) is presenting a special installation about diversity and pride in collaboration with world-known Argentinian artistic duo, Leo Chiachio & Daniel Giannone. The presentation includes the 120 ft. long textile flag, MOLAA’s new acquisition “Californian Family in Six Colors 1” and a recorded interview about their creative process. These artworks were created by the artists at MOLAA where more than 3,000 members of the Long Beach and Los Angeles community collaborated in the creation of the flag. The creation of this work of art took place during the artists’ MOLAA residency between March and June, 2019. Visitors and community members were invited to contribute with the construction of the work of art by adding their own messages about the meaning of diversity and acceptance. The banner was carried by over 100 volunteers at the Long Beach Pride Parade and exhibited at the event Pride at The Port in San Pedro, CA. The Museum highlights underrepresented voices of Latin Americans and Latinos in the US and around the world. This installation represents the commitment of MOLAA towards the values of diversity and inclusion for all through the arts.

The True Love of Collecting
How Collectors Reshape the International Art Scene
Curated by Marisa Caichiolo & Elisa Massardo
Presented by Arte Al Límite (Chile)

It’s no mystery that many of our museum experiences are led by visionary collectors who have either made significant donations or opened new museums to exhibit their extensive art collections.

Art Collectors shape the international contemporary art scene because of the unique decisions and thoughtful connections with other art enthusiasts and art market players.

AAL Magazine from Chile will bring an exhibition that explores the Subjectivity of Collecting in the contemporary art world today.

It will reveal the mystery behind the passion of collecting, and focusing on the question about what exactly makes them fall in love with an art piece. Collectors recognize the value that artists bring to communities, and bring them to the light of other art professionals and art institutions.

COLLECTORS & ARTISTS
Collection AAL, Chile – Bernardo Oyarzún
Collection Ca.Sa., Chile – Mono Lira
Collection AMA Foundation, Chile – Enrique Ramirez
Kim Martindale, USA – Raphael Montañez Ortiz
Lidia Rubinstein, Argentina/USA – Mariana Telleria
Kai Loebach, Germany/USA – Ricardo Alcaide

Art Collector: Homeira Goldstein
Artwork By Tim Tompkins
Curated by Marisa Caichiolo

A descendent of the Qajar Royal Dynasty in Middle East, a multitalented force dedicated to creativity and arts, and an avid contemporary art collector, Homeira Goldstein has built an unrivaled reputation championing national and international artists promoting art and culture in Greater Los Angeles. As the Chairman of the Board of TIME4ART, she has been instrumental in creating opportunities for artists to reach public audiences using traditional and innovative venues, such as art centers, pop-up venues, open spaces, and private homes.

The inspiration for Timothy Tompkins’s work is the reflection of both physically and metaphorically a relational narrative which dissolves into form and color. This effect endeavors to mimic the layers of codes and semiotics of an image while simultaneously asking the viewer to participate in an expanded dialogue of contemplation and connotation of content. Additionally, the paintings attempt to reflect the influences of contemporary society, such as consumerism, mass media, and digital culture. Tompkins’s interest in both the language of painting and contemporary theories of visual culture attract him to the images produced by various media, as a loose visual connection to painting’s history and the medium’s influence as a visual communicator.

I GOING TO..
(An interactive space intervention): By Adriana Ramirez
Curated by Marisa Caichiolo

Adriana Ramirez is a conceptual artist from Colombia. Her work was part of biennials, exhibitions in different parts of the world inviting the collective to participate in most of her installations. This platform has an axis: Everyone’s capacity to decide and become the creator of his or her own destiny, and therefore the responsibility of the community’s future. It is based on two premises: the first, is that we do not come to this world only to know ourselves, but also we come to it with the possibility of creating ourselves; and the second, is that every individual is surrounded by a social group and coexists thanks to language.

In order of that, this platform invites people to experience the language`s power to built future realities by declaring: when one AFFIRMS something, language is used to describe reality; it means that words depend on the world which already exists; for instance “Today is raining”. On the other hand, when one DECLARES something, language is used to define reality, therefore our world will depend on the words pronounced; for example, “Today, I am going to listen before speaking”.

There Could Be A Monster Inside You
By PSJM Collective (Canary Islands)
Curated by Marisa Caichiolo

PSJM is a team of creation, theory and management formed by Cynthia Viera (Las Palmas G.C., 1973) and Pablo San José (Mieres, 1969). PSJM present themselves as an «art brand», thus appropriating the procedures and strategies of advanced capitalism to subvert their symbolic structures. PSJM acts as an trademark of happening art addressing issues of the artwork in the market, communication with consumers, or function as an artistic quality, using communication resources borrowed from capitalism of the spectacle to underscore the paradoxes produced by its unbridled development.

PSJM will present at the LA ART SHOW 2020 the same performance they created for the 58th Venice Biennale context, one of its corporate performances in which uniformed hostesses interact with the public in order to cause startle and reflection. Combining marketing and totalitarianism, using the strategy of “overidentification” theorized by Zizek, the collective presents itself aesthetically appropriating the strategies and modes of seduction of the capitalist system in an authoritarian way.

Diversity Walks and Talks
By Miss Art World
Curated by Peter Mays
Presented by Los Angeles Arts Association / Gallery 825

The “Diversity Walks and Talks” performance invites individual proclaimers of LA’s culture to strut the runway in celebration of their uniqueness, showcasing LA’s diversity. A variety of participants will be pre-selected and interviewed about what diversity represents to them. Their interviews will play during the runway either in video or audio format. Spectators will also be recruited live to walk the runway. A photographer at the end of the runway will document all individuals and their photos will be instantly displayed on a runway wall. This performance, like LA’s fashion and celebrity culture, is high energy, fast paced, and confident.

Transcendients:
Heroes At Borders, a Contemporary Art Exhibition
By Taiji Terasaki in Collaboration with
the Japanese American National Museum
Curated by Emily Anderson, PhD
Presented by Japanese American National Museum

TRANSCENDIENTS is a unique collaboration between artist Taiji Terasaki and JANM that honors HEROES AT BORDERS: individuals that advocate and fight for those who face discrimination, prejudice and inequity at borders both physical and conceptual. These heroes, whether known or unsung, inspire their fellow Americans, their neighborhoods and communities, government policy, and social change. By illuminating their stories, we hope to educate museumgoers about their work and inspire a spirit of unity and action in support of democracy and justice for all.

This exhibition spotlights important figures working to overcome and transcend borders that reinforce discrimination, inequity, and intolerance. Whether it be those fighting to rectify human rights injustices and to counter anti-immigrant sentiments and actions, members of the LGBTQ+ community seeking equal rights, women pressing for equal pay, or religious adherents who want to worship in safety, these heroes use their personal experiences to build bridges of understanding that connect us at the core of our collective humanity. It is imperative that those who believe in freedom, fairness, and social justice are emboldened to unite and support the forces of democracy and human decency. These concerns–their echoes in history and their far-reaching future impact–are the impetus for this unique collaboration between artist Taiji Terasaki and JANM.

DIVERSEartLA 2019

The Parthenon of Books & Rayuelarte: Marta Minujín
Curated by Gabriela Urtiaga
Presented by CCK, Buenos Aires, Argentina

CCK, Buenos Aires, Argentina is pleased to present renowned Argentinian artist Marta Minujín, who arrives with two of her most emblematic art works: The Parthenon of Books and Rayuelarte.

The Parthenon of Books: The return of democracy to Argentina in December 1983 was the inspiration that led Marta Minujín to create a replica of the Greek Parthenon on the “9 de Julio Avenue,” a street located in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Mujín’s Parthenon has a metal structure covered with more than 20,000 books, many of which had been banned during the military dictatorship. The Parthenon of Books honors the world’s first democracy and the values of that era, which have served as the basis for today’s Western democratic societies. This work also stands as a symbol of the country’s prolonged need and renewed hope to transition back to democracy.

“Memorable Mud” – Installation, 2017: Andrés Paredes
Curated by Gabriela Urtiaga
Presented by CCK, Buenos Aires, Argentina

“Memorable Mud” is a participative installation that draws viewers into a multi-sensorial experience featuring scents, music – exclusively composed for this art work – and a carefully designed system reflecting light through translucent stones. The piece is the end result of an exploratory process that generates two experiences for attendees. The first experience begins as the viewer enters the room and comes across giant clay structures, clay domes with pinnacles and other elements, which hang from the ceiling from a height of 1.4 meters. This landscape acts as a bubble of clay, which is retrieved from the production place. The domes have their own inner world – one which can be accessed by the public through holes located in the lower part. This all acts as a place where the artist’s life and personal memories are stored and materialize in clay.

Andrés Paredes’s work ranges from drawings and two-dimensional cutting paper to immersive installations, and make up private collections in Argentina and in several countries abroad. He lives and works in both Misiones and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Virtual Futures: XR Showcase
Curated by Britt Salvesen and Jesse Damiani
Presented by Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LACMA

Virtual Reality is one of the most eagerly discussed topics in contemporary culture, yet many in the art world are only starting to consider its impact – aesthetic, technological, psychological, therapeutic, economic, and so forth. This year, DIVERSEartLA offers four VR experiences that demonstrate the range of practices and possibilities that are defining VR in 2019.

Visitors can get a glimpse of the future as seen by four different creative innovators: Wesley Allsbrook, Nancy Baker Cahill, Jorge R. Gutiérrez, and Drue Kataoka.

The tools for VR and AR creation and display – once the purview of engineers, available mainly in academia and the military – are now much more accessible to anyone with a story to tell: game designers, painters, screenwriters, documentarians, journalists, architects, choreographers, and many more. Often working collaboratively across several disciplines, this diverse community of creators is discovering the technology’s potential, involving audiences in the very act of creation.

To Make Water: Guido Yannito
Curated by Marisa Caichiolo
Presented by Museum of Contemporary Art of Salta, Argentina,
MAC SALTA

This work is part of a project Hemisphere, created in Antarctica and generating a dialog on the geographical situation (hemispheres north & south) and of the mind (hemispheres right & left).

Antarctica is a radical environment and could be considered a geographic displacement. The hemisphere is presented as an undefined state where the body is situated as an idea of territory and landscape but also as a state of mind.

In the beginning this project consisted of researching the use of fresh water on the Antarctica bases, because Antarctica is the largest reservoir of fresh water on the planet, an ongoing interest of the artist. “To Make Water” is a phrase used by the people working on the base to describe the production of consumable water, because although it is the largest reserve of fresh water, it is very difficult to procure. “To Make Water” is a video filmed the day the members of the base attempted the extraction.

White Lies: Gaston Ugalde, Matilde Marin, Sandra Mann, Fernando Arias
Curated by Elisa Massardo & Daniel Alfonso
Presented by AAL (Arte Al Límite)

White Lies is an exhibition that emerges from the dialogue of visual arts and politics; the visual arts and the reality around the world, where the politic act looks like a manifestation of power that dominates and control the masses and minds, forgetting the initial idea of common benefit and the social welfare.

Arte Al Límite (AAL) promotes the work of contemporary artists from all over the globe, aiming to Foster art circulation, encouraging art collecting and bringing art closer to the community through worldwide activities.

27 Peces/27 Fish, Installation, 2018: Cristian Castro
Curated by Carlos Ortega, Curator of Collections, MOLAA
Presented by Museum of Latin American Art, MOLAA

The Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) has selected Argentinian artist, Cristian Castro and his site-specific installation, 27 Peces / 27 Fish, 2018 to highlight the contemporary art of Latin America in the 2019 edition of the Los Angeles Art Show.

Cristian Castro, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1971 and currently based in LA, expresses his artistic talent by repurposing discarded vintage household appliances and old mechanical tools with contemporary designs of his own. In the 27 Fish installation, the artist used 1950s Johnson brand outboard motors for the main body, stainless steel cat bowls, kitchen hinges, nails for the teeth, electrical conduits, fiber glass, custom laser cut aluminum parts molded with a hydraulic press for the fins, and automotive paint with chromed and polished parts to create these hybrid creatures that appear to come from a 19th century vision of the future.

Very much like the Argentinian collective Center for Art and Communication (CAyC) in the 70s and 80s, the artist conceives his installations as a multidisciplinary space in which to explore the relationship between art, science, environment and society. The deep-sea fish in 27 Fish were created in a retro-futuristic style, incorporating kinetic movement and light.

A Black Man in the World:
Selections from the Robert E. Holmes Collection
Curated by Marisa Caichiolo

For Bob Holmes who calls himself “a citizen of the world,” his art collection is a reflection of his life and times. The history of both colonial oppression by Europeans in Africa, the Caribbean, and Central and South America, and the history of slavery in the United States have created a warped perception of Black people as they have moved, or been forced to move, throughout the world. That perception has often created a narrow impression of Black people’s and other peoples of colors’ interests, limitations, possibilities and futures.

Holmes says, “As one steps out of the manner in which he is perceived, challenges widely held perceptions about the Black body, travels throughout the world and accumulates broad interests, that accumulated knowledge and experience can lift one out of seeing and being seen in a purely racial context, while at the same time, standing firmly upon the foundation of one’s ethnic culture.” In Holmes’ particular case, those tenets have enriched his life beyond the prescribed boundaries of narrow perceptions and identity, and have led to a broad collection of art that reflects his appreciation and love of rich cultural identities of so-called ethnic categories.

In his wide collection we can find a diverse offering of cultures through artists such as Dan McCleary, Matsumi Kanemitsu, Derrick Maddox, Charles White, Romare Bearden, Gronk, Deni Ponty, Betty Parsons, Elizabeth Catlett, David Alfaro Siquieros and Aime Mpane, among many others.

Nodrissx/Narcissx: Performance – Dorian Wood
Curated by Marisa Caichiolo

Artist Dorian Wood seeks to glorify both the sanctity and irreverence of intimacy. Through the use of their corpulent body and booming voice, Wood revels in challenging the artist-audience separation, using subject matter informed by their own position in society as a non-binary person of color and an autodidact without a formal college education nor a strong alliance to any particular community.

For “Nodrissx/Narcissx,” the artist will be in a chair in the center of a darkened room, covered from head to toe in a cloth, with a slit that exposes their left breast. The artist will have a microphone propped in front of their face. Attendees are invited to kneel in front of the artist and suckle on artist’s breast. Attendees may suckle on the breast for as long as they want. During the performance installation, artist will vocalize to a 4-channel soundscape created solely by artist’s voice.

Wood’s work has been showcased in concert halls and performance spaces around the world, including at such institutions as The Broad (Los Angeles), LACMA (Los Angeles), The Stone (NYC), MASS Gallery (Austin), Kulturhuset (Stockholm), and Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin). As a musician, they have released over a dozen recordings, among them two back-to-back albums, Rattle Rattle and Down, The Dirty Roof, showcasing a series of doomsday-themed songs that incorporate over 60 musicians. Their most recent album, XALÁ, marks the first time that Wood has recorded a full-length work in their mother tongue of Spanish.

You should wear your revolution: Performance – Sarah Trouche
Curated by Marisa Caichiolo

Sarah Trouche is a French visual artist who uses performance, photography, video and sculpture in her practice. She uses her body as a social and political tool. Trouche’s work is centered around cultural and political issues such as migration and displacement, and invites us to question the major challenges we face today.

For the “You should wear your revolution” project, Trouche is committed to research on women’s emancipation, inspired by the history of France during the French Revolution and the movement of the “Sans culottes.”

Sarah Trouche will perform using hundreds of underwear that she has collected, washed and dyed beforehand. Through this action, she imagines a manifesto around the notion of female emancipation, radical and collective.

Boho Highs & Visual Drive-bys: Adah Glenn
Curated by Mar Hollingsworth, Visual Arts Curator,
California African American Museum
and James Panozzo, LAUNCH LA
Presented by LAUNCH LA

Adah Glenn, also known as “AfroPuff,” is a Los Angeles-based artist, designer, and entrepreneur. Graffiti, hip-hop, punk, and rock, as well as Japanese anime, inform her work. Her practice is multidisciplinary, extending broadly from murals, paintings on canvas and shaped board, prints, art quilts, and books, to digital art and animation. Glenn has also ventured into the applied arts, creating wearable art, such as hats and jewelry, and toys, including fabric dolls and resin collectable figurines. Most recently, Glenn has embarked in performance art, that provides her an opportunity to integrate her many creative impulses.

Glenn’s art is vibrant and colorful, multi-layered, and highly textural. As an African American woman, she often interweaves themes of race and gender politics in her work. Adah Glenn: Boho Highs & Visual Drive-bys presents a wide selection of her many talents in many mediums. The exhibit not only celebrates ethnic and cultural pride, music, and the female form, but also features a selection of Glenn’s poignant social commentary works.

PING PONG
Presented by Los Angeles Art Association

Los Angeles Art Association is pleased to present Ping Pong, an independent exhibition project founded in 2007 to cultivate artistic interaction and exchange between selected cities Basel, Miami and Los Angeles.

This iteration of Ping Pong at the 2019 LA Art Show will feature artists Pam Doulas, Jerry Haenggli, Cathy Immordino, Sue Irion, Dan Künzler, Sungjae Lee and Elizabeth Tobias, and mirrors the commonalities and conflicts surging through our culture in 2019. Each artist’s singular vision is maintained while adapting to the aesthetic and cultural aesthetic imposed by their fellow artists. Sungjae Lee’s expansive piece Her Real Secret and Elizabeth Tobias’ performance Survivor! Share Your 98 Second Story are both timely reflections on the state of gender politics and identity. Pam Douglas and Cathy Immordino share a fascination with historical relevance but differ dramatically in execution and approach. Furthermore, Jerry Haenggli and Dan Künzler share a certain Swiss formality that approaches narrative with opposing emotive centers.

Ping Pong strives to show both the similarities and differences in the various cultural landscapes represented. While the artists represented in Ping Pong have shifted over the years and venues, the spirit of artist-centered collaboration and ambition remain intact.

Survivor! Share Your 98 Second Story: Performance – Elizabeth Tobias
Presented by Los Angeles Art Association

Elizabeth Tobias will amplify her fusion of social practice, performance and sound to debut Survivor! Share your 98 Second Story at 2019 The Los Angeles Art Show. This immersive project addresses the sexual assault epidemic, one of the most pervasive, yet most underreported crimes. Survivor! addresses the staggering statistic that every 98 seconds, there is a sexual assault in America.

Weaving together spoken word and improvised sound, Elizabeth Tobias will perform with an ensemble of artist survivors to collectively promote needed awareness and advocacy for sexual assault survivors in the art community and throughout the public sphere.

Those victimized by violence often lack the support and resources needed to come forward. For artists who have been impacted by the trauma of sexualized assault, rarely, if ever, are there adequate opportunities to create work that addresses their stories within and beyond the larger art community.

Dr Jennifer Freyd, expert in the field of interpersonal violence, has identified that the act of speaking out has a measurable impact on decreasing violence. Consequently, the performance has the potential to directly reduce the statistics. Survivor! Share Your 98 Second Story is a ground breaking new performance that addresses trauma, courage and continuance.

Art Lives Here: S. C. Mero
Presented by Art Share L.A.

Art Share L.A. has partnered with skid-row based, emerging guerrilla artist S.C. Mero to bring a taste of the streets of Downtown Los Angeles to LA Art Show. Embodying the nature of downtown, the onsite installation pieces are just a teaser to the larger site map of her work – which guides attendees into downtown to explore our community under the guise of a pseudo street art scavenger hunt. Each of her site-specific, clever creations calls attention to issues surrounding homelessness, gentrification, drug use, global warming, and more. The goal of this project is to encourage further exploration of underground art, arts activism, and social justice in the Downtown community in a way that is inviting and accessible for everyone.

DIVERSEartLA 2018

Metaphysical Orozco: José Clemente Orozco
Curated by Laura Ayala, MUSA
Co-Curated by Marisa Caichiolo

The Museum of the Arts of the University of Guadalajara, Mexico (MUSA) presents Metaphysical Orozco, shown for the first time ever in the United States.

The images, projected by a multi-layer mapping, belong to the murals made by the artist between 1935 and 1937 at the auditorium known as Paraninfo, inside the building in which is located the Museum of the Arts.

The installation involves the public in an exploration of the fields of thought found within Orozco’s murals, as well as the history and themes that inspired them.

The projection of the master works will be accompanied by a musical soundtrack, giving visitors a comprehensive sensory experience that will be complemented by informative graphic material.

IF YOU DRINK HEMLOCK, I SHALL DRINK IT WITH YOU or A BEAUTIFUL DEATH; player to player, pimp to pimp.
(As performed by the inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade): Daniel Joseph Martinez
Curated by Chon Noriega
Presented by LACMA and the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center

Daniel Joseph Martinez’s immersive environment references Jacques-Louis David’s seminal portrait The Death of Marat (1793), painted and also reproduced shortly after Marat’s assassination during the French Revolution. Whereas David’s painting represents a single moment, both sanitized and accurate in its details, Martinez creates a mise en scène using three life-like sculptures modeled after the artist’s own body. These depict Marat in his bath as well as assassin Charlotte Corday and Martinez himself both standing behind Marat (each with a bloodied dagger in hand).

Martinez stages Marat’s assassination as a public spectacle surrounded by bleachers, although viewers can also immerse themselves within the scene, no doubt taking selfies. In this way, Martinez connects David’s painting with our present moment, giving a historical dimension for modern politics as a form of theater, sport, and business. But Martinez pushes even further. The Death of Marat quickly became iconic of the French Revolution, not because it depicted a public spectacle, but rather because it circulated a political image that focused attention on the personal and private. Once that happened, politics-as-spectacle was no longer dependent on public space – it was in our minds.

“Left” or “Right”/Punching Bags:Antuan Rodriguez
Curated by Marisa Caichiolo

Left or Right is a healing project curated by Marisa Caichiolo. The interactive installation depicts different world leaders and tyrants, and will allow the spectator, through the punching of the bags, to release anger, hatred and resentment. This release of negative emotions will transform these objects into tools of detoxification and mental healing.

Current global politics has created an environment of disrespect for humanity and our planet. Lack of harmony, senseless war, violence, racism, ignorance, loss of values and principles, lack of consciousness, super egos and demagoguery, corruption, disrespect of women, false promises, and outright lies.

DIVERSEartLA 2017

Raphael Montañez Ortiz
Piano Destruction Ritual: Cowboy and Indian, Part Two
Couch Destruction: Angel Release (Pennies from Heaven)
Shred Your Worries part of FRAGMENTS FROM HOME
Curated By Chon Noriega
Presented by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

Part of Fragments From Home, a preview of Home So Different, So Appealing
Opening on June 7, 2017 as part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA

THE WORK
There is Passive ART and Active ART. Active ART requires you to participate.

PIANO DESTRUCTION RITUAL: COWBOY AND INDIAN, PART TWO
Participatory Performance. Background Sound Thunder and Lighting. The Piano is a powerful instrument of sound to convey the message of Sacrifice I wish to convey to the Universe. The Sounds of its Destruction gives full voice to Sacrifice: To the Destruction Creation in it cycle of Creation is giving us time to understand the preciousness of Mortal Life that it never be given up to or for Sacrifice of any kind…

View Couch Destruction: Angel Release (Pennies from Heaven)

Carlos Martiel | Cauce/Riverbed
Curated By Marisa Caichiolo

THE WORK
In his work “Cauce/Riverbed,” the artist exposes the significant challenges faced by immigrants in California and the larger United States. Martiel digs deep into the nature of undocumented immigration and shows how it impacts the lives of some eleven million individuals and their families in the world’s most powerful nation.

His performance is a window to the human tragedy that grossly affects immigrants with low-education levels and limited English language skills, who come to the United States risking their lives as they venture into the dangerous desert in an attempt to cross the Mexico-US border. As Martiel shows, despite the highly-publicized “American Dream,” for these poor and uneducated immigrants, making it alive into US territory does not necessarily guarantee access to better opportunities or to a higher quality of life.