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 Performing Economies A Kitty Chester Curator’s Lab project curated by Elana Mann May 14 - July 26, 2009 9:27 - 7:49pm The Fellows of Contemporary Art (FOCA) announces the second exhibit in our recently rededicated Kitty Chester Series of Curator’s Laboratory Projects entitled Performing Economies curated by Elana Mann. In Performing Economies each artist and collective involved engages in practices that embody collaborative strategies and systems of exchanges. The exhibition presents visual artwork by Los Angeles based artists and collaborations, including CamLab (Anna Mayer and Jemima Wyman), Liz Glynn, Marc Herbst, Ahsley Hunt and Taisha Paggett, Elana Mann, and Vincent Ramos. Accompanying the exhibit will be a series of weekly programs led by Los Angeles-based artists and art collectives that relate to the gallery exhibition. These will include events by ArtSpa, Artists for Social Justice, John Burtle and John Barlog, Dorit Cypis and Foreign Exchanges and the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest. Further information about these events will be posted at www.focala.org. Performing Economies will bring together a group of Los Angeles based artists and collaborations whose artwork seeks to concretize possible futures in a time of economic ruin and never-ending war. All of these artists involved in “Performing Economies” explore various strategies of participation, collaboration and community engagement in order to create alternative economies of activism and intimacy. The gallery space will highlight artwork from six artists and collaboratives. Each showcases strategies of political and social action that produce innovative systems of exchange and dialog. CamLab (Ana Mayer and Jemima Wyman) will ceate architectures for multiple bodies by creating a two-part costume to be occupied by a series of performers. With this creation, they will literalize their collaborative process and disrupt conventional ideas about autonomous bodies. Liz Glynn deals with the ancient Greek artifacts that were illegally acquired by the Getty Museum by hosting workshops where participants recreate the artifacts with trash from the streets of Los Angeles. Marc Herbst will present a comic book that anticipates the environmental and economic certitudes of the near future and outlines the next five years of fashion, including re-interpretations of the notion of success and re-branding the practice of sharing. Taisha Paggett and Ashley Hunt will draw from their work with the Los Angeles based Garment Workers’ Center, to conduct movement and discussion workshops that form a basis for video, photographic or performance based works. Elana Mann will explore the underground economies of Echo Park, including “Select Patrol,” a private peace keeping company, and “The Echo Park Time Bank,” an alternative structure treating time as currency. Vincent Ramos will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of Chubby Checker’s version of “The Twist” by creating a series of drawings that function as “contractual” invitations to his artist peers, individuals whom he want to “twist” with. In addition, weekly programming will feature performances, workshops, film screenings and discussions. ArtSpa, created and facilitated by Adam Overton, will present a series of workshops and events geared toward expanding and enhancing local artists’ visionary and healing abilities. Artists for Social Justice will be creating a day-long event entitled the Free Free Market, a forum for sharing and gifting designed to validate giving and exchange models. John Burtle and John Barlog plan to interact with the structure of the Fellows of Contemporary Art and inserting performative gestures within the gallery space. Dorit Cypis, an artist and mediator, will offer a workshop on tools for collaborative strategies that explores methods and techniques of working within a community. The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest will organize a “group think” involving art collectives and collaborative groups across the United States. In each intervention into the gallery space, these entities will share thoughts, strategies, and ideas about new, experimental modes of operation at a time of economic woe, when arts funding and support is dramatically decreasing. The live programs as well as the objects in the gallery space collectively perform, propose and reveal potential in spite of turbulent times. About the curatorElana Mann is a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, CA. Mann creates artwork through systems of exchange and conversation, revealing the struggle between communication and control. Her artwork probes the theatrics of everyday life and investigates the collapse of social/political spaces through a variety of mediums including performance, sound, video, installation and curatorial projects. In 2007 Mann graduated with an MFA from CalArts and has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. Mann recently organized Exchange Rate: 2008 an international performance project in response to the US presidential elections. Mann’s projects have been reviewed in the Los Angeles Times, NPR, Artweek, O Globo, O Jornal do Brasil, La Republicca and El Pais. For more information please visit www.elanamann.com. About the Kitty T. Chester Series of Curator’s Laboratory ProjectsThe Fellows of Contemporary Art (FOCA) is pleased to present the exhibition Performing Economies as the second show in our recently rededicated Kitty Chester Series of Curator’s Laboratory Projects. Catherine (Kitty) Chester bequeathed FOCA $10,000, and the Board of Directors is inspired by her lifetime commitment to philanthropy in support of artists and curators. Kitty was a long time member of FOCA and past Chair. Kitty offered generous support to a number of arts organizations in Southern California. About the Fellows of Contemporary ArtFOCA has played a unique and significant role in the development of art in California by sponsoring major exhibitions of contemporary California art, awarding FOCAFellowships to mid-career California artists and most recently with the Curator’s Laboratory based in our office/exhibition space in Chinatown. We are a nonprofit corporation that was formed in 1975 in Los Angeles with a commitment to and passion for contemporary art. Supported by an active and enthusiastic membership drawn primarily, but not exclusively, from Southern California, it includes collectors and individuals knowledgeable about art, as well as those who feel the passion and want to learn more about the art of today. |
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