The War on Drugs

Thomas Demand Lecture - September 7

Copyright Thomas Demand

Thomas Demand will speak at USC's Roski School of Fine Arts on September 7th from noon until 2pm. This is one of those moments where I almost wish I didn't have a day job. Almost. You should attend if you don't.

Info here.

Thursday Openings

A lot of good stuff happening tomorrow (which is downtown art walk night also):

Two concurrent shows at the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art: (I'm in this one)


"Analog to Digital"
July 9-September 2, 2011
Artwalk Reception: Thursday August 11, 7-9pm

John Baldessari, Gronk, Patti Heid, Dennis Hopper, Kathryn Jacobi,Luke Matjas, Miss Maytag Collective, Mark Mothersbaugh, Federico Solmi, Anneliese Varaldiev, Robert Williams, Joel-Peter Witkin

"Looking Forward: Ten Artists to Watch"
Selected by Edward Robinson, LACMA
August 11-September 2, 2011
Thursday August 11, 7-9pm

Toban Nichols
Amy Snell
Anthony Holmquist
Louis Jacinto
Karine Laval
Kathleen Hawkes
Lucio Carvalho
Paul Adams
J. Wesley Brown
Matthew Cella



"I Love L.A."

Thursday, August 11, 7 pm - 9 pm
Wilshire Grand Hotel, 930 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles CA 90017
Meet the artists, have a book signed, view the works from this collection.

If you can't make the opening reception for the artists, the show installs at Duncan Miller Gallery, 10959 Venice Blvd in West LA on Saturday August 13 and runs through September 17. There will be another reception on Saturday, Aug 13, 7-10 pm in the gallery.

L.A. Times article here.

LACMA’S PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTS COUNCIL PRESENTS:

COLLECTORS’ FAVORITES

August 11 – 27, 2011

Stephen Cohen Gallery

7358 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036

The Photographic Arts Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Stephen Cohen Gallery are pleased to announce COLLECTORS’ FAVORITES, a special exhibition of photographs on loan from private collections of members of LACMA’s Photographic Arts Council (PAC) hosted by Stephen Cohen Gallery. A public opening will take place on Thursday, August 11^th, 7:00-9:00 p.m.

On view will be over 60 art works, ranging from early photographs of the 1880s to works of the present day. This exhibition will feature such masters of photography as Karl Struss, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Ruth Bernard, Bruce Davidson, James Van Der Zee, W. Eugene Smith, and Heinrich Kühn, as well as works by artists discovered by PAC collectors. COLLECTORS’ FAVORITES reflects the diverse passions and interests of PAC’s members, counting among their ranks many leading California photography collectors. The prints on display will be accompanied by brief statements from each collector, explaining his or her thoughts on collecting and reasons for exhibiting specific photographs.

Get your Cyanotype on.

LA Night by Colin Rich

Pretty stunning. Probably best to click through and watch in on Vimeo directly.

LA Light from Colin Rich on Vimeo.

Book Signing - Simone Lueck at Kopeikin

As part of a second opening reception for Simone Lueck and Jeffrey Millstein's Cuba-themed show at Paul Kopeikin, Lueck will be signing books for her official launch party of her new book, Cuba TV.

There will also be a food truck and appropriately, rum cocktails.

Kopeikin Gallery

2766 La Cienega Blvd.

Saturday, August 13

6-9 pm

You're Invited from Simone Lueck on Vimeo.

Quote of the Week - T.S. Eliot

"The main idea — that efforts at paraphrasing poetry into prose fail in ways that parallel attempts for prose do not — was not new. It has been generally agreed upon since Aristotle. This skeptical thesis was championed in the first half of the 20^th century by the New Critics as well as by their guiding spirit, T.S. Eliot, who, when asked to interpret the line “Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper tree in the cool of the day…” from his poem “Ash Wednesday,” responded, “It means ‘Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper tree in the cool of the day.’ ”

- T.S. Eliot via this article in the Times that relates quite well, I think to the attempt to verbalize photographs.

Boehner

Copyright AP

I'm not sure who took it- it's simply listed as "Associated Press." I don't think the Associated Press can click a shutter button but getting back on topic, I love this shot. It looks like a Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Click to see it a bit bigger.

Via

In Focus: The Sky @ Getty - July 26th

Copyright John Divola

In Focus: The Sky opens on Tuesday, July 26th at the Getty and runs through December 4th...wowsers. There is a great PDF containing ten images from the show available for viewing here. Don't you wish more museums did that? Don't you wish they'd put them all online?

Generations of artists have found inspiration in the sky, which became a rich subject for the medium of photography after it was introduced in 1839. Drawn from the J. Paul Getty Museum's permanent collection, this exhibition explores the genre through the history of photography, including works by Gustave Le Gray, Alfred Stieglitz, André Kertész, and John Divola. Four sections—urban skies, clouds, dark skies, and skies in color—give an overview of the diverse and imaginative ways photographers have approached this theme.

Summer Show at Duncan Miller Projects

Copyright Aline Smithson

'Several months ago, Dan Miller of the Duncan Miller Gallery in Los Angeles asked me to curate a summer show for his satellite gallery, Duncan Miller Projects, located in Santa Monica, CA. After thinking long and hard about a new template idea for a gallery, we came up with the idea of making it more of a store, with lots of inventory, and featuring work that is approachable, evocative, and affordable. Dan is also opening the gallery every Wednesday evening so folks in the neighborhood can wander in, and photographers can bring friends and collectors throughout the run of the show." - Aline Smithson

Sixteen Los Angeles photographers: Nancy Baron, Michael Cannon, Marian Crostic, Karen Florek, Cat Gwynn, Bootsy Holler, Liz Huston, Kelli Knack, Stella S. Lee, Gray Malin, Ann Mitchell, Steven Rood, Aline Smithson, Charley Star, and Ashly Stohl, will be on exhibition. The show opens this Thursday, July 21st and runs through September 3rd.

The gallery is located at 1716 1/2 Ocean Park in Santa Monica, CA and is open Thurs- Sat from 11-6, and every Wed night from 7-9pm.

UPDATE: A second opening will be on Wednesday, July 27th from 7-9pm.

One More - Street Sights @ Armory

Copyright Grant Mudford

Street Sights is currently up at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena.

"Street Sight takes into account the factors that contributed to the post-war shift in Southern California-based photography from imagery that was picturesque, image-oriented, and anecdotal in nature, to a more conceptually motivated style of representation and object-making that was decisively suburban, process-oriented, and experiential.Exhibiting artists will include Adam Bartos, Darryl Curran, Bevan Davies, John Divola, Judy Fiskin, Robbert Flick, Dennis Hopper, Graham Howe, Grant Mudford, Jane O’Neal, Marvin Rand, Seymour Rosen, Ed Ruscha, Julian Wasser, and Terry Wild."

LAT Review here.

Catch a glimpse of the show here.

Vacation / Opening Sat

I'm off to the lake for a week of vacation so the blog will be taking a break along with me.

Before I go, there's a Cuba-themed, two-person show opening this Saturday at Kopeikin from 6-8pm. If you're like me and have to miss this one, there will be another on August 6th.

Lueck's Cuban TV's have been turned into a book, which comes out next month and can be pre-ordered here.

Jeffrey Milstein - Cuba: In the Streets

Simone Lueck - Cuba: TV

Saturday, July 16, 6-8 pm

Kopeikin Gallery

2766 La Cienega Blvd.

Copyright Simone Lueck

Copyright Jeffrey Milstein

Opening Thursday - LeRoy Grannis @ M+B

"In celebration of LeRoy Grannis’ legacy and his great contributions to both the surfing and art communities, M+B is pleased to present a commemorative exhibition of LeRoy Grannis’ photographs to honor his legendary career. Documenting the Golden Age of Surfing—the Sixties and Seventies—Grannis was the first to capture the purity, soul and lifestyle of a seminal moment in American cultural history.

Dubbed the “godfather of surf photography” by The New York Times, Grannis supplanted himself as THE photographer that documented the birth of a generation spurred on by both the surf-film Gidget and the Beach Boys who created an entirely new youth subculture centered around the surfing lifestyle. Whether shooting surf-god (and surfing buddy) Greg Noll catching the big waves in Waimea Bay or a San Onofre parking lot filled with long boards, VW buses and surfer girls, Grannis’ work nostalgically embraces both the lost elegance of the sport as well as the idealization of this uniquely California lifestyle. Grannis’ poignant images record the decades’ surfing spirit and evoke a sense of timeless grace that greatly contrasts with the modern-day extreme sport and endorsement-filled notion of surfing."

Through 30th

Opening Thursday, July 14th from 6-8 pm

M+B

Opening Saturday - Analog to Digital at LACDA

Analog to Digital - Los Angeles Center for Digital Art

July 9-September 2, 2011
Reception: Saturday, July 9 7-10PM

Curated by: Rex Bruce

Artists:
John Baldessari
Gronk
Patti Heid
Dennis Hopper
Kathryn Jacobi
Luke Matjas
Miss Maytag Collective
Mark Mothersbaugh
Federico Solmi
Anneliese Varaldiev
Robert Williams
Joel-Peter Witkin

Quote of the Week - Gerry Badger

"Having muscled in on the art world - albeit around its fringes - a lot of photography became aflicted by the very malaise affecting modernist painting, then undergoing what many now see as its terminal crisis. Many photographers - now would-be "artists" - turned from making pictures about the world to making photographs about the medium. Photography rapidly became coyly self-referential, reduced to formal gesture and bland decoration."

- Gerry Badger

Via