Guerrilla Girls, “Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into The Met. Museum?” (2012), 18 x 24 in. (via pomona.edu)
This week, there are performances from the Wooster Group and Heidi Duckler Dance Theater, the opening of new gallery Vacancy, a survey of 30 years of activism from the art world’s conscience, the Guerrilla Girls, and more!
Zackary Drucker, “Doormat”. “For only $80 you can wipe your feet on my face for a lifetime” (via the event’s facebook page)
Graduate Lecture Series: Zackary Drucker
When: Wednesday, January 21, 12–2pm
Where: USC Roski Graduate Fine Arts Building (3001 S. Flower Street, entrance on 30th St. between Flower and Figueroa, University Park, Los Angeles)
Zackary Drucker uses photography, video and performance to explore issues of gender, sexuality and identity, especially as they relate to transgender history. These range from intimate, diaristic photo essays, “She Gone Rogue,” a short film featuring trans icons Holly Woodlawn, Vaginal Davis, and Flawless Sabrina, and a recent turn as associate producer of the hit show Transparent. This Wednesday afternoon is a great opportunity to see the artist up close and personal when she will give a talk as part of USC Roski’s Graduate Lecture Series, free and open to all.
The Wooster Group: Early Shaker Spirituals. (Photo: Paula Court, via redcat.org)
The Wooster Group – Early Shaker Spirituals: A Record Album Interpretation
When: Begins Wednesday, January 21, 8:30pm
Where: REDCAT (631 West 2nd Street, Downtown, Los Angeles)
The Wooster Group emerged in downtown New York in the mid-1970s as a hotbed for experimental theater, counting among its members Spalding Gray and Willem Dafoe. The West Coast premiere of their latest work, Early Shaker Spirituals, opens Wednesday at Redcat for an 11-date run. This performance is based on a 1976 album of Shaker songs, recorded at the last surviving Shaker community in Sabbathday Lake, Maine. The company, including actress Frances McDormand, will sing all 20 tracks from side A of the LP, accompanied by reinterpretations of the ecstatic worship dances that gave the plain-living religious sect its name.
Laura Schawelka, “Crystal Pepsi Apple Ipod Dyson Airblade” (2014), HD Video (3:08) (via vacancyla.com)
Everything Speaks Twice
When: Opens Thursday, January 22, 6–9pm
Where: Vacancy (2524 1/2 James M Wood Boulevard, Westlake, Los Angeles)
Everything Speaks Twice, the inaugural show at new exhibition space Vacancy is loosely based around a fictional history of location’s former life as a hotel lobby in the 1920s. This is the first in a series of collaborative shows that began with an artists’ dinner 2–3 months in advance of the show, followed by the exhibition, and ending with the publication of a book.
Heidi Duckler Dance Theater: Parts and Labor (via welcometolace.org)
Parts and Labor Redux
When: Thursday, January 22, 8pm; Friday, January 23, 8pm
Where: LACE (6522 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, Los Angeles)
Twenty-three years after it premiered, the Heidi Duckler Dance Theater will be re-staging Parts and Labor, their 1992 performance based around the automobile. Originally called “pure junkyard art” by LA Times critic Lewis Segal, the choreographed piece features performers dancing on a 1970 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, as musicians from the Antenna Repairmen provide percussion by banging on discarded oil drums, and the car itself. Thursday night’s performance includes a talk with Duckler and the performers. Tickets are $40 ($20 for students and seniors) and are available here.
Brenna Youngblood: Project Series 50
Brenna Youngblood, “The Benevolent and The Malevolent” (2014), mixed media on canvas, 72 x 60 in. (via pomona.edu)
When: Opens Saturday, January 24, 5–7pm
Where: Pomona College Museum of Art (330 N. College Avenue, Claremont, CA)
Brenna Youngblood is one of the most interesting abstract painters around today, mixing expressionistic surfaces with collaged bits of found material. She inserts air fresheners, light bulbs, and plastic bags into her canvases, providing familiar moments amidst heavily-worked fields of color.
These pieces of mundane detritus — humble focal points — inject elements of language, memory and everyday life into her rough-scrubbed vein of abstraction.
Guerrilla Girls: Art in Action
When: Opens Saturday, January 24, 5–7pm
Where: Pomona College Museum of Art (330 N. College Avenue, Claremont, CA)
The Guerrilla Girls burst onto the scene 30 years ago, railing against the lack of equality for female artists and artists of color in the mainstream art world. Through posters, handbills, and interventions, their biting and humorous brand of art activism has grown to take on war, homelessness, and abortion rights. The wide-ranging influence of their direct and subversive protest graphics can be seen in contemporary works of social commentary, such as Micol Hebron’s Gallery Tally project. Art in Action covers their trajectory up to 2012 through 85 works from Pomona’s collection.
