The Harrisons, “Survival Piece II: Notations on the Ecosystem of the Western Saltworks with the Inclusion of Brine Shrimp” (1972), three ecosystems of Artemia brine shrimp, salt, and algae (via vsf.la)
Tania Bruguera on Transforming Affect intoPolitical Effectiveness
When: Tuesday, January 24, 6–8pm
Where: University of Southern California (Wong Auditorium
Harris Hall 101, University Park, Los Angeles)
For three decades, Cuban artist Tania Bruguera has fearlessly challenged systems of repression, injustice, and inequality through socially oriented performance works. The Cuban government has not always looked favorably on her speaking truth to power, resulting in her being detained on several occasions. As part of the USC Roski Talks series, her upcoming lecture will address Transforming Affect into Political Effectiveness, a subject especially relevant for our nation’s current political moment.
Tania Bruguera (photo by Hugo Huerta Marin, via roski.usc.edu)
FAR Bazaar
When: Saturday, January 28–Sunday, January 29, 10am–10pm daily
Where: Cerritos College (Old Fine Arts Building, 11110 Alondra Blvd, Norwalk, California)
The nonprofit Foundation for Art Resources (FAR) was founded in 1977 in order to support artists who were pushing the boundaries of conventional art-making. Their activities ranged from a long-running monthly lecture series to public artworks, residencies, and fellowships. On the occasion of their 40th anniversary, they have organized a two-day alternative art fair, FAR Bazaar, that will bring together MFA programs including Otis, CalArts, UCLA, and USC, alongside artist-run spaces and collectives Adjunct Positions, Monte Vista Projects, Elephant, KCHUNG, and many more. The event will be held at the Cerritos College Fine Arts complex, which is set to be demolished next month.
Cerritos College Fine Arts Complex (via Facebook)
Incendiary Traces and Goya’s War
When: Opening Reception Saturday, January 28, 5–7pm
Where: Pomona College Museum of Art (330 N. College Avenue, Claremont, California)
The way we experience contemporary war and conflict is often mediated by technology, seeming no more real than a video game. Two exhibitions at the Pomona College Museum of Art challenge this perception. Incendiary Traces is an art and research project by Hillary Mushkin that examines the intersection of landscape, militarization, and surveillance, focusing on sites like the 29 Palms Military Base or the US–Mexico border. Goya’s War presents the complete set of Goya’s influential 1863 etchings Los Desastres de la Guerra, depicting wartime carnage that hasn’t lost its power to shock 150 years later.
Hillary Mushkin, “Radome, Northrop Grumman Aerospace HQ” (2012) (via pomona.edu)
The Harrisons
When: Opens Saturday, January 28, 2–5pm
Where: Various Small Fires (812 North Highland Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles)
The Santa Cruz–based husband and wife team of Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison, known as the Harrisons, are considered pioneering members, if not the founders, of the Ecological Art movement. Through a wide-ranging practice that encompasses sculpture, land art, video, and cross-disciplinary collaborations, the couple has focused on ecological issues for five decades. Their upcoming show at Various Small Fires will revisit significant works from their oeuvre, such as a “Brine Shrimp Farm” that will end with a communal meal, first shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in 1971, and new works like “Composting in the Pentagon with Worms” (2017), an active compost farm featuring 2,000 live worms.
Ulay: The Animist
Ulay, “The Animist” (1995), color print, documentation of the performance with the same title from Theater aan der Werf, Utrecht (via departfoundation.com)
When: Opens Saturday, January 28, 6–9pm
Where: Depart Foundation (9105 W Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, California)
The name Ulay may not be as well known as that of Marina Abramović, but the two were partners and collaborators from 1976–1988, a period during which they created a seminal series of body performances known as Relation Works. Taking its name from a 1995 performance, The Animist presents work spanning his career, from experimental Polaroids of the early 1970s to later travel–based photographic works.
Jimmie Durham, “Something…Perhaps a Fugue or an Elegy” (2005), cameras, television, VHS player, amplifier, tripod, steel pipes, hardware, PVC pipes, plas¬tic, rope, acrylic paint, pine, seashell, brass heads, cast marble-dust head, oak box, glass bottle, wood furniture parts, tree branches, tire, mirrors, metal lock, metal chains, lights, wires, plywood pallets, armadillo shell, cow skull and bones, ink on paper, 71 × 275 ½ x 63 in. (image courtesy kurimanzutto, Mexico City, via hammer.ucla.edu)
Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World
When: Opens Sunday, January 29
Where: Hammer Museum (10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Westwood, Los Angeles)
Jimmie Durham has had a long and peripatetic career, from his hometown of Washington, Arkansas, to a period as an activist with the American Indian Movement, to the downtown New York art scene of the ’80s, and later Mexico and Europe, where he has lived for the past 20 years. Despite his international acclaim, he has had few recent shows in the US. At the Center of the World is his first North American retrospective featuring 200 works ranging from sculptural assemblages to collage, painting, performance, and video that deftly weave the personal and political.
