ArtRx LA
LOS ANGELES — This week there's an Iranian New Year's celebration at LACMA, a performance festival at Bergamot Station, a 24-hour queer pornography marathon, and more.
LOS ANGELES — This week there’s an Iranian New Year’s celebration at LACMA, a performance festival at Bergamot Station, a 24-hour queer pornography marathon, and more.
Long Live LA
When: Wednesday, March 18, 7–9pm
Where: Mercado La Paloma (3655 S Grand Avenue, Figueroa Corridor, Los Angeles)
Freewaves — an organization dedicated to bringing media arts to the public — commissioned artists to create short videos on the topics of mental health, fitness and addiction. These 30 videos make up Long Live LA 2015, and will be on view in waiting rooms and websites of community health centers. Before they launch, there will be a screening and reception for the project at Mercado La Paloma, a community-based collection of independent restaurants and businesses.
Sesión Continua: A Porn Theater in Echo Park
When: Friday, March 20, 11:59pm–Saturday, March 21, 11:59pm
Where: Machine Project (1200 D North Alvarado, Echo Park, Los Angeles)
Presented by Dirty Looks: LA, Sesíon Continua is a 24-hour marathon of vintage gay & lesbian porn and experimental queer erotica. Fork over your $12, slide in through the side alley, and embark on a phantasmagoric journey through the golden age of homoerotic cinema. With no set times or schedules, visitors are encouraged to stay as long as they want, or come and go as they please.
Perfect Strangers Art & Performance Festival
When: Saturday, March 21, 1–4pm
Where: Bergamot Station (2525 Michigan Avenue, Santa Monica, California)
Amir H. Fallah is an unconventional portrait artist, inviting children to sculpt busts of their future, elderly selves, or using items bought at an estate sale to create depictions of the deceased. In conjunction with Perfect Strangers, his current show at 18th Street Art Center, Fallah is organizing an Art & Performance Festival at Bergamot Station. A slew of LA-based artists and musicians will respond to his work, while at the same time engaging with the expansive Bergamot complex.
Hairy Who & The Chicago Imagists Film Screening
When: Saturday, March 21, 7–9pm
Where: Armory Center for the Arts (145 N. Raymond Avenue, Pasadena, California)
Combining a bright, pop sensibility with a fetish for comics and a surrealist bent, the Chicago Imagists were largely dismissed by the mainstream art world when they emerged in the 1960’s. Presented in conjunction with Mysticism and Metaphysics in the Works of Sara Kathryn Arledge, Charles Irvin, Jim Shaw, this documentary is the first film to look at their work and influence on contemporary figurative art.
Remembering Forward: Conversations on Photography
When: Sunday, March 22, 4–6pm
Where: LA><ART (7000 Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood, Los Angeles)
Framed by Kierkegaard’s dialectic of repetition and recollection, Remembering Forward is a panel discussion about photography and temporality. Artists, writers, and curators including Gina Osterloh, A.L. Steiner, Shannon Ebner, and John Tain will explore how photographic images employ repetition to extend into the future, while recalling that which has already past. Organized in conjunction with LACMA’s Photography and Philosophy Symposium.
Nowruz Celebration
When: Sunday, March 22, 11:30am–7pm
Where: LACMA (5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles)
Nowruz happens but once a year so don’t miss this museum-wide Iranian New Year celebration at LACMA. The highlight is the world premiere of The Sounds of a Persian Spring by Zohreh Jooya, but there will also a costume parade, backgammon tournament (the game was played in Persia as early as 3000 BCE), and children’s activities. The event ends with tasty Persian cuisine and a performance by genre-bending Iranian rock band Kiosk.
