ArtRx LA
LOS ANGELES — This week, there's a survey of video art from Latin America, a retrospective of work by assemblage artist Noah Purifoy, the opening of a fetish figurine shop, and more.
LOS ANGELES — This week, there’s a survey of video art from Latin America, a retrospective of work by assemblage artist Noah Purifoy, the opening of a fetish figurine shop, and more.
Ana Prvački
When: Opens Wednesday, June 3, 6—8pm
Where: 1301PE (6150 Wilshire Boulevard, Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles)
Serbian-born artist Ana Prvački creates humorous works that “attempt to reconcile etiquette and erotics” as she says on her website. For her first solo show at 1301PE, Prvački presents two bodies of work: Porn Scores, in which disembodied genitals playfully dance over sheet music, and “Tent, Quartet, Bows, and Elbows,” a performance for a string quartet inside a tent. As the music swells, the musicians’ movements grow more animated, frantically poking the tent’s walls and rendering the aural physical.
Recent Video From Latin America
When: Wednesday, June 3, 7pm
Where: The Getty Center (1200 Getty Center Drive, Brentwood, Los Angeles)
The Getty’s upcoming Latin American Video Art screening packs the work of seventeen artists into just 90 minutes. Ranging from the comical to the political, the program includes emerging as well as established artists. Featuring work from Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Central America, the museum will showcase video art from underrepresented parts of the region, much of it never seen before in the US.
Tongues Untied
When: Opens Saturday, June 6, 11am—6pm
Where: MOCA Pacific Design Center (8687 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood, California)
Marlon Riggs’s 1989 film Tongues Untied is a poetic and personal exploration of black gay identity that combines documentary footage with scripted performance. Made at the height of the AIDS crisis, it features gay men of color telling their own stories of desire, repression, and mourning, without filtering them through a white, heterosexual lens. This film provides the centerpiece for an exhibition of the same name, which also includes work by John Boskovich, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and other artists who were active during these “plague years.”
Richard Ankrom: The Curio Shop
When: Opens Saturday, June 6, 6—9pm
Where: Charlie James Gallery (969 Chung King Road, Chinatown, Los Angeles)
LA-based artist Richard Ankrom is perhaps best known for his Guerrilla Public Service projects such as altering freeway signs to make them more accurate. For his first show at Charlie James Gallery, Ankrom operates on a more intimate scale, recreating a figurine-filled Curio Shop. Instead of simply displaying these symbols of Koonsian kitsch, Ankrom outfits each one with a rubber fetish mask, imbuing formerly saccharine keepsakes with a touch of deviance.
Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada
When: Opens Sunday, June 7, 10am—7pm
Where: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) (5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles)
Alongside George Herms and Ed Kienholz, Noah Purifoy was one of the pioneers of postwar assemblage art in Los Angeles. Drawing inspiration — and raw materials — from the the streets of LA, some of his earliest sculptures were made from burned wreckage from the 1965 Watts Rebellion. In the late ’80s, he traded the city for the desert, moving to Joshua Tree where his Foundation and outdoor museum still stand. LACMA’s retrospective of his work, Junk Dada, is a long overdue chance to see the work of this underappreciated artist.
BCBG: Portraits
When: Closing Reception Sunday, June 7, 8pm
Where: LAST Projects (6546 Hollywood Blvd, Ste 215, Hollywood, Los Angeles)
Barbara Grossman’s Breakfast Club is composed of ten female artists who explore what it means to be just that through a range of media, including painting, video, sculpture, and animation. The closing reception for artists’ current show Portraits promises to bring all their projects together with a performance that throws karaoke into the mix. Featured artists include Sarah Bernat, Melinda Braathen, Tara Foley, Johanna Hauser, Chisa Hughes, Miriam Katz, Amy MacKay, Molly Purnell, Estelle Srivijittakar, and Meg Whiteford.
