Allan Kaprow
This week on the blog we visited the new exhibition Paris De Noche at Night Gallery; we had a review on the last days at Art Basel Miami; we passed by Faire des Fleurs, a show curated by Camille Azaïs at Florence Loewy; we heard about a new limited edition: Initiation; and we finally saw Pacific Sun, a stop-motion film by photographer Thomas Demand.
When I first thought about an exhibition at Night Gallery my instinct was to tear down all the walls, which I thought created difficult triangular areas and didn’t offer long distance viewing of the work that would be possible in an emptier space. I proposed this idea to Mieke and Davida who both considered it but ultimately didn’t want to make such a dramatic change. They had a hand in the design of the space with architect Peter Zellner and had invested a lot of emotion and money into it.
The odd angles of the plan and my desire to see work from far away reminded me somehow of my longstanding interest in urban planning and how it relates to hanging an exhibition. Unable to do a destructive renovation à la Haussmann, I realized that I could just think on a different scale about the space to afford the views I wanted. I started to think of Amy’s Ladder as an Eiffel Tower and she had also mentioned making some kind of fountain. I also wanted to make a series of paintings that look like building facades and show them all in a row, and could imagine looking down a boulevard of paintings with Ladder-Monument at the end of it. Each artist of the group show could create different “arrondissements” of work, connected across the oddly angled vistas.
The title Paris de Noche contains references to the nature of the neighborhood around Night Gallery, of art galleries as a spearhead of gentrification (Haussmanization?) of industrial and traditionally Mexican neighborhoods, to the joyful cynicism behind Kippenberger’s “Capri at Night” which I read as a critique/enjoyment of the aspirational fantasy behind the name of Ford Capri, as well as an embrace of the dowdiness of post-war Germany and later Los Angeles (the restaurant “Capri”).
When I saw Andrei’s corrugated fence paintings, which together formed a kind of wall, I thought they perfectly reflected the beauty of the trashed industrial non-site surrounding Night Gallery.
Amy Yao, Silent Sneeze II, no. 7 (lux), 2014 synthetic rice paper, fiberglass, polyester resin 9 x 18 in. (22.9 x 45.7 cm)
Pentti Monkkonen 2 Rue Michael Jackson, 2014 fiberglass, aluminum, steel, enamel 72 x 43 in. (182.9 x 109.2 cm)
Andrei Koschmieder Untilted (Shredder), 2014 paper, glue, resin 87 x 74 in. (221 x 188 cm
Pentti Monkkonen Dandelion, 2014 bronze, stainless steel, acrylic 24 x 24 x 82 in. (61 x 61 x 208.3 cm) Edition of 9, 2 AP
When you’re in my hut
You know what’s up
Let your mind be free
Relax your body
(Pentti Monkkonen, from the press release)
Until December 20th
2276 E 16th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90021
Shakespeare and Company | Paris
May 5 – 11, 2014
The Henry Miller Memorial Library, a non-profit art center in Big Sur, California, presents Aller Retour Paris, a week-long festival that will celebrate the city’s role in shaping Henry Miller as a writer and raconteur.
The week will include art, poetry, dinner parties, film, music, and more! The festival will be anchored by a pop-up bookstore at the legendary Shakespeare and Company (37 Rue de La Bucherie) that will include an exhibit of rare manuscripts, letters, and books.
Highlights of the festival include:
Thursday May 8 at 8pm: Henry Miller Library in Paris Soirée at Chez Jenny, 39, Boulevard du Temple. The evening will include a three-course meal, some wine, music, and talks from, Jim Haynes, host of Paris Sunday Dinners and author of “Homage to Henry Miller,” Mary Duncan, writer and advisor to the Henry Miller Library Board, writer Katy Masuga, and more.
Saturday May 10 5-6:30 pm: Parisian premiere of “Big Sur the Michael Polish film based on the Jack Kerouac novel, at Cinéma le Grand Action, 5 rue des Ecoles. “‘Big Sur’ cracks the code of how to adapt Jack Kerouac for the screen”(New York Times.) Price is 8 Euros / $10 USD, advance tickets available online HERE and at Shakespeare and Company. The program starts at 5PM with a slideshow of photographs of the Big Sur coast by fine art photographer Kodiak Greenwood – not to be missed! Special guests Vilmos Zsigmond and Jean-Marc Barr.