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LA><ART PRESENTS THE LOS ANGELES CITY PAVILION IN COLLABORATION WITH...
Oct 2 - Dec 31, 2012 For the first time in its history the 9th Shanghai Bienniale will feature City Pavilions encompassing over thirty cities. Curator Lauri Firstenberg of LA><ART has selected LA-based artist Walead Beshty to produce the Los Angeles Pavilion. http://www.shanghaibiennale.org/presentation/rediscovery-city-pavilions/ |
Press Release
For the first time in its history the 9th Shanghai Bienniale will feature City Pavilions encompassing over thirty cities. Curator Lauri Firstenberg of LA><ART has selected LA-based artist Walead Beshty to produce the Los Angeles Pavilion.
Beshty’s artistic research focuses on the ever-expanding economies of scale driving China’s counterfeit goods industry. The works in this series extend the familiar logic of copying and cribbing to the artist’s own studio practice. The replica photographs and publications in the Pavilion embrace the inevitability of mistranslation that is the trademark of the mass-produced counterfeit.
Beshty’s exhibition will feature the following works: Travel Pictures…Nanjing Ligong (2012), Kelong (2012), Make Ready 4…, Selected Correspondences 2001-2010 (Damiani Editore) (2012) and a takeaway newspaper. In total, the exhibition addresses how intellectual property law suspends meaning and distorts cultural symbols by encumbering their more liberal application in varied contexts, such as China.
The original suite of Travel Pictures,consisting of prints of film from the Iraqi embassy marked by high-powered airport X-ray luggage scanners, was exhibited at the Whitney Museum, New York, and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. This third iteration features scans of the hole-punched negatives that were sent to China for digital correction and framed by framers in Chinese.
Make-ready is a printing term. It refers to sheets that are used in the process of inking plates or “junk sheets” that have already been printed on for previous jobs. The result is an overlay of multiple publications at one time, which speaks to other, unrelated activities of the print house. Make Ready 4 will be produced from the make-ready signature sheets of the 9th Shanghai Biennale catalog. The Make Ready works are produced during the printing of exhibition and monographic catalogs, exhibition posters and ephemera.
Kelong is a display of six different replica versions of the same Céline “mini luggage” handbag that were purchased in Shanghai markets. Here they are presented on pedestals. The quality of the bags ranges from exact replica to deficient fake.
The takeaway tabloid-style broadsheet will contain articles describing copyright infringement cases and brand identity.
The Los Angeles Pavilion is curated by LA><ART Director/Curator Lauri Firstenberg. The Pavilion’s Curatorial Assistant is Amanda Hunt, LA><ART’s Curator.
ABOUT LA><ART
Founded in 2005, LA><ART is a leading independent nonprofit contemporary art space in Los Angeles, committed to the production of experimental exhibitions and public art initiatives. Responding to Los Angeles’ cultural climate, LA><ART produces and presents new work for all audiences and offers the public access to the next generation of artists and curators. LA><ART supports challenging work, reflecting the diversity of the city and stimulates conversations on contemporary art in Los Angeles, fostering dynamic relationships between art, artists and their audiences. Since 2005, LA><ART has produced and commissioned over 200 exhibitions, public initiatives, and projects.
In 2014, LA><ART will launch its Vision Campaign including The Occasional—a citywide exhibition and public art initiative. This LA platform continues the organization’s ongoing commitment to supporting artistic and curatorial freedom while focusing on commissioning new work in experimental contexts.
With generous support from ForYourArt.
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