LA><ART

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT BETTINA KOREK

310-962-0399, LAXARTPRESS@LAXART.ORG

2640 SOUTH LA CIENEGA BOULEVARD           

LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA 90034

WWW.LAXART.ORG

LA><ART Presents the Los Angeles Debut of Tijuana-based collective TOROLAB and New York-based artist Leslie Hewitt

Exhibition runs May 27 – July 1, 2006 Opening reception Saturday May 27th 6-8pm

TOROLAB

SOS: EMERGENCY ARCHITECTURE

LA><ART is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition of TOROLAB in Los Angeles, SOS: Emergency Architecture, featuring the video 9 Families and a public art project that includes a billboard on La Cienega Boulevard. The public art initiatives at LA><ART are integral to our interest in mounting projects beyond the confines of the gallery.

Founded in 1995 by Raul Cárdenas Osuna in Tijuana, Mexico, TOROLAB is an interdisciplinary collective engaged in a series of experiments responding to the urban conditions of Tijuana. Working at the intersection of art, architecture, design, music and fashion, TOROLAB is interested in the complex matrix of relations between public and private, national and personal, individual and collective. Their project SOS: Emergency Architecture addresses questions of survival, emergency and camouflage in the urban context.

Focusing on the particular conditions of Tijuana’s urban interface, violence and poverty, TOROLAB responds with critical strategiesanddesignobjectivesthatstriveforimmediacyandcreativeresolution.

TOROLAB’sSOS:Emergency Architecture proposes to rescue materials from the local milieu, what they term “an emergency architecture.” This interdisciplinary project represents a critical examination of the border condition, addressing irregular housing environments and potential spaces for reassessment and negotiation.

TOROLAB is invested in redefining notions of emergency architecture – an architecture of possibility - an architecture necessary for the dynamic conditions of socio-political flexibility and exchange inherent to the border. TOROLAB recognizes that architecture is a social practice and interrogates these concrete human conditions, investing in community projects as facilitators rather than Architects.

The LA><ART project features the presentation of 9 Families, a video presentation marking the interviews and research with 9 families in a collaboration of “designing” a domestic community for the families, with the families.

The exhibition is complemented by a public project in the form of a billboard on La Cienega between Venice and Washington, imaging the women from the 9 Families collaboration.

TOROLAB’s billboard will be located on La Cienega between Venice and Washington facing north. The billboard will be mounted from June 5 through July 3 ,2006.

TOROLAB’s exhibition and billboard SOS:EmergencyArchitecture is made possible with the generous support of La Colección Jumex and Eloisa Haudenschild.

LESLIE HEWITT: MAKE IT PLAIN Curated by Jeffrey Uslip

LA><ART is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of New York based artist, Leslie Hewitt.

For LA><ART, Hewitt will present a new series of drawings and photo-sculptures. This debut exhibition in Los Angeles continues her investigation into the reciprocal relationship between sculptural and photographic forms. Hewitt approaches the problematics of space photographically; what she terms as a “simultaneous construction of ‘the real’ in the photograph through echoes of sculptural‘space’definedthroughtextureandmaterial.” The camera, as a reproductive technology, is manipulated by Hewitt in an attempt to interrogate the medium’s historical peformativity and its participation in the formation of culture. For Hewitt, the act of rephotographing personal relics and historical texts becomes a layered gesture of construction, exploring both the historical specificity and the multivalency of images.

Make It Plain, a series of monumental still life photographs leans against the wall and depicts snapshot photographs attached to a large wooden easel. Make It Plain's seemingly identical images contain subtle differences: in one image the archival photographs are rendered in complete darkness, whereas in another, blinding sunlight radiates through an unseen window to obfuscate the reading of the identical photograph.

Concurrently, Hewitt presents Ready to Battle, which consists of five large black and white ink drawings pinned to the wall in dialogue with additional drawings contained in displaced drawers on the floor. Here, Hewitt appropriates the language of the archive and related systems of display to address how cultural material is documented, classified, and preserved. Each drawing depicts a single iconic cosmetic product or object signifying instruments of personal beautification, such as a jar of pomade or a plastic comb. Hewitt depicts these objects in their most abstracted states, alluding to their inherent power as objects of ritual. Hewitt's use of drawing is an alternative means of decelerating perception and the impulse to document, capture and recognize essentializing visual imagery. As such, the drawings challenge representations and classifications of organizing social meaning and serve as a way of objectively documenting a cultural position.

LA><ART’s programming is made possible with the generous support of Anthony Grant, La Colección Jumex, Peter Norton Family Foundation, Alvin Hall, Danielson Foundation, The Audrey and Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation, E-flux and LA><ART’s Executive Board and Founding Members. In-kind support from Campari.

Editions

LA><ART’s inaugural edition by Edgar Arceneaux available by contacting editions@laxart.org

Special Event June 27th 6:30pm

Pablo Helguera: The School of Panamerican Unrest La Escuela Panamericana del Desasosiego at LA><ART www .panamericanismo.org

About LA><ART

Responding to Los Angeles’ cultural climate, LA><ART questions given contexts for the exhibition of contemporary art, architectureanddesign.

Witharenewedvisionforthepotentialofindependentartspaces,LA><ARTprovidesacenterfor interdisciplinary discussion and interaction and for the production and exhibition of new exploratory work. LA><ART offers a space for provocation, dialogue and confrontation by practices on the ground in LA and abroad. LA><ART is a hub for artists based on flexibility, transition, spontaneity and change. The space responds to an urgency and obligation to provide an accessible exhibition space for contemporary artists, architects and designers.

LA><ART is located at 2640 S. La Cienega Los Angeles, CA 90034 T.310.559.0166 F.310.559.0167 office@laxart.org www.laxart.org.

LA><ART is open Tuesday through Friday 10 -6 Saturday 11-6

• 

  Vernissage TV

  download PDF