|
< back to Initiatives
Lovett/Codagnone
Billboard Apr 30 - May 27, 2012 On view facing north on La Cienega Blvd. in between Washington and Venice. Lovett/Codagnone's billboard depicts a fallen American flag. |
Press Release
April 21 – May 19, 2012 Opening Reception: Saturday, April 21st, from 6-8pm Following a successful Thomas Lawson exhibition produced by LA><ART at PARTICIPANT INC in New York in 2009, PARTICIPANT INC in turn presents solo exhibitions by Laura Parnes and by Lovett/Codagnone as part of a continued exchange. This collaboration between the two non-profit galleries highlights the role that these organizations play in their respective cities, offering an alternative voice and a set of production conditions determined by experimentation and innovation. The exhibition in Gallery One will debut a new video installation by Laura Parnes, entitled County Down. As with many of her past projects, Parnes aims to blur the lines between conventions of storytelling, integrating video art and narrative. Laura Parnes’ County Down is a cross-platform, episodic, single-channel video that explores an epidemic of psychosis among the adults in a gated community that coincides with a teenage girl’s invention of a designer drug. Mirroring rave culture and the unbridled optimism in technology of the 1990s,County Down presents a society so obsessed with novelty and consumerism that it euphorically embraces its own destruction. The film’s protagonist is an adolescent girl who develops a designer drug with potentially apocalyptic side effects. The cast of County Down features a diverse group of multi-generational, New York-based artists and performers.
About the Artist Laura Parnes lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She has exhibited her work widely in the US and internationally, including the Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens; LOOP Festival, Barcelona, Spain; Light Industry, Brooklyn, NY; Kusthalle Winterhur, Switzerland; Overgaden Institute for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark; iMOCA, Indianapolis, IN; Cinematexas, Austin, TX; Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius, Lithuania; Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; The Whitney Museum of American Art (1997 Whitney Biennial), New York; PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Miami Museum of Contemporary Art, Florida; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Anglees; and Deitch Projects, New York, and the Brooklyn Museum, New York.
Lovett/Codagnone: Make Anarchy and Disorder Your Trademarks LA><ART Gallery Two Guest curated by Lia Gangitano April 21 – May 19, 2012 Closing Performance: Saturday, May 19th, from 6-8pm
Lovett/Codagnone: Hanged LA><ART Public Billboard On view facing North on La Cienega Blvd., from April 30 – May 27 For nearly twenty years, John Lovett and Alessandro Codagnone have worked collaboratively as Lovett/Codagnone. Their work in photography, performance, video, and installation explores power relations, both as manifested in explicit cultural signifiers, or in more clandestine practices. At once tender and violent, Lovett/Codagnone’s provocative works explore the delicate balance between private play and the inevitable negotiation of power, particularly the ways in which power comes to play within social structures – within relationships, family dynamics, and public space – to focus on intimacy and the construction of desire. Make Anarchy and Disorder Your Trademarks further elaborates a consistent evolution in Lovett/Codagnone’s work, tracing a trajectory from the use of self-reflexive strategies, to specifically address issues of collective identity and the absorption of underground tactics of resistance. In the gallery, a group of performative objects, including bullhorns and a convex mirror, imply a fetishization of power in relation to a collective that must be controlled. The objects insinuate both protest and apathy, or an urgent yet futile proposal to act. The ubiquitous circled “A” forming the Anarchy symbol, already drained by repetition in the public sphere, is further deprived of its public history, in the form of a domesticated quilt. Outside, (on view facing north on La Cienega Blvd. in between Washington and Venice), a billboard depicts a fallen American flag.
About the Artists Lovett/Codagnone is an artist team based in New York. They have been working together since 1995 using photography, performance, video, sound, and installation. Upcoming solo exhibitions include Museo Marino Marini, Florence, 2012; recent performances have been presented at the ICA Philadelphia, 2010, Judson Memorial Church, New York, 2010, and the ICA Boston, 2007. Recent solo exhibitions include: September Galerie, Berlin, 2011; Sculpture Center, New York, 2010; Sara Meltzer Gallery, New York, 2009; MoMA PS1, New York, 2008. Their work has been shown at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Cobra Museum, Amstelveen, Holland; the Ludwig Museum, Cologne; De Appel Centre for Contemporary Art, Amsterdam; Neue Gesellschaft fur Bildende Kunst, Berlin, and Palais de Tokyo, Paris, among others.
ABOUT PARTICIPANT INC Founded in December 2001 as an educational corporation and not-for-profit alternative space, PARTICIPANT INC seeks to provide a venue in which artists, curators, and writers can develop, realize, and present ambitious projects within a context that recognizes the social and cultural value of artistic experimentation. The mission of PARTICIPANT INC is to serve artists through in-depth consideration, presentation, and the publishing of critical writing; and to introduce this work into public contexts through exhibitions, screenings, performances, and educational programs. Our mission builds upon alternative space methodologies, particularly a commitment to interdisciplinary, intergenerational exhibition making, and an insistence upon placing together, in one space, work from various mediums—encouraging the coexistence of visual and time-based art.
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. LA><ART produced and commissioned over 100 projects in its first five years.
In 2014, LA><ART will launch its Vision Campaign including The Occasional – a city wide exhibition and public art initiative. This platform for LA continues the organization’s ongoing commitment to supporting artistic and curatorial freedom while focusing on commissioning new work in experimental contexts.
LA><ART’s programs are made possible with the generous support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Danielson Foundation, the G.L. Waldorf Family Fund, The Los Angeles County Arts Commission, The City of Los Angeles’ Department of Cultural Affairs, Proskauer Rose LLP, and LA><ART's Board, Producers Council, Collectors Circle and Curators Council.
Laura Parnes and Lovett/Codagnone’s exhibitions are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State’s 62 counties. Archiving and documentation projects are supported by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. PARTICIPANT INC receives generous support from the Harriett Ames Charitable Trust; The Blessing Way Foundation; Bloomberg; Foundation for Contemporary Arts; Gesso Foundation; The Ruth Ivor Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; FRIENDS of PARTICIPANT INC and numerous individuals.
LA><ART is located at 2640 S. La Cienega Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90034 T.310.559.0166 F.310.559.0167 www.laxart.org LA><ART is open Tuesday through Saturday 11am – 6pm
Slanguage LA><ART Galleries One and Two
On the occasion of Made in L.A. 2012: The Los Angeles Biennial Opening Reception: June 2, 2012, 12-3pm 
|