SAVE THE DATE and PREVIEW! LA Art Show starts this Wednesday night, January 10th!
The LA Art Show an annual highly-anticipated January event that has become a world-class art fair, featuring hundreds of exhibitors from around the world, opens tomorrow night, January 10th with the Premiere Party, and continues through the weekend, ending on Sunday January 14th.
Highlighting a diverse and exciting combination of galleries, exhibits, dialogs and programming, this years’ event is expected to attract more than 70,000 art enthusiasts to view, experience, and purchase fine art in all mediums.
After much planning and the last two days of installation, with only one more day to go, the Cartwheel Art team, is getting really excited!!
For Cartwheel Art’s programming this year, instead of taking attendees out of the convention center for mural tours, we have brought a sampling of our own immersive experiences to the Convention Center, with two different booths.
In the Cartwheel Art Partnered Media Booth # 554, Miss Morgan was brought in as the curator, to recreate a glimpse into the hidden world of speakeasies such as you might see on our most popular tour “Underground LA.” Awarded editors choice as “Best Underground Tour” in LA Weekly’s Best of LA 2017, featured on an Eye on LA segment and numerous publications including Architectural Digest, our “Underground LA” tour offers a peek into the underground tunnels and historic speakeasies from the prohibition era. MORE HERE
In the Cartwheel Art Featured Programming Booth # 7030, AXIS was brought in as the curator, to create an art activation with an exhibition entitled “L.A.: LEY LINES. For the exhibition, groundbreaking graffiti artists AXIS, BIG SLEEPS, DEFER, EYEONE, PRIME, and SWANK, all from different sectors of Los Angeles were selected to showcase the very distinct aesthetic of the areas each individual exemplifies. Having deep roots in the early Los Angeles graffiti movement, these artists also have backgrounds in California staples such as skateboarding, punk rock, tattooing and other topics that are vital to L.A.’s rich artistic culture and history. These artists have established themselves in the raw environment of the L.A. streetscape, and in recent years have shown in some of the most prestigious galleries and museums in the world. The booth provides the opportunity for attendees of the art show to experience the works of these artists, who have emerged from the incessant hardships of the Los Angeles streets, while being elegantly displayed, as one would find in the home of a private collector in a classic turn of the century setting. Join us in the booth for some fun surprises!
We are thrilled to be presenting the L.A.: LEY LINES booth, highlighting numerous artists who have murals in the Downtown Los Angeles Arts District, where we are based and lead numerous tours including the “Graffiti Walk with Steve Grody,” as well as many unique neighborhood explorations. MORE HERE
There is so much to experience beyond our two booth’s at the LA Art Show. The following are some additional highlights.
It’s in the core section of the LA Art Show where there are numerous galleries of note, exhibitors who have conspired to inspire, educate and enthrall you. From installations that are witty, whimsical, and wondrous to international galleries and local galleries with exhibition booths, they can all be found in the Core section area.
We’d like to give a shout out to two Los Angeles galleries who are participating with outstanding exhibits. KP Projects, led by Merry Karnowsky and husband James Panozzo, will feature a large group exhibit with some LA favorites, including Todd Carpenter, Victor Castillo, Greg “Craola” Simkins, Lol Gil, Travis Louie, Eric Nash, Matsakutsu Sashie, Edward Walton Wilcox, and Von Sumner.
Timothy Yarger is presenting another must-see installation, featuring Cristobal Valecillos YARE/ One More Dance. This installation portrays a contemporary multi-disciplinary representation of Los Diablos de Yare – declared an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. Participating in the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA city-wide event, the artist was inspired by the annual Los Diablos de Yare festival, designing and fabricating a series of folkloric handcrafted masks. The masks were then utilized in dramatic photography set against a backdrop of iconic Los Angeles landmarks, creating a captivating and powerful exhibit. Also in Timothy Yarger Fine Art is work by renowned photographer Jim McHugh, who has photographed so many of the artists in the graffiti community, including those in the Featured Programming booth, presented by Cartwheel Art.
The massive LA Art Show has multiple sections to explore, from the pop-surrealism and lowbrow work found in Littletopia (see our preview here), to the stylized work found in Design LA Art, where the intersection of furniture, décor, architecture and fine art is celebrated. (Renowned Korean artist Lee Jae-Hyo is the featured artist of that section, where his intricate sculptures blur the line between form and function, in furniture as fine art and architectural objects.) But one of the larger components of the LA Art Show this year is called DIVERSEartLA, featuring the tremendous cultural diversity in the international contemporary art market. It will include performance art, multi-media installations, special exhibits, interactive features, and programs curated by major museums and arts organizations including LACMA, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, and The Autry Museum of the American West. Highlights of the area curated by Marisa Caichiolo of the Building Bridges Art Exchange in Santa Monica will include a premier United States exhibit by MUSA Museum of the Arts Guadalajara, along with installations by the Museum of Latin American Art, and Building Bridges.
Some Highlights:
Curated by Marisa Caichiolo, The Museum of the Arts of the University of Guadalajara, Mexico (MUSA) presents Metaphysical Orozco, a multi-media installation making its first U.S. appearance. The presentation is created by projecting images of murals made by the famed artist Orozco between 1935 and 1937 at the auditorium known as Paraninfo, via multi-layer digital mapping. The scenes and accompanying graphic materials take the viewer on an exploration of Orozco’s inspiration for his murals, as well as the history and themes that inspired them. The art projection will be accompanied by a musical soundtrack, giving visitors a full-blown multi-sensory experience.
Aporías Moviles: Nuna Mangiante Presented by The Museum of Latin American Art, curated by Marisa Caichiolo, this is a multi-media installation featuring portraits with obscured faces on display amid various construction and building materials. It speaks of urban transformation as an emerging social reality in Latin America. The artist elaborates:
“When I elaborate the photos of the objects and the urban landscapes, I subject them to what I want to express, I enclose the meaning with geometric forms in order to help decipher the riddles of my work, transforming them into drawings,” says Mangiante. “By isolating objects from their environment, they become symbols of themselves, and when I apply to them a flat graphite cover, a distortion occurs. A distortion always implies a comparison between what is and what is should be. The distortion creates the controversies in the resulting image.”
Brainstorming: Empathy Curated by Marisa Caichiolo, presented by UCLA Art I Sci Center is a performance/experience installation created by Victoria Vesna in close collaboration with neuroscientist Mark Cohen. This “smart art” utilizes real-time EEG, brain waves, video, color, and sound to create a mesmerizing immersive experience for the viewer. In this experimental engagement, the topic insinuates the possibilities of brain to brain communication with an octopus. Says Caichiolo:
“These are part of the larger area of research into the physical associates of mental processes such as emotions and feeling. It has evolved since to include the idea of embodied intelligence in the form of an octopus crown worn by participants.”
Live Mural Painting by Renowned Artist Mateo Romero Presented by the Autry Museum of the American West. Experience the work of a master, as you observe Pueblo/Cochiti artist Mateo Romero create a large scale mural destined for the collection of the Autry Museum of the American West. This live painting-as-performance addresses the cultural commentary on Native American life both past and present. Romero’s contemporary work combines Native post-modern figurative imagery while exploring historical myths.
Especular (Threshold): Leyla Cárdenas Presented by LACMA and the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, this installation is inspired by a line written by Colombian writer Manuel Hernández B. that defines his nation’s capital, Bogotá, as “A permanent threshold that announces the promise of a place that never arrives.” Leyla Cárdenas’s Especular depicts this idea through a large –scale photo installation of Bogota’s neoclassical late 1880s train station façade, printed on a set of two huge 20” scrims, suspended back-to-back from the ceiling. Her photographs depict the now long-abandoned station in ruins, illustrating the once-hopeful symbol of the nation, now abandoned and neglected.
These discontinuous panels are cut to match the different track gauges used in Colombia that made a unified national transportation infrastructure impossible. Especular is part of a series in which the artist documents the architectural remnants of the urban fabric. Cárdenas reflects on these artworks as illustrating “History repeating itself: vicious circles and accumulation of thresholds that lead nowhere.”
Synaesthesia: What is the taste of the color Blue?
Plantigrade
Space Palette
Presented by Marcos Lutyens & Tim Thompson/Paul Sable, and by Building Bridges Art Exchange in collaboration with the International Association of Synaesthetes, Artists, and Scientists (IASAS) and UCLA I Sci Center. Curated by Marisa Caichiolo,
this unusual and intriguing installation focuses on a condition known as Synaesthesia, an inherited trait found in less than 3.75 percent of the world’s population. It is defined as a cross-firing of any one of the five senses in which one sensory experience triggers additional sensory experiences in one or more of the other four senses. Adding a perception from one mode to the standard one can thereby increase the experience in multiple ways. As in, the color blue may elicit a particular taste in your mouth!
There are at least 60 forms of synaesthesia!
Plantigrade, is an experiential installation by Marcos Lutyens, where intrepid visitors are invited to walk barefoot across a psycho-synthetic terrain, paying special attention to the sensations of color and texture coming through their feet. This is a sensibility developed by Surrealist writer René Daumal, called paroptic vision, and by extension para-tactile sensing. The project has been enhanced with the collaboration of celebrated author and neurologist, Richard E. Cytowic.
Space Palette, by Tim Thompson and Paul Sable, is a musical and graphical instrument invented by Tim Thompson that lets you make music and paint visuals simultaneously by waving your hands in the holes of a wood frame. No pre-recorded media, sequences or loops are used – everything is generated in real time by your hands.
IF YOU DRINK HEMLOCK, I SHALL DRINK IT WITH YOU or A BEAUTIFUL DEATH; player to player, pimp to pimp. (As performed by the inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade): Daniel Joseph Martinez. Curated by Chon Noriega and presented by LACMA and the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, this immersive environment created by Daniel Joseph Martinez references Jacques-Louis David’s famous 1793 portrait “The Death of Marat,” depicting his assassination during the French Revolution. Beyond a mere painting however, Martinez creates a tableau with three life-like sculptures – one of the victim, one of his killer Charlotte Corday, and one of the artist himself. The scene is set as if a play surrounded by bleachers, just waiting for your selfie!
Eyes Forward is a group exhibit curated by James Panozzo, Founder and Executive Director of Launch LA, in collaboration with Mar Hollingsworth, Program Manager and Visual Arts Curator, California African American Museum, CAAM.This exhibition addresses many contemporary topics from racism to feminism, ethnic pride and shifting concepts of beauty, the challenges of urban life for people of color, socio-economics and identity, political commentary, militancy and Black empowerment. The variety of subject matter is matched in the multitude of mediums, which include painting, sculpture, collage, assemblage with found objects, spray paint, textile art, mixed media works, and drawing.
Participating artists include April Bey, Chukes, June Edmond, Loren Holland, Duane Paul, Miles Regis, Ana Rodriguez, Nano Rubio, Holly Tempo, and Tim Washington. 
SABER – Painting Live, Presented by 1849 Wine Company
Ryan Weston Shook, the artist formally known as SABER, will be painting a mural onsite during the opening night of the LA Art Show. Saber is best known for his creation of the largest graffiti painting in the world, on the banks of the LA River. Rising to international fame through that project, he has since gone on to create fine art for international galleries as well as public art.
Special Note: The Cartwheel Art Media Booth is directly across from the 1849 Wine Company Bar. Stop by and say Hi!
Exhibition:
The LA Art Show,
January 110th -14th, 2018
Opening Night:
January 10th
Address:
Los Angeles Convention Center, South Hall
1201 S. Figueroa St. LA 90015
Ticket Info: Opening Night VIP and General Admission tickets available here: