What art have I seen? Embodied Pacific
More of the UCSD Visual Arts Dept collaboration with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography ‘Embodied Pacific‘ exhibition this time at the Birch Aquarium
What art have I seen? Embodied Pacific
Seaways at the Gallery in the Structural and Material Engineering Building.
Curious connections – Anson who featured in the Maritime Museum crops up again writing about how impressed he was with the boats built by Pacific Islanders…
The sail made of woven reeds was stunning.
What art have I seen? Transformative Currents: Art and Action in the Pacific Ocean
Oceanside Museum of Art – exhibition from around the Pacific rim. Stand out piece by Lutyens on the rigs off Santa Barbara.
What art have I seen? For Dear Life
Exhibition on Art, Medicine, and Disability at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
Really powerful exhibition starting with the Bufano dance piece, Act-UP, cancer-related, Nikki de Sant Phalle, so much interesting work.
What art have I seen? Trees, Time, and Technology
‘Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time, and Technology’ Exhibition at Skirball Cultural Center
What art have I seen? Breath(e):Towards Climate and Social Justice
Exhibition at the Hammer UCLA focused by the triple events #BlackLivesMatter, COVID Pandemic, and the Climate Crisis.
Featuring amongst other things a radical gardening project – and you can never have too many art and gardening projects! This one is led by Ron Finley, the gangsta gardener.
What art have I seen? Beatriz da Costa
A retrospective of da Costa’s brilliant projects including an ongoing re-performance of Pigeonblog. I wonder what re-performances of some of her other works would be like now? e.g. the RFID work with cockroaches?
What art have I seen? Life on Earth: Art and Ecofeminism
Margaret and Christine Wertheim are not wrong that Ecofeminism is underrepresented in PST. The new book Eleanor Heartney co-authored, Mothers of Invention makes the argument for the centrality of ecofeminism from the perspective of concerns in the arts – abstraction, craft, performance and ecology.
This is the exhibition that has Ecofeminism as it’s explicit focus. It is very much a sketch. It claims that Ecofeminism is an American idea. I wonder if the curators were aware of the much more substantial exhibition Re/Sisters: A Lens on Gender and Ecology which explicitly drew together a much wider narrative of the emergence and development which has a strong US representation but balances that with contributions from many other cultures.
Great to see Aviva Rahmani’s early performance work along with documentation of her durational restoration project Ghost Nets. The LA Times usefully focused on this in its review reviewhttps://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2024-10-15/pst-art-life-on-earth-ecofeminism-brick.
There is a good overview on ARTnews https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/life-on-earth-art-and-ecofeminism-exhibition-the-brick-los-angeles-1234722562/
What art have I seen? Walk through of Concrete is Fluid
Lauren Bon and other members of the Metabolic Studio led a dive into the ‘Concrete is Fluid’ exhibition at Honor Fraser Gallery.
After discussing the installed work the afternoon moved into even more Hacktivist mode: the aim was to explore the possibilities of ‘undevelopment’ on a different scale from the undevelopment projects at Metabolic – this was about what opening up one car parking space behind the gallery might do.
One member of the team took us through the soil testing, how much lead and arsenic are under the tarmac, another member of the team talked about how Sunflowers and dandelions are really good at taking up heavy metals, Lauren pointed out that the new patch could capture oily water running from the adjacent car mechanics’ shop. They talked about indigenous and invasive species… though in the context of undevelopment and climate change thinking in terms of ‘novel assemblages’… There was also discussion of the community that would be needed to work with this undevelopment, who as inhabitants might be involved.
What art have I seen? Future Tense
At the Bell Center for Art +Technology, UC Irvine
Future Tense: Art, Complexity & Uncertainty website
Claire L. Evans parses interdisciplinary experimentation at the Beall Center for Art + Technology
The exhibition is curated by David Familian who participated in the Listening to the Web of Life workshop – their paper here.
Cesar & Lois’ work Being hyphaenated (Ser hifanizado) is in the exhibition and they also participated in the workshop – their paper here.
Below is Fernando Palma Rodriguez’s Huitzlampa (2023)
“Huitztlampa, a mechatronic installation of everyday objects, is computer programmed to move in response to live weather signals from Los Angeles. Palma Rodríguez lives in a Nahua agricultural region outside Mexico City and wants his work to provide a heightened sense of urgency about both climate change and labor issues. In the pre-Hispanic Nahuatl creation story, four cardinal points are each associated with a deity: Huitztlampa, the south, is embodied by a hummingbird and the sun in the blue winter sky. This title and the objects (ladder, boots) also reference migrant workers, who must float like hummingbirds and move with the sun.”
Full descriptions of works here
and images here
What art have I seen? ‘Concrete is Fluid’ and ‘Brackish Water’
Concrete is Fluid at the Honor Fraser Gallery, and ‘Brackish Water’ at CSU Dominguez Hills.
What art have I seen? Eliasson and Dion
Olafur Eliasson at Geffen MOCA – lots of playing with light and reflection.
Mark Dion at La Brea Tar Pits – imagining paleo archaeology of LA.
What art have I seen? Helen and Newton Harrison California Work – ‘Future Gardens’ at Mandeville Art Gallery
The original Future Gardens proposal along with sketches 1996
Documentation of Sagehen A Proving Ground 2011 and of the Future Garden for the California Coast at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum 2016
Tibet is the High Ground 1993
What art have I seen?’Helen and Newton Harrison California Work – ‘Saving the West’ at San Diego Central Library
CHRIS FREMANTLE 
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