“Pain Management 100″ – Art Review
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Culture Monster
by Christopher Knight
ART REVIEW: Martin Durazo @ 18th Street Arts Center
August 19, 2010 | 6:00 pm
Like an unruly genie let out of a bottle, one unexpected downside of decisive American triumph in World War II has been a heightened appetite for war, actual and metaphorical. The next 50 years saw vigorous U.S. commitments to the hair-raising Cold War; “hot” wars in Korea, Vietnam, Granada, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq; and the framing of serious social problems as essential wars on poverty, culture, terror, drugs and more.
Unlike the Axis outcome, results have been uneven. Take the latter: The war on drugs has contributed to the federal, state and local expenditure of annual funds in excess of $30 billion; the bloody carnage by vicious cartels operating in Mexican border regions; a huge increase in the U.S. prison population for nonviolent crime; and the qualifying of the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 (Prop. 19) for the November California ballot.
At the 18th Street Arts Center, Martin Durazo’s evolving installation conjures all these drug-related developments and more. Durazo has turned the gallery space into a funky fusion of an artist’s studio (he’s on a fellowship at the center), a pharmaceutical laboratory where legal medications are developed and a rave party-site where illicit substances might be consumed.
All three are venues that don’t usually get public exposure. The salutary effect of being let in on something that hums along just below the radar is to pique curiosity about vaguely illicit goings-on. And when was the last time art felt quite like that?
It’s not illicit, of course. But the show subtly makes the point that altered consciousness, for good or ill, is an aim shared by Prozac, pot and Picasso.
An unassuming but richly allusive assemblage set up inside a small stage juxtaposes a rubber clown mask with a yellow bong that has a handle shaped like a pistol (it’s stamped “USA”). Titled “Mi Pagliachi,” it evokes Ruggero Leoncavallo’s century-old opera about a commedia dell’arte troupe engulfed by intrigues involving sleeping potions, drunken carousing and deadly violence. Nearby, clusters of magnifying glasses, cut-out skulls and strip-club advertising cards are attached around found chunks of etched crystal in a group of small pedestal-bound sculptures embedded with twinkly lights, as if voyeuristic scientists are scrutinizing them for magical properties.
Black lights illuminate several abstract graffiti paintings, which glow obligingly like acid rock posters. So does a fountain made from a pebble-filled plastic crate suspended inside a bright yellow metal framework; water flows gaily from the mouths of big ceramic frogs, a witty allusion to claims about “hallucinogenic toads” central to various aboriginal rituals.
The installation’s title, “Pain Management 100,” implies that we have entered an introductory educational class on how to deal with the inescapable, eternal plague of human suffering. Since July 6, Durazo has been making a changing array of sculptures, videos and installations; hosting miniature group shows of work by other artists and students; and inviting musicians, friends and the public to come by and socialize. Integral to the installation is a lounge area with cushy sofas at one end, plus a small performing stage at the other.
Happily, “Pain Management 100″ is a seminar, not a lecture. Conversation, examination and give-and-take are its method. Don’t go expecting a highly finished, neatly appointed exhibition. Do go expecting to be engaged.
– Christopher Knight
Follow me @twitter.com/KnightLAT
18th Street Arts Center, 1639 18th St., Santa Monica, (310) 453-3711, through Sept. 24. Closed Saturdays and Sundays. www.18thstreet.org
Click here to see online version.
Click on image below to see printed version:
Flavorpill on ArtNight & Post-American L.A
September 9, 2009 3:54 pm
by Shana Nys Dambrot
http://flavorpill.com/losangeles/events/2009/8/1/18th-street-artnight
Adrian Paci: Centro di Permanenza Temporanea (photograph, 2007). Courtesy galeria francesca kaufmann.
The world-famous 18th Street Arts Center is home to a complex of contemporary artist studios, multiple exhibition spaces, and the acclaimed Highways Performance theatre; tonight they throw open their doors with a program of music, art, and performances from the political to the hilarious, powerful and beautiful. The ambitious group showPost-American LA examines the evolution of race and culture in this most international of cities; Art Fellow Sandra de la Loza hosts conversational happenings; and Conga drum legend Francisco Aguabella and writers from the New Playwrights Foundation take turns lighting up the courtyard.
Note:
The exhibition Post-American LA continues through September 26.
Los Angeles Times “Feature” on Post American L.A
August 5, 2009 3:19 pm
by David Pagel
“Post-American L.A.,” a nine-artist exhibition at the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, is definitely not baseball, hot dogs and apple pie.
But there’s nothing un-American about the spunky constellation of accessible images and objects that Pilar Tompkins, curator of the Claremont Museum of Art, has brought together.
All embody an ethos of make-do adaptation of scrappy, make-ends-meet survivalism that is both dignified and generous. Most put a high priority on good old American ingenuity, embracing its clear-eyed pragmatism and defiant optimism. The stubborn insistence that every individual matters drives the show, which is fueled by the conviction that officialdom will not take care of you and kicked into high gear by the idea that you had better get used to doing so yourself, along with as many compatriots as you can muster.
Vincent Johnson’s poster-size montages of typically Korean and Mexican foods, costumes and pastimes suggest that the U.S. is not a single melting pot but a big spread of pots people dip into and out of, slowly mixing the various stews.
A similar sense of touristic sampling takes shape in Chen Shaoxiong’s slide-show-style video, its washy drawings of big-city life taking visitors on a perfectly pleasant trip that keeps things breezily impressionistic.
The problems that crop up when loads of folks rub shoulders and money runs short are hinted at by Glenn Ligon’s mural-size silk screen of a mass of hands and arms, all raised to the sky. The black-and-white image was probably shot at a concert or sporting event, its passionate fans cheering wildly. But the absence of faces and background information hints at something more sinister, perhaps an angry mob, mass arrest or sea of people in the wake of a disaster, awaiting insufficient assistance.
The gap between the haves and have-nots takes poignant shape in Adrian Paci’s video of a small crowd of people left stranded on a portable stairway on an airport’s runway. As jumbo jets taxi past and take off, it becomes clear that these stoic folks are going nowhere, despite their desire to get away.
Carolina Caycedo pushes all sorts of buttons in “Mexicamericana,” an 8-by-5-foot nylon flag that fuses the red and white stripes of the U.S. flag with the central emblem, a bird vanquishing a snake, of Mexico’s flag.
