18th Street’s Summer ArtNight, July 21st
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 21, 2012
18th Street Arts Center
1639 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA 90404
www.18thstreet.org
Media Contact:
Sara Schnadt 310-453-3711 104 sschnadt@18thstreet.org

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Join us on July 21, 2012 from 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm for 18th Street Arts Center’s summer ArtNight featuring an opening reception for Lab Artist Michelle Dizon’s new video installation Perpetual Peace, developed on-site at 18th Street. Stay for open studios by local and international artists, art installations, DJ set by artist Eamon Ore Giron (our next Lab Artist), and an artists’ marketplace. Come early at 6:00 pm for an artist talk by Curator in Residence Bill Kelley Jr. in conversation with 18th Street’s Director of Residency Programs Pilar Tompkins Rivas.
Food by Komodo food truck. Complimentary beverages provided by Izze Sparkling Juice and Hpnotiq Liqueur.
Art Opening:
Lab Artist Michelle Dizon, Perpetual Peace
June 18 – September 7
Main Gallery
A debut curatorial project by 18th Street’s new Director of Residency Programs Pilar Tompkins Rivas, Perpetual Peace brings a new work to 18th Street developed on-site for a month leading up to the opening. 18th Street’s Lab Artist program invites local artists to use the center’s main gallery space as an ongoing open studio for the development of a new work. Dizon’s Lab Artist project also coincides with her participation in Made in LA, the first LA Biennial.
This seven-channel video installation will be a further development of a series of ongoing works about imperialism, neocolonialism, and globalization in the Philippines, for which she is gaining much local and international recognition.
Over the past four years, Dizon has worked in video to document sites in the Philippines impacted by economic globalization. These sites have included the areas around the former US military bases, the extraction of natural resources by multinational corporations, and the war-torn regions of the southern Philippines. At 18th Street’s main gallery, Dizon will weave the video that she has shot together with archival footage, text from philosophical, political, and literary sources, and sounds composed from field recordings, scores, and voice, into an intricate work that invites viewers to reflect upon diasporic subjectivity, postcolonial history, and the effects of global capitalism in the Philippines. Perpetual Peace invites the public into a dense and layered experience of the postcolonial diaspora in the Phillipines, where shifts in space and time expose a complexity of psychic and social effects of diaspora and a nuanced and thought-provoking perspective on economic globalization.
Open Studios:
A selection of artists’ studios at 18th Street will be open to the public. Wander our campus and learn more about artists’ work in an intimate setting where their ideas are generated and their work takes shape.
Participating local residents will include: Luciana Abait, Susanna Bixby Dakin, Clayton Campbell, Karl Doerrer, EZTV, Yvette Gellis, Ichiro Irie, Arzu Arda Kozar, Bernadette Fox and others.
Participating International Artists: Cristina David (Romania), Tsai Kuen-Lin (Taiwan).
Projects:
Curator in Residence Bill Kelley Jr. in Conversation with Pilar Tompkins Rivas
6:00 – 6:30 pm, Project Room
In residence at 18th Street from July 1 2012 through June 30 2013, Bill Kelley Jr. will discuss the project he will be developing here over the next year. Bill Kelley Jr. is an educator, curator, and theorist based in Los Angeles. He teaches 17 and 18 century European, colonial, modern and contemporary Latin American and Latino art history. He co-curated the 2011 Encuentro de Medellin (MDE11), Colombia, and currently he is teaching theory at Otis Public Practice MFA program. Bill is the former director and current Editorial Advisor to LatinArt.com and is co-editing an anthology of public and dialogical art practices in the Americas (2012) .
The Artist and the Past Present – Vincent Ramos and high school students from the Virginia Avenue Park Teen Center
Artist Vincent Ramos and high school students from the Virginia Avenue Park Teen Center present a project looking at Santa Monica from an insider’s perspective. Through a series of ‘alternative post cards’ created by Ramos and the student participants, this projects considers the less touristic aspects of the city, and the personal relationship to one’s local place. This project was made possible by support from the City of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Arts Commission.
Outdoor Area:
Eamon Ore Giron, DJ LENGUA
Eamon Ore Giron is an accomplished visual and performing artist, musician, and our next Lab Artist in our exhibition space. We are very pleased to have him bring his musical talents to our summer ArtNight.
7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Open Air Craft Market run by local artists, featuring hand-made crafts and art objects.
Media Contact:
Sara Schnadt 310-453-3711 104 sschnadt@18thstreet.org