Paul Pescador
Artist Lab Residency & Exhibition:
April 23 – June 30, 2018

Paul Pescador: Going West or 15 Years in Los Angeles

In the Spring 2018 Artist Lab at 18th Street Arts Center, Los Angeles-based artist Paul Pescador produces a set of actions, gestures and images oriented around neighborhoods he has lived in since moving to Los Angeles. The socioeconomic status and living conditions of each neighborhood have drastically changed in the past fifteen years, since the artist lived there. Pescador asks questions of himself and others about being a resident in Los Angeles through examining his own experiences and those of residents in each neighborhood. As he discusses each neighborhood he will weave in personal anecdotes about his personal experience of maturation and learning to live in a large metropolitan area, including past relationship heartbreaks, and narrating the isolation that comes from living in a densely populated region and “getting lost within a crowd.” As he postulates his past experiences, Pescador looks to television sitcoms in which characters are forced to learn to how to take care of themselves in the “real world,” invoking the Hollywood fantasy of youth as played out in one’s 20s and the fantasy image of the city of Los Angeles constructed through cinema.

Pescador will initiate the project by trying to understand the socio-economic wealth of Santa Monica as a model for other Los Angeles neighborhoods, serving as both an aspirational image and as a source of anxiety over ostracization and displacement. Focusing specifically on the Pico neighborhood which surrounds 18th Street Art Center, he asks, does the popular version of Santa Monica exist in reality or is it more nuanced and complicated? The second phase of the project will involve a set of actions produced in the neighborhoods of West Adams, Melrose and Highland Park/Eagle Rock.As he moves through each place, he will read and perform his history in a guerrilla fashion while engaging observers to discuss their own experiences of local life.

Over the residency period from April 23 through June 30, he will fill the gallery with additional objects, notes, and documentation. A reception for the exhibition will be held on Saturday, June 9, from 5-8 pm. 18th Street’s bi-annual Pico Block Party will take place on Saturday, May 19, 2018 from 3-6 PM and will include a public performance from the artist.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Paul Pescador is an artist, filmmaker and writer working in Los Angeles, with an MFA from University of California, Irvine and a BA from University of Southern California. He produce films, performances and photographs to discuss social interactions and intimacy as they pertain to his own personal identity and history. Recent exhibitions, projects, and screenings include: gallery1993 (2018); Klausgallery.net (2017); Coastal/Borders, Getty Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA at Angels Gate Cultural Center (2017); LAND at The Gamble House, Pasadena (2016); Vacancy, Los Angeles (2016); PSSST, Los Angeles (2016); Ashes/Ashes, Los Angeles (2016); Park View, Los Angeles (2014); Anthony Greaney, Boston (2013); the Vista Theater, Los Angeles (2012); and Human Resources, Los Angeles (2011). Recent performances include: Machine Projects, Los Angeles; (2016); Klausgallery.net ( 2016); Los Angeles Contemporary Archives (2016); Performa 2015; Colony, New York (2015); metro pcs (2015); UC Berkeley: Durham Studio Theater (2015); PAM, Los Angeles (2015); Sweety’s, Boston (2014); Hammer Museum, with KCHUNG TV, Los Angeles (2014); REDCAT, Los Angeles (2014); Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman University, Los Angeles (2012); and ForYourArt, Los Angeles (2012). His first full collection of writing CRUSHES:A NOVELLA was released by Econo Textual Objects in Spring 2017.

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