PEI-CHI KUO
Salute to A Palm Tree
Curatorial Statement by Venus Lau
Kuo’s series of work during her residency at the 18th Street Arts Center intertwines the soft and warm memories of a family trip in her childhood to the masculinity of territorial identities and global mobilities. Her works are inspired by the cultural diversities and histories of the west coast, bringing her to further investigate the symbols of palm trees, beyond the impressions of the ever-smiling sun and beaches seen in vacational cliches.
The series of work begins with her repeated encounter with the American flags and palm trees, with her refreshing lens to this land. Her series of work is centered with her multiple layers of critical reflections towards these symbols.
The choices of found materials, mediums and ways of expressions provoke us to rethink the everyday perceptions and narrations that are silently embedded in the culture. Some of these traces are subtle, like the hand-stitching by the artist is casting a contrast to the massive and mechanical production of the flags as iconic goods.
Kuo also invites us to her memories, when her father, who served as a navy years ago, brought the whole family to California for a military mission. Their personal memories, though sweet and innocent, were entangled with the grand stage of power relations and identity politics. With the passage of time, the artist has another careful look, and responds to these spaces and boundaries through a documentation of moving images, with emotional and performative touches.
Words by the artist
When I came to California, the local scene and life experience influenced the way I created, I observed that the American economy was closely related to the way of consumption. I obtained the materials needed for creation in the thrift stores everywhere in the United States. When a well-preserved American flag circulates in the thrift market and was bought by me, the reverence for the flag in the United States also symbolizes a spiritual transfer. The palm tree symbolizes victory and peace that is also the most famous in California. I sewed a palm tree on the flag, and hung it on the wall. Let’s salute a palm tree!
創作論述 《向一棵棕櫚樹敬禮》
當我來到美國加州，當地的景象與生活經驗，影響我的創作方式，我觀察到美國經濟與消費方式息息相關，我在美國隨處可見的舊貨市集與商店，取得創作所需的材料，當一個保存完善的美國國旗流通於舊貨市集，再被我買回家，在美國對於國旗的敬畏同時也象徵著一種精神的轉移，而棕櫚樹象徵著勝利與和平，也是加州最著名的景觀，我在旗幟上縫上一棵棕櫚樹，高掛於牆面上，向一棵棕櫚樹敬禮。
Pei-Chi Kuo was an artist-in-residence at 18th Street Arts Center from August – October 2022 with support from the Taiwan Ministry of Culture. Visit her artist profile here.
About the Curator
Venus Lau is an independent writer, curator, and project facilitator based in Hong Kong. She has been an advocate for diverse and engaging approaches to art appreciation, interpretation, and critique. Her writings can be found on printed and online publications. With dialogues and text-based materials being the core of her inspiration, she is passionate about exploring multi-disciplinary expressions and spatial arrangements. In 2021, she curated and performed in “Ghost without shield – Hong Kong Literature / Sound”, a multi-disciplinary performance staging at a moving-image and installation art exhibition.
The Broadway Project is a long-term arts and culture project led by the Quinn Research Center and supported by 18th Street Arts Center and the Santa Monica Public Library. Through public art in Santa Monica, the goal of this project is to develop a Broadway Historic Cultural District that celebrates the Black culture and history of Broadway between 14th and 20th Street in Santa Monica.
The Broadway Historic Cultural District
Santa Monica’s once sizable Black culture and history are invisible to most people in today’s city landscape. Only vestiges of a thriving Black community that spans over 100 years, remain today, and the landmarks that exist do not neatly fit preservationist standards. Undaunted, the Quinn Research Center has been using its archival materials to build the case for creating the Broadway Historic Cultural District, to mark the once primarily Black neighborhood located here.
This stretch of Broadway between 14th and 20th Streets was one of several lively hubs of Black life in Santa Monica. However, twice in the 1950s two hubs of Black families and businesses were displaced through eminent domain by Santa Monica officials. First from the Belmar neighborhood located on prime beachfront land (for an expanded Civic Center) and later for the new Interstate Highway 10. The LA Times reported in 1960 that as many as 550 Black families may have been displaced by the freeway.
The Quinn Research Center
The Quinn Research Center’s archive is a rare resource, and its founders, Bill and Carolyne Edwards continue to collect and do research on this part of Santa Monica’s history, gathering oral histories, and speaking to public groups, to recover this vibrant past of churches, businesses, summer schools, sports, and social clubs.
18th Street Arts Center
Culture Mapping 90404 is 18th Street’s community produced map highlighting the history and cultural assets of the Pico neighborhood of Santa Monica. Cultural assets are people, places, events, and organizations, both past and present, that serve as cultural anchors within this community. These are places that define the culture of the neighborhood, according to the people who live here. 18th Street has been in the Pico neighborhood since 1988 and has been collaborating with community members from Santa Monica and beyond to document these assets in an interactive website. The website features a Story Map, which highlights the threads that connect many of the cultural asset’s stories, and a Pro Map, which allows users to click on points that represent cultural assets on a map and learn more about each that way.
In this mapping process, 18th Street has learned many things about our neighborhood, and so have our artists in residence and local community.
The Quinn Research Center is one of the first cultural treasures 18th Street had the privilege of connecting with in regards to this project.
In 2018, Maj Hasager, a visiting artist in residence from Denmark, collaborated with the Quinn Research Center in a research exhibition called Iterations. Since then, artist Maj Hasager, and the QRC have formed a strong trusting relationship, and 18SAC presented an exhibition of Hasager’s work with the QRC archive in the summer of 2021 called Three Structures Touching, on view at 18th Street’s Airport Campus, Propeller Gallery. This exhibition launched public engagement around the Broadway Historic Cultural District through walking tours, public dialogues, art works, performances, and more.
The Broadway Walking Tour with Bill and Carolyne Edwards of the Quinn Research Center, 2021.
The Broadway Project: Digitization of Archive + Website Update
From October 2021 to July 2022, the Quinn Research Center has been digitizing their archive with the help of Grace Lauren, a graduate student at UCLA’s MLIS program. Through this process, Grace and the QRC have scanned documents and images, transcribed oral histories, and recorded metadata for each archive time asset according to the Dublin Core Standard. Kathy Lo, Santa Monica Public Library’s Research Librarian, has been supervising this process, providing resources and direction, ensuring that the process meets Library standards and best practices. Once digitized, this archive will be accessible online through Santa Monica Public Library’s Digital Archives, which will be complete in August 2022. Part of this project is updating the Quinn Research Center website, which will be complete by August 2022.
Bill Edwards, Kathy Lo, and Susan Lamb looking at archive materials of the Quinn Rsearch Center’s collection, 2022. Image courtesy of Carolyne Edwards.
The Broadway Project: Arts Advisory Council
One of the goals of this project is to develop a Black Cultural Heritage District through public art in Santa Monica. An important aspect of this project is the Arts Advisory Council who will help with the creation of concepts for public artworks and art engagements in the city. The Arts Advisory Council’s members are former and long-term residents of the Broadway neighborhood, artists, filmmakers, educators, arts and culture workers, and more. They meet once a month to discuss local histories, brainstorm ideas for artworks, and review the project’s process and goals.
As this project develops, we’ll give you an inside scoop through blog posts and more on this webpage!
PUBLIC ART ENGAGEMENTS
With the guidance of the Arts Advisory Council, artists are creating research based concepts that can be scaled up to permanent projects in the future.
Karla Diaz: Postcards from Broadway
On Saturday June 18, 2022, Santa Monica residents were invited to a postcard workshop that honored Santa Monica’s historic Broadway neighborhood, a thriving African American, Mexican American, and immigrant community that was destroyed by the construction of the Interstate 10 Freeway in the 1960s. Through this activity, participants explored the Quinn Research Center’s archive and created a postcard that highlights the underrepresented stories of this neighborhood with artist Karla Diaz.
The workshop provided copies of archival material sourced from the Quinn Research Center’s Broadway Heritage District archive. Participants were invited to cut and collage these materials into postcards that celebrated and explored local overlooked histories.
This workshop was organized by the Quinn Research Center and 18th Street Arts Center as part of the 30th Annual Juneteenth Celebration in Santa Monica’s Virginia Avenue Park.
As part of her artist project for 18th Street Arts Center’s Commons Lab: Place and Public Life, Sara Daleiden facilitated a series of dialogues and projects with artists in residence at 18th Street Arts Center. Online conversations with 18th Street’s artist community called “Creative Roundtables” from 2020 to 2021 materialized into Recovery Justice: Being Well, a collage of self-organized artist projects addressing wellbeing during a pandemic, on view online and at 18th Street Arts Center’s Airport Campus from March 8 to July 16, 2021.
As a neighborhood, artists in residence at 18th Street Arts Center’s Olympic and Airport Campuses created a sense of belonging by embracing the arts’ potential in nurturing civic engagement. By prioritizing equity, community needs, and poetics, participating artists produced creative experiences that encouraged connection through dialogue and creative action, activating the potential of human will.
If you are considering neighborhood development using the arts or want to know more about the process from the perspective of artists and cultural workers, check out the resources below:
“Being Well”, written by Sue Bell Yank, Sara Daleiden, and Kimberli Meyer
“Getting Back to What Once and Never Was”, written by Dan S. Wang
Exhibition: Recovery Justice: Being Well
Unlock with PatreonInhabiting the GeoSphere
SEPTEMBER – DECEMBER 2022 PROGRAM GUIDE
The last two years have been difficult for all of us, and laying a secure and stable foundation for this organization has never been more important.
One of the many incredible things about 18th Street is our commitment to “Inhabiting the Geosphere”, as evidenced by Dear Future, our current exhibition and Ranu Mukherjee’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles.
In this exhibition, Mukherjee contemplates forests as sites of survival, biodiversity, non-human agency, indigenous struggle, and interspecies communication. In her speculative process, an emergent urban forest connects visions of an ecological future with histories of colonization and the lush internal spaces of longing, desire, and the imagination.
The future for 18th Street is rife with potential. As a community that believes in the transformative power of the arts, there has never been a better time to strengthen relationships and raise philanthropic support and we invite you to join us.
Joyce LaBriola
Development Manager
UPCOMING EVENTS
*** For in-person events, masks are required at all times.
The Ballona/Waachnga Project
A 24 hour installation by artists Halina Kliem & Daniel Rothman
Presented as part of the 2022 The Fulcrum Festival: Deep Ocean/Deep Space
Midnight to Midnight, Thursday, September 22, 2022 from 00:00 to 23:59
In-person: 18th Street Arts Center (Airport Campus)
3026 Airport Avenue Santa Monica CA 90405
The Ballona/Waachnga Project is a long durational, multistage work that, through a variety of media, brings together the fantasy and science of the Ballona Wetlands, Los Angeles’s last remaining wetland. For Fulcrum Festival, it is a meditation based on the soundscape of twenty-four continuous hours—midnight to midnight—juxtaposed with asynchronous visuals over a season of drought. It is installed in 19th Street Arts Center’s Kitchen Lab, a place of domesticated chemistry, where the sound and images of the freshwater marsh contrast with the corrugated steel hangar, reminding us that the Ballona Wetland was the site of Howard Hughes’s H4-Hercules plane (his Spruce Goose). The greater project will evolve over time as the recorded soundscape and visual imagery grow.
CONVERSATION AND EXHIBITION OPENING
Related to RANU’s DEAR FUTURE exhibition
Saturday, October 8th | 5-8 PM
In-person: 18th Street Arts Center (Airport Campus)
3026 Airport Avenue Santa Monica CA 90405
Join us for the opening celebration of Dear Future, Ranu Mukherjee’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, featuring a multi-channel hybrid film alongside mixed-media paintings informed by ruptures and imaginary forests. In conjunction with the opening Mukherjee will be in conversation with Stacey Harmer, Professor in the Department of Plant Biology at UC Davis, and moderated by Olivia Mole, artist, discussing the exhibition and Mukherjee’s recent work.
Artists in residence at 18th Street Arts Center’s Airport campus will host open studios where visitors can see their exciting work in progress. Market Exchange vendors will be on site selling their artisanal goods. Check out the exhibition Imaginary Dwellings.
This is an in-person event and masks will be required at all times inside the gallery. Please register in advance.
VISITING ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE
Arshia Fatima Haq
CALL TO DREAM: The Sam Francis Foundation Fellowship
September – November 2022
Arshia Fatima Haq (born in Hyderabad, India, based in Los Angeles, CA) works across film, visual art, performance, and sound. She works through counter archives and speculative narratives, and is currently exploring themes of embodiment, mysticism, indigenous and localized knowledge, particularly within the Islamic Sufi context . She is the founder of Discostan, a collaborative decolonial project and record label working with cultural production from South and West Asia and North Africa. She hosts and produces monthly radio shows on NTS. Arshia Haq’s fellowship residency at SOMA, Mexico City, is generously sponsored by the Sam Francis Foundation. Learn more here.
Hilla Ben Ari
September 2022
Hilla Ben Ari is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Tel Aviv. Her work spans a variety of mediums such as video, installation, sculpture, and print, and generates a dialogue with the field of theater and dance. Ben Ari held solo exhibitions at various art venues including Ticho House – The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Museum of Art, Ein Harod. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions at various museums and galleries, among them: the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Orange County Museum of Art, the MAXXI Museum, and the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts as part of the 2009 Asian Art Biennial. This residency is generously sponsored by Artis and the Consulate General of Israel, Los Angeles. Learn more here.
Park Kyung Ryul
September – November 2022
Park Kyung Ryul is an artist based in Seoul whose practice includes paining, drawing, ceramic and installation. Her recent work, the evenness series expands the flat space or the painting into the physical world. It challenges the impossible in narrative-biased paintings by expanding the time and space through the actions of the artist and the viewers. Pursuing the system of non-hierarchical structure in her painting, the ‘object’ and ‘space’ on the surface become the fundamental elements used to define the evenness of the painting. By translating each brush stroke into an object and independent elements of painting, paintings function only with external components: placement, configuration of an image (that does not represent or portray anything), and frame. Evenness, which carries the definition of being ‘flat’ and ‘homogenous’, deals with elements of a painting in an equal manner and approaches the exhibition space as a complete painting. This residency is generously supported by the Baik Art Gallery. Learn more here.
Jessi Ali Lin [Taiwan Academy]
October – December 2022
Jessi Ali Lin is an artist working with and through sculpture, video, performance, and embodiment. Her work exploits the notion of positionality both in terms of physical position and the multivalence of identity as central to her process. Drawing from feminist history, Minimalism, and performance art, Lin examines the relationship between the performance of the self, its fragmented nature, and its location within the social and built environment. This residency is generously sponsored by the Taiwan Academy. Learn more here.
Irene Campolmi [Danish Arts Foundation]
October – December 2022
Irene Campolmi a Copenhagen-based curator, currently working on exhibitions that investigate and question Italian colonial history, and the ethics that relate to identity issues and queer forms of living. For many years, Campolmi has focused my curatorial and academic research on performance, through postcolonial, queer, and feminist theories. Her research and practice have also concentrated on creating the conditions to apply ethics in curatorial work. This residency is generously funded by the Danish Arts Foundation. Learn more here.
Anne Krinsky
November – December 2022
Anne Krinsky is a London-based artist, born in the US. She works with paint, print, photography and video. Research underpins her practice and she has made installations in response to materials in archived collections in the US, UK and India. Fascinated by the ephemeral nature of the physical world, Anne investigates overlooked structures in the natural and lived environments. She trained as a printmaker, and layering – of ideas, images and media – lies at the heart of her process. Since 2018, Anne has been working on an international project about vulnerable wetlands and climate change. At 18th Street, she will focus on the Los Angeles River Corridor and on coastal wetlands near LA. She has been awarded an Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice Grant to fund her research. Learn more here.
Maria Meinild [Danish Arts Foundation]
December 2022 – March 2023
Through video installation, photography and sculpture Maria Meinild looks to investigate patterns of social behavior and the political subtext of everyday life. The staging of the relationship between objects, conditions and human beings unfolds in works where the connection between individual and interpersonal relations are explored.
Maria Meinild (SE/DK) lives and works in Copenhagen and holds an MFA from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and she has also studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. This residency is generously sponsored by the Danish Arts Foundation. Learn more here.
EXHIBITIONS
Enjoy past and current exhibitions here.
ON VIEW
Imaginary Dwellings
A group exhibition curated by Marvella Muro and Natalie Godinez
Participating Artists: Ameeta Nanji, Alvaro Marquez, David John Attyah, Dewey Tafoya, Favianna Rodriguez, Garland Kirkpatrick, Helvetica Jones, Irwin Sanchez, Jackie Amezquita, Jerolyne Crute, Jesus Barraza, Karen Fiorito, Lorain Khalil Rihan, Luciana Abait, Marianne Sadowski, Mark Young, Mustafa Ali Clayton, Naguals Press, Nansi Guevara, Raoul De La Sota, Ricardo Mendoza, S.A. Bachman, Sandow Birk, Sandra Fernandez, Sovanchan Sorn, Votan Henriquez, Weston Takeshi Teruya, and Zeke Peña
Slipstream Galleries
July 25 – December 3, 2022
Imaginary Dwellings addresses the systemic inequities that perpetuate housing insecurity for oppressed peoples. Beyond exemplifying realities such as land rights, settler colonialism, forced displacement, and migration, the exhibition demonstrates humanity’s adaptability, resistance, and perseverance in transforming new environments into a home.
This exhibition is generously supported by Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Division, Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, California Community Foundation – LA Arts Fund, Mike Kelley Foundation, The Getty Foundation Marrow Internship Program, the Cultural Management grad program internship of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and 18th Street’s generous community of donors. The curators would like to give special thanks to Community Power Collective, Innercity Struggle, Eastside LEADS, Ramy Silyan, Sophia García, Priscilla Hernández, and Josiah O’Balles for allowing them to use their photographs, posters, and banners, as well as Self Help Graphics for loaning the prints from their archive for this exhibition.
Dear Future
Participating artist: Ranu Mukherjee
Propeller Gallery
September 6, 2022 – March 4, 2023
Framed as a letter to the future, Ranu Mukherjee’s new body of work includes a hybrid film installation and a series of mixed-media paintings informed by “rupture” – or the life circumstances that trigger challenge and change – giving rise to dense imaginary forests.
This exhibition is generously supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Division, Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, California Community Foundation – LA Arts Fund, Mike Kelley Foundation, The Getty Foundation Marrow Internship Program, and 18th Street’s generous community of donors.
(Re)imagining Home: On Care for Our Common Home
A group exhibition curated by Emma Balda, Venus Tung-yan Lau
Participating artists: Alexandra Dillon, Christopher Tin, Dan Kwong, Dan S Wang, David McDonald, Deborah Lynn Irmas, Debra Disman, Edi Dai, Elham Sagharchi, Gwen Samuels, Jeff Beall, Julia Michelle Dawson, Lionel Popkin, Luciana Abait, M Susan Broussard, Melinda Smith Altshuler, Michael Masucci, Po-Hao Chi, Rebecca Youssef, and Yvette Gellis.
Kitchen Lab
August 22, 2022 – July 31, 2023
Over the last two years, our notions of home have been challenged, transformed, and clarified. The pandemic has simultaneously forced us to shrink our physical home, while also asking us to expand our sense of home to now include people, food, rituals, and ideas. We have also seen our relationship with and to the Earth change. We have seen that our sense of home must expand to include the Earth and the way we care for it.
This exhibition was inspired by a series of studio visits between the curators and participating artists. This project was truly artist-driven and would not be possible without them and their willingness to engage with the concept, as we learn what it means as a community to share space– physically, emotionally, and creatively. The curators would like to thank the artists and staff of 18th Street for this opportunity, guidance, and support.
ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
AND STUDIO VISITS
18th Street is excited to continue and expand our Professional Development and Studio Visit programs for our artists in residence. This quarter we will be hosting sessions with Peter Wu+, curator of EPOCH gallery; Becky Koblick curator and director of Altman Siegel, San Francisco; Holly Jerger, senior exhibitions curator at Craft Contemporary (formerly Craft & Folk Art Museum) in Los Angeles; and Erika Anderson, ED at Sarah Myerscough Gallery, London. Robin Cembalest, former longtime editor of ARTnews, will be teaching Arts Communications Essentials, a webinar series for artists, once a month from June to October 2022.
To be an artist in residence at 18th Street Arts Center, apply here.
Borderless is 18th Street Arts Center’s special membership program on Patreon.
As a member, you get access to exclusive Borderless program content and events, a full color print of 18th Street Arts Center’s catalogue, access to professional development workshops and trainings for artists, exhibition tours, and more!
Learn more about Borderless and each level’s perks here: https://www.patreon.com/18thstreetarts
The following Professional Development and Creative Roundtable virtual programs are for artists in residence at 18th Street Arts Center and for Borderless members on the Arts Professional tier and above!
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WEBINARS
Designed for arts professionals of all levels, this webinar series with Robin Cembalest, former longtime editor of ARTnews, offers training in essential communications skills in a collegial setting. Webinar sessions on content strategy, social media, elevator pitches, artist statements, and promotion share strategies, best practices, and offer valuable one-on-one-feedback. Sessions in this 2022 series are scheduled for June 9, July 14, August 11, September 15, and October 13. All will be online over Zoom and will not be recorded. Learn more here.
Session 4: Writing Your Artist Statement
Thursday September 15 | 12 pm-1 pm
Online: Zoom
Call it your bio, “about blurb,” or statement: Every creative professional needs a paragraph (or two) that sums up their practice. Using examples from various artists, the class offers templates for describing your art practice in about 150 words.
Session 5: Promoting Yourself and Your Art
Thursday October 13 | 12 pm-1 pm
Online: Zoom
This final class in the series unites lessons from the first four to focus on the art of self-promotion. Whether you have a show coming up or you’re trying to get one, this workshop gives you strategies to attract the interest of galleries, journalists, curators, collectors and other influencers.
Check out the rest of the sessions here.
CREATIVE ROUNDTABLES
Creative Roundtable: Becky Koblick
Thursday, September 22 | 12 pm-1 pm PT
Online: Zoom
Join Becky Koblick, independent curator and director of Altman Siegel, San Francisco, for a friendly meet and greet. Learn more here.
Creative Roundtable: Irene Campolmi
Thursday, October 20 | 12 pm-1 pm PT
Online: Zoom
Join Irene Campolmi, Copenhagen-based curator, for a friendly meet and greet.
Learn more here.
Creative Roundtable: Holly Jerger
Thursday, November 3 | 12 pm-1 pm PT
Online: Zoom
Join Holly Jerger, senior exhibitions curator at Craft Contemporary (formerly Craft & Folk Art Museum) in Los Angeles, for a friendly meet and greet. Learn more here.
Creative Roundtable: Peter Wu+
Thursday, November 10 | 12 pm-1 pm PT
Online: Zoom
Join Peter Wu+, artist and curator, for a workshop leading guests from purchasing Tezos to minting their first NFT. Learn more here.
Creative Roundtable: Erika Anderson
Thursday, December 15 | 12 pm-1 pm PT
Online: Zoom
Join Erika Anderson, ED at Sarah Myerscough Gallery, London, for a friendly meet and greet. Learn more here.
Thank you to our generous supporters!
City of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs
California Community Foundation – LA Arts Fund
Institute of Museums and Library Sciences
National Endowment for the Arts
McComb Foundation
LA County Department of Mental Health – We Rise
Community Corp of Santa Monica
Charles Sumner Bird Foundation
Pittsburgh Foundation – Grambrindi Davies Fund
National Endowment for the Arts
18th Street’s generous Board of Directors and Community of donors
Weaving Unity: Centering Decentered Voices
JUNE – AUGUST 2022 PROGRAM GUIDE
Care.
Over the past few weeks (and really the past 2+ years), I can’t help reflecting on how we show care for ourselves and others.
While it’s hard to make sense of a sometimes uncaring world, I am encouraged and comforted by the consistent care that permeates all areas of 18th Street Arts Center. From our artists, to our dedicated staff, to our Board of Directors, I’ve watched this community show care for the practice and process of making art (as an essential component of a vibrant, just, and healthy society), as well as, for our artists in residence, our local community partners, and our global art communities (featured in our membership program, Borderless).
Our recent exhibitions explored unity and peace, and upcoming ones will examine history and protest. We care enough to have these conversations and invite all of you to join us. We will continue to find new ways to show care for one another and our mission of supporting artists; who in turn inspire, comfort, provoke, and educate us.
Take a look through our guide and please come join us this summer for our new workshops, video premieres and exhibitions and participate in these mutual acts of artistry and care.
Melissa K. Anderson
Executive/Development Assistant
UPCOMING EVENTS
*** For in-person events, masks are required at all times.
The Influencers and The Gatekeepers
Video Premiere with n00n and Marcus Civin
Part of Arts Learning Lab @ Home
Thursday, June 9, 2022 | 6 pm-8 pm
Online: Zoom
n00n and Marcus Civin will present two short animated videos—The Influencers, created in January 2022, and its sequel, The Gatekeepers, a premiere crowdsourced from 18th Street Arts Center’s local and global community. Stick around after the screening for an online conversation with the artists.
The Influencers is a fictional biographical sketch of two obsessive, stylish fixtures in the art world, Margaretha and Wald, who live a sometimes quotidian and sometimes whimsical baroque lifestyle. Margaretha and Wald stress about various and impending catastrophes that combine and manifest as delusions. They associate and dissociate with their bodies, the environment, the pandemic, and each other.
In The Gatekeepers, as the pandemic rages, a self-conscious powerbroker named Sydonia hosts an exclusive party on her gothic pearl farm behind high walls and iron gates. Her attempts to remain on top turn her upside down. The Gatekeepers references class, high society, architecture, and gates in New York, Los Angeles, and other cities.
Postcards from Historic Broadway
Workshop with Karla Diaz
Saturday, June 18 | 1-4 PM
In- person: Virginia Avenue Park
2200 Virginia Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90404
You’re invited to a postcard workshop that honors Santa Monica’s historic Broadway neighborhood, a thriving African American, Mexican American, and immigrant community that was destroyed by the construction of the Interstate 10 Freeway in the 1960s. Explore the Quinn Research Center’s archive and create a postcard that highlights the underrepresented stories of this neighborhood with artist Karla Diaz.
The workshop will provide copies of archival material sourced from the Quinn Research Center’s Broadway Heritage District archive. Participants are invited to cut and collage these materials into postcards that celebrate and explore local overlooked histories.
This workshop is organized by the Quinn Research Center and 18th Street Arts Center and is part of the 30th Annual Juneteenth Celebration in Santa Monica’s Virginia Avenue Park.
Registration is recommended but not required.
Protest Poster Workshop & Exhibition Walkthrough
Related to the exhibition Imaginary Dwellings
Saturday, August 20 | 4-7 PM
In-person: 18th Street Arts Center (Airport Campus)
3026 Airport Avenue Santa Monica CA 90405
Get inspired by the exhibition Imaginary Dwellings and learn how to make your own protest poster through a stencil screen printing workshop with Self Help Graphics & Art’s Barrio Mobile Art Studio (BMAS). Explore the themes of the exhibition, such as land rights, settler colonialism, forced displacement, and migration, and share the message you want to express through screen printing.
Curated by Marvella Muro and Natalie Godinez, Imaginary Dwellings addresses the systemic inequities that perpetuate housing insecurity for oppressed peoples. This event will also feature walkthroughs of the exhibition with the curators. Plus, Market Exchange vendors will be onsite selling their artisanal goods.
VISITING ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE
Ranu Mukherjee
June – August 2022
Ranu Mukherjee is an American artist of Indian and European descent. She makes hybrid work in painting, moving image, and installation to build new imaginative capacities, guided by the forces of ecology and non-human agency, diaspora and migration, motherhood, and transnational feminisms. Mukherjee earned her MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London and BFA in Painting with a minor in Film from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston. She is a co-founder of media collective 0rphan drift and Chair of Film at California College of the Arts. Learn more here.
Rashaad Newsome
June – August 2022
Rashaad Newsome’s work creates a new field that rejects classification by blending several practices, including assemblage, sculpture, film, photography, music, computer programming, software engineering, community organizing, and performance. Using the diasporic traditions of improvisation, he pulls from the world of advertising, the internet, art history, and Black and queer culture to produce counter-hegemonic work that walks the tightrope between creative computing, social practice, abstraction, and intersectionality. Assemblage acts as a theoretical, conceptual, and technical method to construct a new cultural framework of power that does not find others’ oppression necessary. Newsome’s work celebrates Black contributions to the art canon and creates innovative and inclusive forms of culture and media. Newsome’s residency is supported by LACMA’s Art + Technology Lab program. Learn more here.
Po-Hao Chi
July – September 2022
Po-Hao Chi is an interdisciplinary practitioner who works at the fusion of art, music, and technology. His practice predominantly involves cybernetics, sonic agency, self-organization, and connectivity. This stems from the fascination with boundaries and guidelines to associate diversities in everyday life, ranging from conceptual to virtual art, software to hardware, performance to installation. His recent research aims to raise awareness of “internetworked” systems by turning daily usages of technology into performative gestures, exploring collaborative capacities between humans and artifacts with the evolving connectivity. Learn more here.
Shirley Villavicencio Pizango
July 2022
Shirley Villavicencio Pizango is an artist based in Ghent whose practice includes painting, ceramics, textile. Villavicencio Pizango primarily works with live models and portrays her sitters surrounded by lush vegetation amidst textiles, pottery and geometric forms reminiscent of Incan sources. The artist rejects conventional perspective and uses vivid colors, often inspired by other cultures. Through the use of the painterly process, she creates an intimate dialogue with her subjects. And yet, a subtle political message is hidden—her position as a woman, and female artist, as well as her background, are all recurring themes. In this way she stands up to conventional exoticism, and the repressed (or sexualized) position of women in Western art history. Villavicencio Pizango’s residency is supported by the Steve Turner Gallery. Learn more here.
Pei-Chi Kuo
August – October 2022
Pei-Chi Kuo is a graduate from the master’s degree in New Media Art at the Taipei National University of the Arts. Her work experiments with the possibilities of sound art. In 2012, she began developing her “Sound Portrait” series, which combines music, sound, and visual art. She has a talent for taking the interpersonal relations of politics, power, and contradictions, and turning that into artwork. Her creations address Taiwan and the International—whether it is the cross-strait issues or the relationships that exist within international politics—both reflect contradictions and conflicts of Taiwanese self-consciousness. Kuo’s residency is supported by the Taiwan Academy. Learn more here.
EXHIBITIONS
Enjoy past and current exhibitions here.
ON VIEW
Radical Propagations
A group exhibition curated by Maru García
Participating artists: Alberto Tlatoa, Lucía Monge, Rashonda Bartney, Rebecca Youssef, and Yrneh Gabon
Propeller Gallery
March 21-July 30, 2022
Just as a plant is propagated by splitting and rooting, Radical Propagations includes the work of artists and activists whose practices focus on the creation of spaces for regeneration.
This exhibition and the research leading up to it is made possible by the Artists At Work program, a collaboration between THE OFFICE performing arts + film and the LA County Department of Arts and Culture; the City of Santa Monica, and 18th Street’s generous community of donors. Many thanks also to the thought partnership of Santa Monica’s Sustainable Works.
UPCOMING
Imaginary Dwellings
A group exhibition curated by Marvella Muro and Natalie Godinez
Participating Artists: Ameeta Nanji, Alvaro Marquez, David John Attyah, Dewey Tafoya, Favianna Rodriguez, Garland Kirkpatrick, Helvetica Jones, Irwin Sanchez, Jackie Amezquita, Jerolyne Crute, Jesus Barraza, Karen Fiorito, Lorain Khalil Rihan, Luciana Abait, Marianne Sadowski, Mark Young, Mustafa Ali Clayton, Naguals Press, Nansi Guevara, Raoul De La Sota, Ricardo Mendoza, S.A. Bachman, Sandow Birk, Sandra Fernandez, Sovanchan Sorn, Votan Henriquez, Weston Takeshi Teruya, and Zeke Peña
Slipstream Galleries
July 25 – December 3, 2022
Imaginary Dwellings addresses the systemic inequities that perpetuate housing insecurity for oppressed peoples. Beyond exemplifying realities such as land rights, settler colonialism, forced displacement, and migration, the exhibition demonstrates humanity’s adaptability, resistance, and perseverance in transforming new environments into a home.
This exhibition is made possible by the City of Santa Monica and 18th Street’s generous community of donors. Many thanks to Self Help Graphics and Art, Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE), and the Center for the Study of Political Graphics for the production and archive of artworks.
ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
AND STUDIO VISITS
18th Street is excited to continue and expand our Professional Development and Studio Visit programs for our artists in residence. This quarter we will be hosting sessions with Peter Wu+, curator of EPOCH gallery; Angela Washko, artist and professor at Carnegie Mellon University; Kris Kuramitsu, Senior Curator at Large at the Mistake Room; and Nicholas Barlow, Curatorial Assistant at the Hammer Museum. Robin Cembalest, former longtime editor of ARTnews, will be teaching Arts Communications Essentials, a webinar series for artists, once a month from June to October 2022.
To be an artist in residence at 18th Street Arts Center, apply here.
Borderless is 18th Street Arts Center’s special membership program on Patreon.
As a member, you get access to exclusive Borderless program content and events, a full color print of 18th Street Arts Center’s catalogue, access to professional development workshops and trainings for artists, exhibition tours, and more!
Learn more about Borderless and each level’s perks here: https://www.patreon.com/18thstreetarts
The following Professional Development and Creative Roundtable virtual programs are for artists in residence at 18th Street Arts Center and for Borderless members on the Arts Professional tier and above!
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WEBINARS
Designed for arts professionals of all levels, this webinar series with Robin Cembalest, former longtime editor of ARTnews, offers training in essential communications skills in a collegial setting. Webinar sessions on content strategy, social media, elevator pitches, artist statements, and promotion share strategies, best practices, and offer valuable one-on-one-feedback. Sessions in this 2022 series are scheduled for June 9, July 14, August 11, September 15, and October 13. All will be online over Zoom and will not be recorded. Learn more here.
Session 1: Launching Your Content Strategy
Thursday June 9 | 12 pm-1 pm PT
Websites, mailing lists, and social media: artists today have to produce more promotional content than ever before. This introductory class shows artists how to craft their message and disseminate it across various platforms.
Session 2: Social Media for Artists
Thursday July 14 | 12 pm-1 pm PT
Covering Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, this class provides an overview of best practices across social media platforms. The class explains how to start and maintain a social media strategy, craft profiles, build networks, and more.
Session 3: Crafting Your Elevator Pitch
Thursday, August 11 | 12 pm-1 pm PT
Can you describe your art and projects in 30 seconds? This spoken-word workshop provides exercises and tips for developing the classic Elevator Pitch.
Check out the rest of the sessions here.
CREATIVE ROUNDTABLES
Creative Roundtable: Peter Wu+
Thursday, June 16 | 12 pm-1 pm PT
Online: Zoom
Join Peter Wu+, founder and curator of EPOCH Gallery, following his studio visits with 18th Street AiR for a friendly meet and greet. Learn more here.
Creative Roundtable: Angela Washko
Thursday, June 23 | 12 pm-1 pm PT
Online: Zoom
Join Angela Washko, artist and professor at Carnegie Mellon University, following her studio visits with 18th Street AiR for a friendly meet and greet. Learn more here.
Creative Roundtable: Kris Kuramitsu
Thursday, July 21, 2022 | 12-1 PM PT
Online: Zoom
Join Kris Kuramitsu, Senior Curator at Large at the Mistake Room, following her studio visits with 18th Street AiR for a friendly meet and greet. Learn more here.
Creative Roundtable: Nicholas Barlow
Thursday, August 18 | 12 pm-1 pm PT
Online: Zoom
Join Nicholas Barlow, Curatorial Assistant at the Hammer Museum, following his studio visits with 18th Street AiR for a friendly meet and greet. Learn more here.
Thank you to our generous supporters!
Artists At Work program, a collaboration between THE OFFICE performing arts + film and the LA County Department of Arts and Culture
Institute of Museums and Library Sciences
LACMA’s Art + Technology Lab program
Designed for arts professionals of all levels, this webinar series with Robin Cembalest, former longtime editor of ARTnews, offers training in essential communications skills in a collegial setting. Webinar sessions on content strategy, social media, elevator pitches, artist statements, and promotion share strategies, best practices, and offer valuable one-on-one-feedback. Sessions in this 2022 series are scheduled for June 9, July 14, August 11, September 15, and October 13 and will not be recorded.
This virtual program is for artists in residence at 18th Street Arts Center and for Borderless members on the Arts Professional tier and above!
Artists in residence at 18th Street Arts Center, get the Zoom link in the Artist Portal.
Borderless members, get the Zoom link on Patreon or on the Borderless membership portal.
Session 1: Launching Your Content Strategy
Thursday June 9 | 12 pm-1 pm
Online: Zoom
Websites, mailing lists, and social media: artists today have to produce more promotional content than ever before. This introductory class shows artists how to craft their message and disseminate it across various platforms.
Session 2: Social Media for Artists
Thursday July 14 | 12 pm-1 pm
Online: Zoom
Covering Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, this class provides an overview of best practices across social media platforms. The class explains how to start and maintain a social media strategy, craft profiles, build networks, and more.
Session 3: Crafting Your Elevator Pitch
Thursday August 11 | 12 pm-1 pm
Online: Zoom
Can you describe your art and projects in 30 seconds? This spoken-word workshop provides exercises and tips for developing the classic Elevator Pitch.
Session 4: Writing Your Artist Statement
Thursday September 15 | 12 pm-1 pm
Online: Zoom
Call it your bio, “about blurb,” or statement: Every creative professional needs a paragraph (or two) that sums up their practice. Using examples from various artists, the class offers templates for describing your art practice in about 150 words.
Session 5: Promoting Yourself and Your Art
Thursday October 13 | 12 pm-1 pm
Online: Zoom
This final class in the series unites lessons from the first four to focus on the art of self-promotion. Whether you have a show coming up or you’re trying to get one, this workshop gives you strategies to attract the interest of galleries, journalists, curators, collectors and other influencers.
ABOUT ROBIN CEMBALEST:
An early art-world adapter to social media and the former longtime editor of ARTnews, Robin Cembalest has spent her career helping arts professionals to communicate effectively. Over 16 years at the helm of ARTnews, she shepherded the century-old magazine into the digital era, expanding its content and training generations of interns, writers, and editors. In 2014, she launched her business Robin Cembalest Editorial Strategies, working with clients in the nonprofit and market sectors to implement mission-based content. She teaches webinars in arts communications skills at schools, residencies, and organizations, and independently on Eventbrite. An award-winning investigative journalist who has published widely in the art and mainstream press, Cembalest is best known today as @rcembalest, handle of her popular Instagram and Twitter feeds.