Collaboration Labs
 IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
| VENUE ADDRESS: 1639 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA 90404 |
| CONTACT: crystal nelson or Amber Jones |
| PHONE: 310-453-3711 ext. 103 or 108 |
| CONTACT EMAIL: ajones@18thstreet.org |
| WEBSITE: WWW.18THSTREET.ORG |
| CHARGE: Free |
| HANDICAPPED ACCESSIBLE: Yes |
| CALENDAR / ART |
Collaboration Labs: Southern California Artists and the Artist Space Movement
Opening Reception: September 24, 2011, 6-10 pm
Barbara T. Smith, Field Piece – Nude Sit In, performance/installation, 1971, (courtesy of the artist and The Box Gallery, L.A.)
Santa Monica, CA-On September 24, 2011 6-10pm, 18th Street Arts Center presents the opening of its contribution to the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945-1980 initiative, Collaboration Labs: Southern California Artists and the Artist Space Movement. This groundbreaking exhibition, curated by Alex Donis, features the works of five seminal artists and artist groups: Rachel Rosenthal, Barbara T. Smith, Suzanne Lacy/Leslie Labowitz-Starus, Electronic Café International and EZTV; all who have been central to the alternative artist space movement in Southern California since the early 1970’s.
This exhibition uses these five artists/artist groups’ as case studies to trace how their collaborative practices and alternative cultural infrastructures functioned like laboratories for testing the political possibilities of experimental artist-run spaces. These artist practices and the spaces that hosted and fostered them were intimately related to the politics of the time (i.e. gay liberation, civil rights, freedom of information and feminism). Collaboration Labs demonstrates that much of the Los Angeles time-based work in the 1970’s grew out of and fed into California artist space movement, which increasingly shaped the landscape of post-war LA art. Through video, performance, archival materials, documentation and original works, this exhibition examines how the thinking that artists brought to the creation of their work in the 70’s mirrors the kind of thinking that incited the development of artist spaces.
From the seminal performance work by Rachel Rosenthal, the early queer video work of EZTV, boundary breaking art installations by Barbara T. Smith, the pioneering media explorations by Electronic Café International, to the feminist media interventions of Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz-Starus, these five influential and often overlooked artists and collaborative arts groups were fundamental to charting the course for the artist space movement and its vision of egalitarian artistic production and reception.
The exhibit will be accompanied by a limited edition catalog designed by Jessica Fleischman/ Still Room and includes essays by cutting-edge visual and performance artist Alex Donis, historian Julia Bryan Wilson, Linda Burnham (former Editor of High Performance Magazine), Dorit Cypis (former Director of Foundation for Arts Resources), and Clayton Campbell (former Artistic Director o18th Street Arts Center). The exhibition is designed by Sebastian Clough, Director of Exhibitions at the Fowler Museum of Art.
Event Information:
Saturday, Sept. 24: 6:00-10 PM
Opening Reception: live music by Bali & Beyond, open studios, food trucks and complimentary drinks
Tuesday, Sept. 27: 3:30-6:00 PM
Opening Press Conference & Museum Press Previews
Westside Museum Loop including Santa Monica Museum of Art, 18th Street Arts Center, Otis College of Art & Design
Saturday, October 1 12:00 Noon-4:00 PM
Westside Museum Loop including Santa Monica Museum of Art, 18th Street Arts Center, Otis College of Art & Design
Friday – Saturday 2:00 PM-6:00 PM
October 21 & 22 Westside Regional Weekend including: bike, shuttle tours and artist talks- Partnering Organizations Include: 18th Street Arts Center, Eames House, J. Paul Getty Museum, Otis College of Art and Design, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Sam Francis Gallery, Crossroads School, Santa Monica Convention and Visitors Bureau
Wednesdays 8:00 PM
Oct 26-Nov 30 EZTV’s “Hacking the Timeline v2.0”: An event driven series of five distinctly different evening programs ranging from Queer Culture to Digital Art to Neo-Riot Girl
For more information on Collaboration Labs: Southern California Artists and the Artist Space Movement and the artists involved, visit: www.18thstreet.org
Gallery hours are Monday – Friday 11am-6pm. 18th Street Arts Center is located at 1639 18th Street, Santa Monica.
Pacific Standard Time is an unprecedented collaboration of more than sixty cultural institutions across Southern California, coming together to tell the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene. Initiated through grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time will take place for six months beginning October 2011. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor is Bank of America.
