Opening: With Entheogenic Intent (Burn the Witch)

Elena Bajo
With Entheogenic Intent (Burn the Witch)

Opening reception: Saturday, February 1, 6-9 pm
RSVP encouraged: http://burnthewitch.eventbrite.com

18th Street Arts Center //  Main Gallery
1639 18th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90404

Exhibition dates: January 13 – March 28, 2014

As Artist Lab Resident at 18th Street Arts Center, artist Elena Bajo will develop a site-specific body of work that examines botanical, topographical, and textual elements to reveal the layers of the everyday and the specific temporality of social encounters born out of her residency. Bajo contemplates local indigenous shamanism as political dissidence, the universal history of magic, and the continuous suppression of stifled histories of revolutionary women by political systems via colonization and witch-hunting. During her residency, the exhibition space will fluctuate constantly as an environment where new spells will be cast and new historical elements undertaken.

Curated by Anuradha Vikram and Nicole Rademacher

Interventions during opening reception:

Warren Neidich, curated by Isabelle Le Normand

Sean Raspet, curated by Amanda Hunt

Artist/Curator Biographies:

Amanda Hunt is a curator at LA><ART, Los Angeles. Hunt is also curator of the forthcoming Portland2014: A Biennial of Contemporary Art, presented by Disjecta Contemporary Art Center in Portland, Oregon. She has worked at various galleries and institutions including Whitechapel Gallery, London; Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York; the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Isabelle Le Normand is an independent curator based in Los Angeles. For six years, she was director of Visual Arts and curator at Mains d’Œuvres, a multidisciplinary space in the north of Paris where she curated over 30 exhibitions. She has also curated independently in Paris, Los Angeles, Bourges, Budapest, and Marseille.

Warren Neidich is an artist and theorist whose interdisciplinary works explores the interfaces of mind,brain and world. Selected exhibitions include the Whitney Museum of American Art, PS1 MOMA, LACMA, Laguna Art Museum, California Museum of Photography, Riverside, the ICA London and the Ludwig Museum, Koln, Germany. Recent awards include the Fulbright Scholar Program, 2013, The Murray and Vickie Pepper Distinguished Artist Award, Pitzer College, 2012 and the Vilem Flusser Theory Award, Berlin, 2010.

Sean Raspet is an artist and novelist working in Los Angeles. He is currently studying towards an MFA at UCLA

Elena Bajo’s Artist Lab Residency at 18th Street Arts Center and all associated events have been made possible through the generous support of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.