18th Street Arts Center's
2021 Virtual Gala
November 6, 2021
5-6 PM | Online
An evening honoring essential arts workers
evolving wellbeing, culture, and community life in LA
Join us and our host, musician Shirazette Tinnin, in uplifting
Kristina Wong - performance artist and founder, Auntie Sewing Squad
Asuka Hisa - artist, educator, curator
Bill and Carolyne Edwards - founders Quinn Research Center + Archive
with video art curated by special guest, Asha Bukojemsky of Marathon Screenings
and a limited edition print by Rodrigo Valenzuela
November 6, 2021
5-6 PM | Online
How to Join
Tickets
Access to the gala, along with a variety of additional benefits, will be available to everyone who joins our new Borderless membership platform on Patreon as a subscriber! You can join for as little as $5/month.
Sponsorships
Gala sponsorships beginning at $2,500 are available for those who believe strongly in our work and may have more to give in this crucial time. We would love to meet with you and talk more about our work. Please email Melissa at mandersonvincent@18thstreet.org to inquire.
One-Time Donations
We encourage you to become a member, but if you just want to make a one-time donation, you can donate by clicking the button below. Thank you for your support!
Borderless Benefits
You will also get access to:
- Exclusive full-length artist films by Pau S. Pescador, Kenneth Tam, Alison O’Daniel, and Rodrigo Valenzuela for two weeks after the event
- Our full library of Arts Learning Lab @ Home workshops and 18@home recorded artist talks, performances, and panels (for members only!)
- Free member access to our professional development workshops with curators around the globe, usually reserved only for 18th Street resident artists
- Early access to limited edition artist prints
- Personal tours of our exhibitions (virtually or in-person)
- ...and so much more!!
Limited Edition Print
by Rodrigo Valenzuela
A new original lithograph limited edition (55) by artist Rodrigo Valenzuela, co-published by El Nopal Press and 18th Street Arts Center is available for purchase for $350.* The lithograph is produced on Somerset Satin White (300 grams) paper, and is approximately 23 1/8 x 16 inches.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Rodrigo Valenzuela (b. Santiago, Chile 1982) lives and work in Los Angeles, CA, where he is an Assistant Professor and Head of the Photography Department at UCLA. Valenzuela is the recipient of the 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography and Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. He has received the Joan Mitchell Award, Art Matters Foundation Grant, and Artist Trust Innovators Award. Recent solo exhibitions include Screen Series at the New Museum, NY (2019), Lisa Kandlhofer Galerie, Vienna, AU (2018), Work in Its Place, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Eugene (2018); American-Type, Orange County Museum (2018); Labor Standards, Portland Art Museum (2018); Future Ruins, Frye Art Museum, Seattle (2015).
*Please allow 2-4 weeks shipping. Prints are expected by the end of September, 2021.
We will ship you an edition as soon as it is available. Please note that you must add a $60 fee for international addresses.
Missing Parts
A video program from curator Asha Bukojemsky
Over the course of the past year, the US faced a reckoning regarding its construction of self. Between the catastrophic effects of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, many have come to recognize the value of those working behind the scenes, under the table, and in the fields (be it agricultural or medical), and the contributions these individuals make in sustaining healthy and vibrant communities. For this year’s 18th Street Arts Center Gala video program, Missing Parts, four artists have been selected for their illuminating work in revealing the power structures that designate a white, ableist, cisgender view of belonging and recogniton. Featuring BIPOC, immigrant, para-abled stories routinely omitted from our national narrative, these works make visible the unseen communities that make up the missing parts.
Missing Parts presents the works of Alison O’Daniel, Pau S. Pescador, Kenneth Tam and Rodrigo Valenzuela, as they analyze established systems of representation and inclusion. Facial recognition technology, male archetypes, unknown Los Angeles history and musical gatherings reveal broader reflections on visibility and belonging, and how we collectively construct community.
--Asha Bukojemsky, Los Angeles
Gala viewers will explore excerpts of each of the four artists' work in a 25-minute video program, and will have access to the full-length films by becoming a member.
Curator's Program Notes
In Tertiary (2018), Rodrigo Valenzuela presents a group of aspiring actors who call attention to the film and television industries' flawed method of diversity casting, and the discriminatory facial recognition technology that struggles to properly capture those with darker skin.
The lack of inclusion in such industries naturally determines limited options for self-identification and reinforces traditional American forms of assimilation, a theme further explored in The Crane and the Snake (2021) by Kenneth Tam. Investigating the violent contradictions of Asian American fraternities, Tam uses Taoist principles of simultaneously opposing forces to explore how these antagonist cultural practices affect the body, especially those of young men as they search for self-identity and acceptance.
In Nyke and the New York Kite Enthusiasts (2015), Alison O’Daniel presents an intimate, musical gathering that further examines physical belonging through alternate modes of perception. Featuring the deaf performer Nyke Prince, the scene’s separation of visual and aural explores silence, deafness, sound, and hearing. The scene subtly reveals different realities existing side by side, as hearing people close their eyes while Nyke gazes on. As part of O’Daniel’s larger body of work, The Tuba Thieves, the work reveals the hidden politics of a culture that takes hearing for granted.
Unseen realities are further unearthed in The Founding of Los Angeles (2018), a film by Pau S. Pescador. Bringing together interviews with 45 artists, writers, and historians, the film recounts lesser recognized moments, both historical and personal, that present alternative narratives to the ones presented in civic society and popular media. Juxtaposing these stories, Pescador presents a collaged vision of history that is adequately subjective, dynamic, and far more inclusive.
Asha Bukojemsky
Asha Bukojemsky is an independent curator, public programmer and writer based in Los Angeles. Her projects focus on presenting works in non-hierarchical environments that foster public engagement and dialogue around the construction of identity, decolonization, and the politics of memory. Bukojemsky is the curator of Marathon Screenings, a series of salon-style film & video presentations, and the Program Coordinator at X-TRA Contemporary Art Journal. She frequently collaborates with a range of institutions, and has presented projects and exhibitions with: JOAN; 18th Street Arts Center; Active Cultures; Creative Migration; Richard Neutra VDL House (all in Los Angeles, CA); Chicken Coop Contemporary (Portland, OR); Syndicate (Vilnius, LT); Aldo Chaparro Studio and EDA, (Mexico City), and the Composing Rooms (London, UK).
Participating Artists
Alison O’Daniel
Nyke and the New York Kite Enthusiasts (2015)
Alison O’Daniel is a visual artist and filmmaker. She has screened and exhibited in galleries and museums internationally, including the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow; Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR; Centro Centro, Madrid, Spain; Renaissance Society, Chicago; Art in General, New York; Centre d’art Contemporain Passerelle, Brest, France; Tallinn Art Hall, Estonia; Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha; Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles; Samuel Freeman Gallery, Los Angeles. She lives and works in San Francisco and Los Angeles, CA.
Pau S. Pescador
The Founding of Los Angeles (2018)
Pau S. Pescador is a trans-nonbinary artist who works in film, photography, and performance. Select exhibitions and screenings include: Biquini Wax, Mexico City; Deslave, Tijuana; LADRÓNgalería, Mexico City; UV Estudios, Buenos Aires; 5 Car Garage; 18th Street Art Center; Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena; Angels Gate Cultural Center, San Pedro; Human Resources; Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Main Museum; The Pit; LAND at The Gamble House; Park View; Tyler Park Presents; X-tra Online; all within Los Angeles County. Select performances include Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman University, Orange; LADRÓNgalería, Mexico City; Performa New York; University of California, Berkeley Durham Studio Theater; Los Angeles Contemporary Archives; Machine Projects; PAM Residencies; Hammer Museum (with KCHUNG TV); REDCAT; and ForYourArt at 6020 Wilshire Blvd. Their first collection of writing, CRUSHES: A NOVELLA, was published by Econo Textual Objects in Spring 2017.
Rodrigo Valenzuela
Tertiary (2018)
Rodrigo Valenzuela (b.Santiago, Chile 1982) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, where he is the Assistant Professor and Head of the Photography Department at UCLA. Valenzuela has been awarded the 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography and Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship; Joan Mitchell award for painters and sculptors; Art Matters Foundation grant; and Artist trust Innovators Award. Recent solo exhibitions include: New Museum, NY; Lisa Kandlhofer Galerie, Vienna, AU; Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Eugene; Orange County Museum; Portland Art Museum; Frye Art Museum, Seattle. Recent residencies include: Core Fellowship at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture; MacDowell Colony; Bemis Center for contemporary arts; Lightwork; and the Center for Photography at Woodstock.
Kenneth Tam
The Crane and the Snake (2021)
This work was commissioned by The Shed’s Open Call
Kenneth Tam works in video, sculpture, installation and photography, using the male body as a starting point for discussions about performance, physical intimacy and private ritual. Tam received his BFA from the Cooper Union. He has had solo exhibitions at the Minneapolis Institute of Art; MIT List Center for Visual Arts; the Visual Arts Center at UT Austin, Commonwealth and Council, LA; Night Gallery, LA; Queens Museum, NY and at the ICA LA. Tam has participated in group shows at 47 Canal, NY; Hollybush Gardens, London; the Hammer Museum, LA; InPractice at SculptureCenter, Queens The Shed’s Open Call. He has participated in residencies including Artist Lab at 18th Street Arts Center; LMCC Workspace; The Core Residency Program at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Pioneer Works; and at The Kitchen. Tam is a Lecturer at Princeton University, Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University and film/video faculty at Bard MFA. He was born in Queens, NY and currently lives there.
