When I reflect on my first six months at 18th Street and think about the upcoming quarter, growth comes to mind. I was excited and grateful to join the team almost immediately after finishing my Master’s program. The organization interested me because of the team's plans to develop its programming and campus.
The next quarter is full of change and growth both in the gallery and outside as we move forward with renovations at the Olympic campus, California Creative Corps and Jenny Yurshansky’s Rinsing the Bones. Watching the campus change and our buildings get painted is exciting. I am eager to help our 18 artists across the state grow their practice through the California Creative Corps and see gallery visitors add their stories to Jenny Yurshansky’s Unfolding Narratives quilt.
I am excited to continue my professional growth alongside 18th Street.
Sydney Brundige
Administrative Assistant
Visiting Artists-in-Residence
Monica Sheets
September – November 2023
Monica Sheets is a Saint Louis-based artist who creates sculpture and installation, organizes events, and develops archives and oral histories to understand what it means to be an engaged citizen in the world beyond traditional forms of activism. The throughline of her work is a focus on historiography and identity, exploring how our stories about the past play out in our lives today.
She was born in Toledo, Ohio and studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Her experiences in the Rust Belt (the former industrial heart of the US) were pivotal to her decision to work directly with participants, to reach audiences who might not normally visit galleries and museums. From 2010 to 2014 she led Das Fundbuero, a storefront space in Leipzig that collected objects, hosted events, and created a space for considering the nuances of East German history by the people who lived it. More recently, she worked on a series of collaborative projects with erotic dancers to explore the current conditions of and utopian visions for stripping.
Hell Gette
August – October 2023
Hell Gette is a German painter born in Karabulak, Kazakhstan, based in Germany.
Her practice includes ceramics and oil paintings.
Hell Gette paints :
“#Landscape3.0 Future landscape paintings.
I use digital vocabulary such as Photoshop tools, computer game logic, emoji icons etc to create my own world. A back and forth between digital and analog, classic and zeitgeist techniques. Starting with a plein air watercolor painting, I then play with a variety of digital tools in order to get its vocabulary, just to paint it all in oils. I like the ambivalence between virtual, modern, “untouchable” in an art historically strongly funded technique such as oil colors. This break makes it highly interesting for me.”
Gil Yefman
August 2023
Gil Yefman is a conceptual transdisciplinary artist based in Tel Aviv and represented by Shoshana Wayne Gallery, LA. Yefman creates sculptures, videos, performances, installations, and two dimensional works that are process-oriented and are often developed collaboratively. Using soft materials like felt and yarn, Yefman’s practice considers difficult histories while imagining the potential for individual and collective healing. Yefman uses archival materials as points of departure from which the knitting process resembles writing – texts and contexts become textures suggesting alternative interpretations to dogmatic translations.
Wen-Jeng Deng
July – September 2023
Wen-Jen Deng graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (L’ENSB-A) in Paris, France. Recently, she has been working on soft sculptures made with natural dyes, together with woven and embroidered maps. Deng’s latest creation, Pingpu Origins, focuses on Taiwan’s historical events, aboriginal culture, and ethnic integration issues. Fond of mountaineering and hiking, Deng has climbed many high mountains in Taiwan. She enriches her creations by integrating the history, myths, legends, and ethnic migration paths into tapestry and map art. The theme of this residency in the United States is the age of great navigation in the world: “the globalization movement on the table”, how fruits and vegetables are spread all over the world.
This residency is made possible by an artist residency partnership between 18th Street Arts Center and the Taiwan Academy.
Lawrence Lek
June – August 2023
Lawrence Lek is a London-based artist, filmmaker, and musician working with video game engines, simulation, and architecture. He explores worldbuilding—the crafting of holistic fictional worlds—as a form of collage, incorporating elements from both material and virtual sources to develop narratives of alternate histories and possible futures.
Jenny Yurshansky: Rinsing the Bones | July 8 - November 30
Curated by Karen Moss
Jenny Yurshansky’s Rinsing the Bones explores how generational displacement passes the embodied trauma of dislocation onto future generations.
During the past two years, Yurshansky held a series of community-based workshops in the greater Los Angeles area for participants to tell their migration story, whether it be personal or ancestral. The resulting materials formed the foundation of the exhibition featuring all new works, including an installation scale quilt comprised of illustrated family narratives; audio testimonials in the form of playable, eroding, X-ray film records; bone-like 3D-printed sculptures of participant’s treasured handheld heirlooms; and photograms resembling airport X-rays. During the exhibition, the public is invited to share migration histories, excavate memories held in the body, and explore inter-generational trauma. Yurshansky provides opportunities for healing and empathy, creating a safe space for visitors to add their voices to the “unfolding narratives'' they may discover through this communal social fabric.
Related Programming
Workshops: Rinsing the Bones + Unfolded Narratives | Related to Rinsing the Bones
Happening once monthly at 18th Street Arts Center’s Propeller Gallery, artist Jenny Yurshansky will host two simultaneous workshops related to her solo exhibition Rinsing the Bones. Participants will work with the artist to explore how our migration stories offer us paths for understanding our own histories, places of origin, and how that impacts our sense of belonging and identity.
Workshops: Rinsing the Bones + Unfolded Narratives | Related to Rinsing the Bones
Happening once monthly at 18th Street Arts Center’s Propeller Gallery, artist Jenny Yurshansky will host two simultaneous workshops related to her solo exhibition Rinsing the Bones. Participants will work with the artist to explore how our migration stories offer us paths for understanding our own histories, places of origin, and how that impacts our sense of belonging and identity.
Programs for Artists-in-Residence and Borderless Citizens
18SAC regularly provides visiting and local artists-in-residence and Borderless Citizens exclusive professional development, networking and community-building opportunities to build skills and connections.
Not an AIR but want to participate? Join our membership program, Borderless! LEARN MORE >>
Artist-Led Events
With over 60 active local artists and organizations-in-residence, 18SAC artists are activating spaces in Los Angeles and beyond.
*This space is regularly updated as we receive information. Follow us on social media to stay up-to-date!
Ara Oshagan | Remain in Light: Visions of Homeland and Diaspora
Remain in Light: Visions of Homeland and Diaspora June 11 – October 15, 2023 Opening Reception June 10 | 4 pm – 6:30 pm Fowler Museum At UCLA 308 Charles…
Art At The Airport
Art At The Airport is a monthly series of open studios that provides a rare glimpse into over 20 professional artist studios as well as the opportunity to buy art directly from the artists. Advance registration is greatly appreciated!
Highways Performance Space | Mitchell Anderson – You Better Call Your Mother
Told in a series of monologues and songs, YOU BETTER CALL YOUR MOTHER looks back at actor turned chef Mitchell Anderson’s 60+ years and how he went from closeted actor to accidental activist – finding happiness, true love, and respect along the way.
Highways Performance Space | Mitchell Anderson – You Better Call Your Mother
Told in a series of monologues and songs, YOU BETTER CALL YOUR MOTHER looks back at actor turned chef Mitchell Anderson’s 60+ years and how he went from closeted actor to accidental activist – finding happiness, true love, and respect along the way.
Highways Performance Space | Keith Johnson/Dancers – DRIFTERS
This new dance work explores the 1960s, investigating the ideology of the hippie generation and the increasing generation gap that signaled a divisive decade where feminism, civil rights, and social norms were challenged and explores the turmoil, confusion, distrust + disappointment that occurred.
California Creative Corps
After a six-month rigorous search and project development process—work that yielded 375 inspiring proposals from artists and cultural practitioners in communities throughout California—18th Street Arts Center announces its first California Creative Corps cohort, an incredible pool of 18 change-makers and community builders.
The corps of fellows will receive a year-long $65K salary plus benefits and a production budget up to $50,000 and execute year-long creative interventions across the state from Yreka near the Oregon border to City Heights in San Diego. Projects are designed to reduce the barriers to health and well-being in communities that demonstrate the highest level of need. Creative practices include filmmaking, poetry, graphic novels, photography, dance, and traditional art. Place-based art-making projects will engage diverse communities, including Native peoples, migrants, LGBTQIA+, POC and long-time residents. The projects explore a broad range of systemic challenges including pollution, gentrification, healthcare, wellbeing, cultural identity and community/belonging.