Local artists exhibit visual commentary on life in L.A.

  The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Liz Craft’s
"The Living Edge" is part of the "L.A. on My Mind: Recent
Acquisitions from MOCA’s Collection" exhibit at Pacific Design
Center.

By Howard Ho
Daily Bruin Reporter

Los Angeles is not just a place for thriving screenwriters,
actors and musicians.

Proving that visual artists also contribute to Los
Angeles’ diversity is the Museum of Contemporary Art exhibit,
“L.A. On My Mind,” which is devoted to showcasing young
visual artists who live in Los Angeles.

“I wanted to show things by younger L.A. artists too, just
to remind everybody that MOCA collects and shows L.A.-based
artists,” said Michael Darling, curator of the show.

Located in the MOCA branch of the Pacific Design Center, the
exhibit features art made to create a compelling dialogue between
Angeleno artists. Running through May 12, the exhibit features
various mediums, such as video, sculpture, drawings and paintings,
which all comment in some way on the feeling of living in Los
Angeles.

The exhibit opens with a large video presentation that is
projected against the wall. Adding headphones with accompanying
music, artist Hirsch Perlman’s “Two Affect
Studies” juxtaposes the images of a smoking cigarette and a
dancing ribbon, which alternate between the music, Barber’s
“Adagio for Strings” and a Thelonius Monk piano
improvisation.

On the second floor of the exhibit, artworks of concrete medium
can be found. Two pieces of artist Andrea Bowers have found their
way into this section, both featuring drawings of clothing.
Although she grew up in Ohio, she has lived in Los Angeles for 13
years, allowing her to teach at UCI two days of the week as well as
take in the atmosphere of the city.

“I think Los Angeles is a place where we’re all so
affected by popular culture. It’s this media center,”
Bowers said. “I think I’m also affected by being alone
all the time in a car. I think there’s a seclusion to that
that comes out in the drawings. It’s this weird contradiction
of constantly being alone and constantly being
bombarded.”

Indeed, both her works are drawings surrounded by large expanses
of empty space. In “Typical Girls,” Bowers used an
image of early Madonna and a member of the punk group the Clits to
show women making a statement. Enveloping them is a gaudy field of
reflecting silvery foil, which Bowers said is made of the same
material used for silk screening T-shirts.

“It’s about women who use their appearance to have a
voice. I chose women who sing,” Bowers said.
“It’s all about how they use text on their shirts or an
image on their body to make a statement. The silver foil is about
the idea of reflection and copy, but distorted.”

Acting as the centerpiece of the show is Liz Craft’s large
installation sculpture “The Living Edge,” a dreamscape
of various images taken from Los Angeles suburban life. Made up of
13 intertwining pieces of fiberglass, wood, foam and shoe factory
vinyl, the piece required eight months and $7,000 to create. Craft,
an alumna of UCLA’s art graduate school, also takes her
inspiration from Los Angeles, but from a different slant.

“The piece comes from driving around so much ““ you
see so many bits of different things, and then I combined all those
different bits and smashed them all together. They’re like
little puzzle pieces, little snapshots,” Craft said.

The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art is constantly
acquiring new works but only has three venues for their exhibits.
As a result, curator Darling sifted through the abundance to find
works that could work as a cohesive group.

“One of the guiding factors of the show was I wanted to
show things that we haven’t shown before yet and have come
recently to the museum, whether through purchase or gifts from
people,” Darling said. “A good portion of the things
here have come in 2000 and 2001, so they’re really new things
and we haven’t had a chance to show them.”

Both the works of Bowers and Craft were given as gifts to MOCA
by donors, whose names are included on the various panels that
identify the art. Perhaps the most interesting part of the exhibit
may be the way all the works of the Los Angeles artists may end up
creating a larger commentary on the city they call home.

“One thing that happens sometimes with putting exhibitions
together is you have certain artists you want to put in the show
and certain pieces in mind,” Darling said. “Once you
put the pieces in the gallery, they actually start to develop this
dialogue, which you probably haven’t fully appreciated until
you actually see them together. I really like to see that dialogue
between art works and artists,” Darling said.

ART: “L.A. On My Mind” runs now
through May 12, at the Pacific Design Center located at 8687
Melrose Ave. in West Hollywood. For more information call (310)
289-5223. Admission is $3.