Los Angeles based-artist John Baldessari has redesigned 12 LA metro buses in partnership with the “Arts Matter” campaign for the Los Angeles Fund for Public Education.  The buses are redesigned to resembled classic school buses, with the words “Learn to Dream” and its Spanish equivalent “Aprende a soñar,” in support of public arts education.  The project aims to “start a conversation about the role of arts education and give artists a platform to address this issue,” says ForYourArt founder and project producer Bettina Korek. (more…)

Disturbances in the MOCA’s upper ranks may have caused the museum to shift the date of its second annual Art+ Film gala from 13 November 2012 to a date in the spring of 2013. An e-mail from the institution revealed the change.  Within the past year, at least seven board members are reputed to have left their posts, former director Paul Schimmel was let go, and opinions are said to be divided about the current leadership.

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In a strongly titled article, “A Los Angeles Museum on Life-Support” The New York Times analyzes the recent fall-out and standing of LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art, examining director Jeffrey Deitch‘s role in the recent happenings.

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Jim Drain and Ara Peterson, Pinwheels (2004-2005, 2009, 2011). All images on site for Art Observed by Megan Hoetger.

Curated by Mike Diamond, best known as one of the Beastie Boys, Transmission LA: AV Club is an exhibition/coffee bar/event series which has brought together visual art, design, technology, performance, music, and food to give viewers a complete sensory experience. The spectacular 17-day festival has been host to a busy line-up of DJs and musicians, transforming MOCA into a hip nighttime hangout—into the club atmosphere that Mike D. ambitiously envisioned.

Tom Sachs, Toyon’s (2002)

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George Condo, Ghost Figure (1991). All images via PRISM LA.

Fresh on the heels of the large-scale solo exhibition at the New Museum last year titled George Condo: Mental States, the work of George Condo has traveled to the west coast and is currently on view at PRISM. A survey of the artist’s paintings, drawings, and sculptures, the exhibition gives those in Los Angeles a rare chance to see the “fake old masters” for which Condo is so well known. Through gestures of the paint, of the body, and of the expression, Condo finds a means to investigate psychological space and the archetypal symbols connecting the human experience.

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Street View of Miss You at Prism, West Hollywood. All images via Os Gemeos.

Miss You, an immersive environment by well-known Brazilian artists Os Gemeos is currently on view at Prism in West Hollywood. Growing up in the megalopolis of São Paulo, the twins Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo were influenced by the vibrant street culture of the city, including its expansive graffiti and mural projects. They continually bring this energy into the gallery, transporting the dynamism of the tropical urban center into the space through their use of saturated hues, bold magical-realist style, and the totality of their vision.

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‪‬Los Angeles philanthropists Jarl and Pamela Mohn fund $100,000 Mohn Prize through The Hammer Museum and its “Made in LA 2012” biennial, the fund committed to at least five biennials [AO Newslink]

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Installation view. Via OHWOW.

In his first solo exhibition on the west coast, Brooklyn-based artist Daniel Arsham presents three bodies of works in the fall, the ball, and the wall. Shifting between sculpture, painting, and installation art, the works included demonstrate the diversity of Arsham’s ideas, while each enacting the subtle theatricality which has come to characterize his practice. Arsham has been identified by many sources as a rising star in the art world following his high-profile collaborations with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company choreographer Jonas Bokaer, and fashion designer Hedi Slimane. His works shift our perceptions of space, time, and the basic scientific tenants which order our embodied experience. Soft folds of fabric emerge from hard, flat walls; drips seem to slow down time and defy their natural gravitational pull; paintings confuse and distort scale.

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Daniel Arsham, Hiding Figure (2011). Via DesignBoom.

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Judy Chicago collaboration with Materials & Applications, Disappearing Environments (2012). All images on site for Art Observed by Megan Hoetger.

January is a notoriously busy time here in Los Angeles when the two major art fairs in the city, the LA Art Show and Art LA Contemporary, set up shop across town from one another, daring fair-goers to make the arduous trek back and forth across one of the lifelines of the urban sprawl, the dreaded 10 freeway. The opening night performances at both fairs also marked the start of the much-anticipated Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival, which itself encompasses over 30 performances and events across the city.

Myths of Rape (1977/2012)

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Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe, image from “Shadow Pool: A Natural History of the San San International” slide lecture. Courtesy of the artists.

Last Wednesday evening the Masonic Temple at the well-known Hollywood Forever Cemetery was filled with major Los Angeles art world players, including Jeffrey Deitch, MOCA trustee Jeffrey Soros, MOCA donor Karyn Kohl, curator Shamim Momin, Hammer curator Ali Subotnick, and gallerist Maggie Kayne, as well as artists Mark Hagen, Nate Lowman and Hanna Liden. All had gathered under the night’s full moon for the most recent project by New York-based artist duo Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe, Shadow Pool: A Natural History of the San San International, an event organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Freeman and Lowe are known for their immersive environments, such as Hello Meth Lab in the Sun, Black Acid Co-op, and Bright White Underground—and Shadow Pool proved to push their engagement tactics to the next level.

MOCA Director Jeffrey Deitch with the Towel People from Shadow Pool fashion show. Image courtesy of Daniel DiScala.

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Still from PST video with John Baldessari and Jason Schwartzman. Via CalArts.

Began by the Getty Foundation nearly ten years ago, the Pacific Standard Time (PST) initiative has done well, to say the least, with the most recent issue of Artforum almost completely devoted to art in L.A. While PST-related programming began in early September, the weekend of October 1st was the highly anticipated official “opening weekend,” with sixteen exhibitions opening across the city.

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Jim Shaw, Cake (Jim Head Clutch) (2010), via Patrick Painter

Patrick Painter, Inc presents a new exhibition of works by Jim Shaw, surrealist multimedia artist at their Santa Monica location. Currently included in this new exhibition entitled “CAKES, MEN IN PAIN, WHITE RECTANGLES, DEVIL IN THE DETAILS” are several large-scale works that include dual canvases and a multitude of working art media.  This new show serves to take a personal and experiential view of two dimensional artwork. Like many of his other exhibitions,  this show features many works that rely on unique and personal material from Shaw’s own intimate history and subconscious.

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Diane Arbus, A Castle in Disneyland (1962), via Gagosian

The Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles presents “People and Other Singularities,” an exhibition of the photographs of Diane Arbus between the years of 1956 to 1971. The gallery showcases  the most extensive collection of Arbus photographs within Los Angeles since “Diane Arbus: Revelations” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2004. “People and Other Singularities” contains several photographs that have never before been exhibited publicly, along with some older favorites that have become part of photography’s canon.

Diane Arbus, Identical Twins(1962) via Diane Arbus Photography

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Installation view, Jorge Pardo, 2010. All images via Friedrich Petzel Gallery.

Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York City, presents a new installation by Jorge Pardo, a porous maze furnished with images from the internet.  Pardo’s structures form narrow passageways through which observers must walk, an action reminiscent of negotiating library stacks.  Observers navigate an amalgamation of memories and images, taking in landscapes, monuments, and faces out of context.  The curving nature of the piece and the carefully cataloged bank of information lend the gallery a cerebral nature.

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