Immaculate Heart of Margaritaville, A Group Exhibition Curated by Devendra Banhart @ Nicodim Los Angeles

Curated by Devendra Banhart, “A prayer for my four-to-six nuclear families, for my ever-expanding universe of friends and lovers, for consciousnesses that may or may not exist beyond our postmodern El Dorados and Shangri-Las where dead dreams go to die twice:

May this sea moss gel cool the fire within in me that burns with unfiltered desire for epiphany in a pornographic desert;

May we all find a Six Flags for our unmet oral and spiritual needs;

May we all discover a Cartier diamond bracelet in the Bloomin’ Onion we snuck into the hot yoga session at the Cheesecake Factory;

May we all find comfort within our own place in Margaritaville—that sacred temple, that archetype for a freedom that exists somewhere between legitimacy and artifice that urges us to leave behind the very sacred temple that is selling us the dream to leave it all behind;

May we all attend the vernissage for Immaculate Heart of Margaritaville and bask in the ordinary magic, this orgy of authenticity buried in the most profane of structures.”

–Adapted from Out of Body: The Bortz Metzger Memoirs, R. Driblette, editor. Penguin Books Ltd, 2002

Immaculate Heart of Margaritaville is the top floor of the romantic wing of the capitalist nightmare, a fever dream manifested during a midday nap on a bed of ashwagandha-tipped nails with an ecstatic, honest, and truthful international coterie of artists, many of whom have never shown in the United States before.

In celebration of the closing, noted, lubricated, hole-istic tantric gurus Devendra Banhart and Ben Lee Ritchie Handler will lead the gallery in a guided meditation. Please bring a yoga mat and a clear head. The event will double as release party for a limited-edition t-shirt for the exhibition. July 29 from 3–6. Space is limited, please arrive a bit early.

Immaculate Heart of Margaritaville is on view through July 29th at Nicodim, 1700 S Santa Fe Avenue, #160, Los Angeles, CA 90021

Charles Brittin's Freckled Shangri-La

Beverly Walsh, 1958

Charles Brittin, who died in January of this year at 82 years old, stole the ethos and the zeitgeist of the 1960s West coast in all its subtle wind-blown, freckled, ocean spray glamour - as well as the political angst of youth on the verge of revolt in honor of their young ideals. Charles Brittin: West & South, a retrospective exhibition of work by Los Angeles photographer Charles Brittin, featuring more than 100 photographs, many of them previously unexhibited is on view starting tomorrow at the Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles.

Suzi Hicks, with signage from L.A.’s electric transit system, c.1956

Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1928, Brittin briefly attended UCLA, then dropped out of school and taught himself how to take photographs. During the 1950s, Brittin became the unofficial house photographer for the Beat community that coalesced around the artist Wallace Berman, and contributed several photographs to Berman’s ground-breaking artist's magazine, Semina. Brittin settled in Venice Beach, California, in 1951, and his beach shack became a hangout for the Berman circle, which included actors Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper, artist John Altoon, curator Walter Hopps and poet Brittin was working as a mailman at the time, and spent much of his free time wandering the streets with a camera; he came to know Venice intimately, and his pictures of the sleepy beach town are freighted with a hushed beauty and forlorn sweetness.

www.kohngallery.com

Santa Monica Bay, 1950