Lorraine Nicholson's Tribeca-Nominated Life Boat Is Now Available Online

A group of students are brought together to play a real-life game called “Life Boat.” After the customary “get to know each other” exercise, their counselor Mr. Drexler (Stephen Dorff) poses a difficult question: if this classroom were a sinking ship, who in the group deserves to be saved?

Mr. Drexler’s tactics are far from textbook, which immediately becomes clear to our protagonist, Elsa (Elizabeth Gilpin). Mr. Drexler, a survivor of a similar program, gets caught up in the emotions of his exercise. As the game and stakes heighten, he successfully demonstrates his apathetic students’ real desire to save their lives. But at what cost? 

 

Mary Heilmann's First Solo Exhibition In Over 20 Years @ Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles

‘Memory Remix,’ Mary Heilmann’s first Los Angeles solo exhibition in over 20 years, is a survey of paintings, ceramics, and furniture in which the artist’s unwavering dedication to abstraction merges with sly references to her favorite landscapes, songs, movies, and Mexican weavings. This preeminent American artist is acclaimed for her unique ability to deploy the analytical geometries of Minimalism with the spontaneous freehanded spirit of the Beat Generation from which her generation emerged, and for her weaving of pop culture influences into a wholly original and pioneering oeuvre. Heilmann’s deft handling of paint and spatially dichotomous compositions have exerted a profound influence upon a younger group of artists.

Grounded in the soul of California, Mary Heilmann’s work draws from her memories of the distinctive colors and lines of the West Coast’s landscape and surf culture. Throughout a childhood accompanied by the radio’s ubiquitous soundtrack, Heilmann often watched the ocean tumble to the shore, rode the ‘mountain waves’ at Manhattan Beach, and read Allan Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ and Walt Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass,’ which stoked her great admiration for poetry, jazz, and the idea of the Beats. Under these influences and through the deceptively simple means of painting – color, surface, and form – Heilmann physically manifests nostalgic impulses, memories, and allusions to popular culture that remain accessible on both personal and universal levels. In this way, her work transcends the seemingly opaque structures of geometrical abstraction by infusing it with the content of daily life. ‘Memory Remix’ is on view through September 23 at Hauser & Wirth 901 E 3rd Street Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Kupper

Larry Bell Complete Cubes @ Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles

Larry Bell's Complete Cubes is Hauser & Wirth's first solo exhibition for the internationally acclaimed American artist in his hometown. Larry Bell’s innovative approach to sculpture and perceptual phenomena has placed him uniquely at the hub of both Southern California’s Light & Space movement and New York Minimalism in the sixties, which continues to inform his practice today as a forerunner of California Minimalism. This landmark exhibition offers viewers insight into Bell’s lifelong dedication to the glass cube through a groundbreaking body of work that has become inextricably linked to the emergence of Los Angeles as an internationally significant center of artistic innovation. ‘Complete Cubes’ is the first exhibition to organize Bell’s iconic glass cubes by scale, showcasing an example of every size the artist has produced from the early 1960s to the present. Featuring rarely seen works that are among the most important of Bell’s early career, the exhibition comprises over 20 sculptures ranging in size from 2 inches to 40 inches, as well as new large-scale works created specifically for this presentation, which extend new formal explorations seen in his recent 2017 Whitney Biennial installation ‘Pacific Red II.’ Complete Cubes is on view through from June 23rd through September 23rd at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Kupper

Opening of Las Lenguas Group Show @ BBQLA

Las Lenguas is an exhibition about the potential languages of the body. It presents works that explore the representation of the figure by way of its inaudible gestures of expression. This is different from the soul inside of the eyes. It asks to observe the nuance of a lover, of a stranger, the alienation of a foreign language, and the failures of both the voice and the body to translate into distinguishable codes of associations. Las Lenguas are presences whose capabilities figuratively translate through the mysterious shapes made by the body to reveal or conceal in interior and exterior worlds in which it exists. Exhibiting artists include: Manny Castro, Alan Gutierrez, Yaron Michael Hakim, Shaun Johnson, Sofía Londoño, Jesse Mockrin, Nora Riggs, Ellen Schafer, and Hiejin Yoo. The exhibition is on view through July 14 at BBQLA 2315 Jesse Street Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock
 

Opening Of take care Group Show @ Gas In Los Angeles

How do radical ambitions of “self-care” persist or depart from capitalist society’s preoccupation with wellness and the industry surrounding it, particularly when filtered through technological advances? How can we imagine personal wellness that complicates or diverges from capitalist and consumerist tendencies? Taking its name from the common valediction, which is both an expression of familiarity and an instruction of caution, take care, is a group exhibition that considers the many tensions surrounding the possibilities of self-care. Participating artists: Hayley Barker, Darya Diamond, Ian James, Young Joon Kwak, C. Lavender, Sarah Manuwal, Saewon Oh, Amanda Vincelli, and SoftCells presents: Jules Gimbrone. Gas is a mobile, autonomous, experimental and networked platform for contemporary art. take care will be on view through July 20, and can be seen from 12pm-6pm on Saturdays in front of BBQLA 2315 Jesse Street, Los Angeles CA 90023. photographs by Lani Trock

Shaniqwa Jarvis West Coast Book Launch And Signing @ Arcana

Shaniqwa Jarvis’ eponymous first book is now available at Arcana Books in Culver City. In this expansive monograph, Jarvis presents one hundred and sixty pages of editorial and personal work spanning two decades drawn from the photographer’s archive. This lovely hardbound volume published by Baque Creative features an introduction by photographer Ryan McGinley accompanied by a meticulous selection of pictures from her favorite personal series such as “Bathroom Portraits” - shot in the toilets of bars in the early 2000s - along with editorial work for clients like The Gap, The New York Times, Supreme, Billboard, and Riposte that includes portraits of SZA, Lee Scratch Perry, George Condo, Cardi B, and a few requisite selfies.
 
Ms. Jarvis’ work is known for blending the aesthetics of modern fashion photography with the sensitive, unfiltered emotion of art portraiture. In some of her best-loved imagery she captures vivid reality across a wide variety of subjects that always appear to be an extension of herself. The images speak to raw, disparate feelings imbued with a deep sparkling optimism. The photos in this collection are an invitation to join Jarvis on a journey to see the world from her vantage point - one that is female, black, tirelessly hardworking, and brimming with raucous, positive vibrations. These are images of celebrities who seem like best friends, vintage shots of downtown New York notables in their heyday, children, loved ones in all colors of the rainbow, and delicate landscapes and travel souvenirs. Here is sorrow and joy commingling in pictures, many of them highly autobiographical, all representing a progressive and optimistic world. photographs by Summer Bowie

Opening Of Will Boone's Garage @ David Kordansky Gallery In Los Angeles

Will Boone draws inspiration from a breadth of cultural and subcultural sources. These include movies, music (especially the ethos and ephemera of punk), industrial manufacturing, conspiracy theories, and the bar and cattle ranching iconographies of Houston and South Texas. But Boone’s is not merely an appropriation-based project designed to lay bare sociological phenomena. Rather, he uses these elements to unearth latent archetypes in the American psyche, producing pictures and objects imbued with totemic energy. Garages, for instance, often serve the houses to which they are attached as “subconscious” spaces, depositories for excess possessions and sites where messy activities–like fixing cars or making art–take place. Garage, is the first solo exhibition Will Boone has presented at David Kordansky Gallery. The exhibition will be on view through July 7, 2018 at David Kordansky Gallery 5130 W. Edgewood Place Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Kupper

Opening Of Torbjørn Rødland's Backlit Rainbow @ David Kordansky Gallery In Los Angeles

Backlit Rainbow marks Torbjørn Rødland's first solo exhibition with David Kordansky Gallery. The exhibition features an installation of new medium- and large-scale color photographs, as well as the U.S. debut of Between Fork and Ladder, the artist’s first moving-image work in more than a decade.

Over the last twenty years, the Norwegian-born, Los Angeles-based photographer has produced a body of work remarkable for its cultural reach, its awareness of photographic history and technique, and its ability to press up against psychological, moral, and philosophical boundaries. Rødland’s images pointedly address their viewers and evoke a wide range of contradictory emotional and intellectual states. Curiosity, humor, pathos, criticality, artifice, reverence for the natural world, and romanticism appear throughout his work and often in the same photograph.

Autre is also pleased to announce that Rødland's work is featured on the cover of our spring 2018 issue, featuring a double interview of the photographer by both legendary art critic and Serpentine Galleries' director, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Autre editor, Oliver Maxwell Kupper. Click here to order your copy while supplies last! Backlit Rainbow will be on view through July 7, 2018 at David Kordansky Gallery 5130 W. Edgewood Place Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Kupper

iiu Susiraja Presents "What Am I?" @ Ghebaly Gallery In Los Angeles

 iiu Susiraja lives and works in Turku, Finland. This is her second exhibition with Ramiken, and her first exhibition in Los Angeles. Her work is now on view at the Rubell Family Collection in Miami in the group exhibition Still Human. She is currently an artist-in-residence at the ISCP in New York. 'What Am I ?' is on view through June 16 at Ghebaly Gallery 245 East Washington Boulevard Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock

Milka Djordjevich's ANTHEM Is This Weekend's Must-See Show @ Ghebaly Gallery

Milka Djordjevich’s ANTHEM, presented by Los Angeles Performance Practice, currently on a three-night run at Ghebaly Gallery in Los Angeles, is a pulsing kaleidoscope of movement that is difficult to label. Maybe disco dressage comes close, a choreographed disintegration loop, something akin to the rising and fading blips on a Soviet-era heart monitor, performed by a distant artificially intelligent species programmed only with 1.44 megabytes of 20th century cabaret instruction. In actuality the dance is performed by four human women named Laurel Atwell, Jessica Cook, Dorothy Dubrule, and Devika Wickremesinghe. 

According to Djordjevich, ANTHEM utilizes “existing and imagined vernacular dance styles” to explore “labor, play, and feminine-posturing.” You could say that this trifecta becomes a first, second and third act by which to break down the performance, and break down it will. Within the hour-long performance, an innocent playground clapping game turns into a cocaine fever dream that reminds you of Sydney Pollack’s 1969 adaption of Horace McCoy’s 1935 novel, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? It's about a Great Depression-era dance marathon the devolves into desperation, exhaustion, greed and death. ANTHEM is electric and existentially thrilling in the same context. It is a fragmented mirror reflecting an alternate reality that absorbs the viewer within Djordjevich’s enthralling matrix, helped maybe by the droning, undulating music of Chris Peck and theatrical communist bloc, discotheque-toned lighting by Madeline Best.

Each dancer, one with a full Petra Von Kant afro,  arrive in a kind of centipede-like daisy chain, various lackadaisical rhythmic exercises turn into cavalier Saturday Night Fever dance moves performed with brilliantly stolid indifference. Soon, the dancers climb on top of each other, writhing double-deckers of velvet covered flesh. One chews gum, blows bubbles and makes awkward eye contact with the audience. Two of them lose their shoes. At points they all rehydrate and fix their hair as they fall into a hypnotic groove, one of which takes on a texture of movement that has a robotic, cool remove. Mascara, eye shadow and sweat glistens. The dancers slowly succumb to gravity and exhaustion, like bon vivants at dawn. They emerge from their stupor to return from whence they came. The fever has broken and no bitter tears were shed.

ANTHEM has three remaining performances in Los Angeles, Saturday 6/9 at 10pm, Sunday 6/10 at 3pm & 7pm. Ghebaly Gallery is located at 2245 E Washington Boulevard. photographs by Summer Bowie

Preorder Autre's New Summer 2018 Issue →

Autre’s rainbow magic Summer 2018 Issue features a 23-page interview of the legendary Los Angeles-based Norwegian-born photographer Torbjørn Rødland who has three major solo exhibitions this summer. One in Los Angeles at David Kordansky gallery, one at Bergen Kunsthall in Norway and one at Fondazione Prada in Milan. The feature includes a double interview with Autre’s editor-in-chief Oliver Maxwell Kupper and one with Serpentine Gallery’s director Hans-Ulrich Obrist. This issue also includes over 40 pages of fashion editorials with LVMH prize finalist Eckhaus Latta and Maryam Nassir Zadeh. Autre also interviews actor Matthew Modine with rare photographs from the set of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, feminist surrealist Penny Slinger, Lisa Immordino Vreeland on the legacy of photographer Cecil Beaton with gorgeous self portraits, Duncan Hannah on living the high life in New York City, Marilyn Minter on her new show at Regen Projects, legendary German New Wave director Wim Wenders, and Herb Alpert. The summer edition also includes an excerpt from Françoise Hardy’s memoirs, interviews with Lauren Halsey about her community-based practice and Koak about the power of comics, and a special photo document from Pierre-Ange Carlotti. Preorder now – the first ten orders receive a previous issue of Autre of your choosing, for free (exempt are issues volume one issue three with John Baldessari and volume two issue one with David Hockney). Only 50 copies left of our Spring 2018 issue featuring Paul Thomas Anderson. 

 

Rachel Comey's Pre-Spring 2019 Runway Show @ The Old Bullocks Wilshire Department Store In Los Angeles

In Rachel Comey's daring new pre-spring collection vivid colors, along with delicate, varying textures and proportions abound as she responds to the current moment. A moment emboldened by an undercurrent of resistance and irreverence towards dominant structures long overdue for upheaval. Setting the stage of her runway show at the old Bullocks Wilshire department store where Helen Gurley Brown used to be a secretary and Angela Lansbury was a salesclerk, she takes inspiration from the space by embellishing materials and decorating the silhouettes themselves - layering tulle belts over zebra denim or colorblocked wool trousers. Hand cut and dyed flowers dangle from the ear, sit at the neck or frame the face. A zebra jacquard is used for volume on top and to finish the look in a purposeful wedge sandal. In the spirit of Katherine Hepburn who used to shop here for shoes in the men's department, she has proposed new tuxedos and other alternative ideas for event dressing. Fringe and rhinestone decorate the legs and feathers are used in one gesture at the neck or from the ear, while in other moments the body is stripes.

LAXART Reopening Benefit And Art Auction In Los Angeles

This summer, LAXART will be welcoming the international art community to celebrate its newly revamped exhibition space, kicking off the celebration with a multi-week festival of events and a new site-specific mural by Barbara Kruger. Under the leadership of Director Hamza Walker, LAXART will share its newly expanded mission and reinvigorated programming. Founded in 2005, LAXART promotes developments in contemporary culture through exhibitions, publications and public programs, using contemporary art and performance as a means of understanding key issues of our time. For this launch, the exterior of the building has been visually adorned with a new site specific work by Barbara Kruger. Wrapping around the building’s façade, Untitled (It) speaks to the immediate central Hollywood environ with its pawn shops, peep shows, dollar stores, nail salons, marijuana dispensaries and currency exchanges—all nodes of identity, commerce and elements that define the unique urban topology of Los Angeles. The opening benefit included musical performances by Rob Mazurek and Ambrose Akinmusire, as well as a selection of works on auction by Liz Larner, Karl Holmqvist, Arthur Jafa, Glenn Ligon and Jonas Wood. Kruger’s Untitled (It) is on display from June 3 through Fall 2018. photographs by Oliver Kupper

Underground Museum Hosts Rick Lowe Artist Talk As Part Of USC Roski's Public Lecture Series Social Practice Course

Rick Lowe is one of nearly a dozen artists invited to give lectures as part of USC Roski's *Culture in Action: Conversations in Social Practice Art. In this series students, international visitors and guest speakers consider an evolving practice in a seminar based on questions each participant brings to the classroom. What conditions apply to critical art practice in the public realm and how do these relate to the urban, social and political? What is the relationship between art and democracy? What is the long-term sustainability of community-based socially engaged art? How do informal pedagogic, public address and dialogic strategies apply to students’ own practices in art, design, theater, intermedia, cinema, communications and urban planning, among others? MA and Ph.D. candidates from schools outside of Roski are especially encouraged to apply to support their specific professional development goals. The course includes intimate conversations, public lectures, field trips, group dinners and an opportunity to study alongside Norwegian artists and curators. This intensive experience is a collaboration between Roski School of Art and Design and KORO, Public Art Norway in Oslo. For more information and full schedule of events visit Roski. photographs by Lani Trock

Made In L.A. 2018 @ The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles

Made In L.A., the Hammer Museum's exceedingly comprehensive biennial just celebrated the opening of its fourth installment, and it's decidedly the best one yet. Curated by the Hammer's senior curator, Anne Ellegood and Erin Christovale, the newest member of the Hammer's curatorial team, the show features 33 artists from widely diverse backgrounds who employ immensely disparate media and span an age gap of 68 years. While the biennial doesn't proclaim any particular theme, almost all of the work presented is new and was made in response to the predicaments of the present. Much has happened since the last installment of 2016, and our collective experience has been marked by devastating fires, hurricanes, earthquakes and drought, government-mandated religious bigotry, deportations sans due process, countless recorded accounts of police brutality against black and brown citizens, countless school shootings, etc. Heavily steeped in political and social response as it may be, though, there's nothing didactic or sanctimonious about it. Instead the thread that connects all of these works together is one that explores the idea of citizenship in the present moment. In it we see stories of our past, how they led to the present, how they define who we are, and determine what is in store. A collective moment to "count using only your breath" as taisha paggett instructs us to do on a handwritten note taped to a microphone. She is one of several artists who will be performing and activating the space throughout the run of the show. Throughout the summer there will also be numerous lectures and walkthroughs with the curators, so there are plenty of reasons to take your time and come back a few times. Artists featured include: Carmen Argote, James Benning, Diedrick Brackens, Carolina Caycedo, Neha Choksi, Beatriz Cortez, Mercedes Dorame, Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Aaron Fowler, Nikita Gale, Jane Gordon & Megan Whitmarsh, Lauren Halsey, EJ Hill, Naotaka Hiro, John Houck, Luchita Hurtado, Gelare Khoshgozaran, Candice Lin, Charles Long, Nancy Lupo, Daniel Joseph Martinez, MPA, Alison O'Daniel, Eamon Ore-Giron, taisha paggett, Christina Quarles, Michael Queenland, Patrick Staff, Linda Stark, Flora Wiegmann, Suné Woods, and Rosha Yaghmai. To learn more about lectures, performances and programming related to Made In L.A., visit the Hammer. The exhibition will be on view through September 2, 2018 at The Hammer Museum 10899 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Kupper

Debut Performance Of Maceo Paisley's Untangling Manhood @ PAM

On May 25, 2018 PAM hosted the debut performance of Untangling Manhood, Maceo Paisley investigates gender through embodied inquiry, juxtaposing identity and social constructs. Using movement, language, and audience interaction, Paisley guides us through a narrative that goes beyond making art, inviting audiences to confront themselves in the process. photographs by Lani Trock

Opening Of Metamorphosis, Lightly (Intimacy Of Form) Group Show @ OOF Books

In a quest to challenge our perceptions of materiality, objectivity, gender identity and medium, Alex Rojas has curated a group show that pushes the individual boundaries of self.  Featured artists include Nasim Hantehzadeh, Carolyn Janssen, Larissa Lockshin, Erica Mahinay, Sophia Narrett, and Sarah Ann Weber. These works highlight the perennial and intimate connection with chaos inherent in human existence. Speaking to a desire for reason, these works provide intimate outlets for exploration and clarity through identity and physicality. The exhibition is on through July 1, 2018 at OOF Books 912A Cypress Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90065. photographs by Lani Trock

Charles Ray: "Three Rooms And The Repair Annex" @ Matthew Marks In New York

Charles Ray has divided the larger gallery, 522 West 22nd Street, into three rooms and installed a single sculpture in each one. Reclining Woman(2018), in the center of the main room, is machined from solid stainless steel. Presented in a relaxed pose on a rectangular steel base almost at eye level, the figure is slightly larger than life-size. The subject’s body has not been idealized, and every detail, from the toes on her feet to the mole on her cheek, is carved with a directness matched by her frank facial expression. Charles Ray: three rooms and the repair annex is on view through June 16 at Matthew Marks Gallery 522 W 22 Street and 526 W 22 Street New York. photographs by Adam Lehrer

Jean Dubuffet's Théâtres De Mémoire @ Pace Gallery In New York

Pace Gallery presents the first exhibition of Jean Dubuffet’s Théâtres de mémoire series in New York since 1979. The exhibition is curated by Arne Glimcher, the founder of Pace Gallery. “These gigantic collages are composed of overlapping papers, layer upon layer, where Dubuffet has tested their placement by moving the elements, adding, rearranging, and deleting images until an eventual perfect coalescence of the interlocking parts satisfied the artist,” says Glimcher. The Théâtres de mémoire is one of Dubuffet’s most important series of works, and contains some of the largest paintings he ever made. Each work is made up of smaller paintings, which the artist cut out and glued to the canvas. The paintings depict abstractions, landscapes, scribbles and figures from Dubuffet’s mind. For Dubuffet, each of the Théâtres de mémoire is a collection of actual places and scenes that crowd and conflict in our memory. The exhibition is on view through June 29th at Pace Gallery 510 West 25th Street New York. Photographs by Adam Lehrer