10 February - 8 May, 2005 A WALK TO REMEMBER
Organized by Jens Hoffmann
Opening reception: Wednesday 9 February, 2005 7-9 pm
Tuesday 8 February 2005 at
7pm
Panel discussion with Jens Hoffmann and artists from "A Walk
to Remember."
John Baldessari, Jennifer
Bornstein, Meg Cranston, Morgan Fisher, Evan Holloway, Paul McCarthy,
Rubén Ortiz Torres,
Allen Ruppersberg, and Eric Wesley.
“For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is
an immense joy to set up house in the middle of the multitude,
amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive
and the
infinite.”
- Charles Baudelaire
A Walk to Remember is
an exhibition that invites a group of Los Angeles based artists
to conceive and carry out guided tours
through neighborhoods
and areas of the city with which they have a particular relationship
or affinity and that deal specifically with the rich cultural history
of the city.
The exhibition relates
to Walter Benjamin’s
concept of the flâneur
as a figure who derives pleasure from the hustle and bustle of
the city streets, who moves purposelessly among the urban crowd
with the
eye of an artist: a spectator of contemporary life and urban
scenes. Yet, A Walk To Remember diverts from Benjamin’s
idea when it examines a specific European phenomenon of the early
20th century:
the postmodern condition of Los Angeles in which walking is clearly
a thing of the past. In addition, in giving each walk a purpose
and
in trying to bring various locations and social and cultural
relations of the city to the audience the exhibition reaches
beyond what
Benjamin described as an “aimless affair.”
Members
of the audience taking part in a walk will each be given a
disposable camera to document their individual impressions
of the artists’ walks
from their distinct perspectives. The cameras will be collected
at the end of a walk and the developed photographs will be
presented inside
the gallery space along with maps of the city outlining the
different routes. A small brochure including descriptions and
maps of all
the walks will be available enabling the audience to realize
the tours
themselves, should they wish.
The Walks:
JOHN BALDESSARI
For John Baldessari’s walk each member of the audience
is asked to photograph all intersection street signs from his
studio at Bay
and Main Streets in Santa Monica to his second studio on
6th Street and Vernon Ave. in Venice Beach. The artist will provide
a map of the
exact route.
Dates: 18 February 2005, 11:00 am
27 March 2005, 11:00 am
JENNIFER BORNSTEIN
The walk of Jennifer Bornstein is based on the artist’s fascination
for Griffith Park in North Hollywood, which the artist has described
as her “studio.” Bornstein will introduce the
audience to the history of Griffith Park and lead a tour
through the park that
will mimic the regular nature walks one can take in the
park.
Dates: 12 March 2005, 3:00 pm
3 April 2005, 3:00 pm
MEG CRANSTON
Meg Cranston will take the audience to Sherman Indian
High School in Riverside. The Sherman Indian High School
is
one of three
remaining off reservation Indian
boarding schools in the United States. The students at the school
come from many different tribes and from all over the United
States. The
school has a rich (sometimes
tragic) history which Cranston will relate to the lesser-known
parts of Los Angeles’ urban
Indian history.
Dates:
15 April 2005, time TBA
16 April 2005, time TBA
MORGAN FISHER
Morgan Fisher’s walk will connect two places in Santa Monica where he has
lived for a total of more than 20 years. Along the way, the walk takes a digression
to visit the site of a house where a friend of the artist lived, then follows
the path that he took each morning to buy a newspaper, and ends with a visit
to the former location of an art gallery that helped Fisher to enter the Los
Angeles art world. The walk illustrates the cliché that in
Los Angeles buildings are liable to disappear. The first place where
the artist lived was
torn down and replaced by apartment buildings. The second place,
although still standing, will doubtless be torn down and replaced
with condominiums. The house
where his friend lived is already gone.
Dates: 16 February 2005, 3:00 pm
27 February 2005, 3:00 pm
EVAN HOLLOWAY
The walk of Evan Holloway starts at his studio and finishes
at the subway station at 7th and Alvarado. The walk includes
a great
deal
of information
about Los
Angeles’ history. Large Victorian style homes, the only evidence of this
neighborhood's once glamorous past, form a perverse backdrop to the most degraded
and sad prostitution market in LA. Pedestrians are regularly offered opportunities
to purchase fake IDs, illicit subway tokens, black market cigarettes, and various
illegal intoxicants. The walk will stop on the way at LA’s
oldest deli to enjoy what is widely regarded as the finest pastrami
sandwich in the region.
Dates: 13 February 2005, 11:00 am
19 March 2005, 11:00 am
PAUL MCCARTHY
Paul McCarthy’s walk proposes defining the parameters of a walk that could
then be "performed" by anyone who cares to do so. The artist is interested
in the idea of walking the same route a number of times and how one sees things
differently as they become familiar. For McCarthy ‘s walk the
audience will not need to come together as a group but can simply
devise a walk for themselves
that they will then walk at least ten times. The start and finish
for the walk should be Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions on Hollywood
Boulevard.
Dates: On going
RUBÉN
ORTIZ TORRES
In Rubén Ortiz Torres walk we will visit and experience “El Pedorrero” (The
Farter) on Whittier Boulevard in the core of East Los Angeles. This muffler shop
is also a museum that holds a collection of a “million” items. Its
founder and director, Bill Al Capone Mufflers, describes it as a corporation
while also functioning as a laboratory and an architectural marvel. At “El
Pedorrero” Bill customizes cars, invents new 3D chessboards
and self-standing ice cream cones while at the same time developing
his own life philosophy.
Dates: 10 February 2005, 12:00 pm
10 March 2005, 12:00 pm
ALLEN RUPPERSBERG
Allen Ruppersberg’s walk will be a personal WHATEVER BECAME OF tour looking
for glimpses of what was and still partially is. The axis of the tour will be
a visit to some of the major sites that figure in his particular history. By
looking to compare the What’s Here to the What’s Gone, exclaiming
to each other “Yes, that is the same!” or “No, it’s lost
forever,” the artist hopes the tour can find and enlarge the
details of the art and the life that once existed there.
Dates: 23 April 2005, 11:00 am
ERIC WESLEY
Eric Wesley will do a guided walk through a particular
section of Griffith Park. The walk will start at
the base of the
park near Los Feliz and
extend upward,
to a peak in the park. It will be a nighttime hike
through the dark wilderness accompanied by the telling of
ghost
stories based on
the rumor that the
property which is now Griffith Park was donated to
the city by Griffith J. Griffth
near the turn of the century as a bribe to get him
off attempted murder charges (he shot his wife in
the head).
Dates: 25 February 2005, 8:30 PM
6 March 2005, 8:30 PM
To sign up for the walks, please
call 323.957.1777 x12. As space is very limite, tickets must be
purchased in advance: $20 / $15 for LACE members and students with
valid ID.
