Christine Nichols, Maynard Monrow and Linda Taalman join Hit + Run for LACE LIVE! DIY T-shirts.
Photos: Joshua White

LACE LIVE! DIY T-shirts with Hit+Run

LACE kicked off the year at ART LA 2008 with a special 30th anniversary celebration! HIT+RUN was invited to explore LACE's archives and select imagery to reflect their long history of supporting experimental art. HIT+RUN is proud to celebrate this vital Los Angeles art institution, and we invite you to a live screenprinting session this Saturday, January 26th in Santa Monica. Each person got to choose from exclusive designs, featuring moments in LACE history with Mike Kelley, Dorit Cypis, Tony Oursler, Frederick Fisher, Highland Art Agents and HIT+RUN, to create their own FREE commemorative LACE T-shirt! Organized by Christine Nichols, Special Projects Director.

DIY T-shirts is the first LACE LIVE! commission. Throughout 2008 LACE is developing projects to celebrate LACE’s rich history, inspire heightened usage of its archival holdings, promote exploration of contemporary art in Los Angeles since 1978.

Hit + Run at art la 2008. Photo: Franco Castilla

Amy Casillas and Vincent Ruiz Abogado walk for LACE

LACE 10K
The first LACE 10K, a sponsored art walk, took place on Saturday, September 29. A dedicated band of LACE 10K Walkers hit the pavement and raised $6,000 for LACE programs and explore the art community in Los Angeles together.

LACE 10K Walkers proved that there is more to see in L.A. than what is in your rear view mirror  by walking 6.5 miles and exploring more than 40 local art galleries along the route.  There was lunch and a few surprises along the way, not to mention plenty of art.  The walk concluded with a finish line party at LACE (6522 Hollywood Blvd) beginning at 5pm.

Each Walker was required to sign up 10 sponsors.  The cost to sponsor is $50 and each sponsor received a membership to LACE with benefits including advance notice of exhibitions & special events, free admission to the galleries & free/reduced admission to special programs. 

By participating in the LACE 10K, you help build the foundation on which to achieve the next three decades of challenging and unique programming at LACE. To become a LACE 10K Walker for 2008 simply open the attached packet, fill out the participation form and return it to LACE by fax 323.957.9025 or email:  administration@artleak.org. Click here for the LACE 10K packet.

LACE 10K was conceived and produced by Vincent Ruiz-Abogado with support from fellow LACE Board members, Chad Clark, Grace Kim and David Richards.

The Black Sea Files, Ursula Biemann. Photo: Nicholas Brown

JUST SPACE(S)
Opening reception: Wednesday 26 September 7 - 9 p.m.

From our neighborhoods and parks, to our prisons, pipelines and national borders, physical space is defined by social constructions.  With such recent events as Hurricane Katrina, controversy over immigration reform and the realized effects of global warming, it is more than evident that many of these spaces are failing their inhabitants. In this exhibition and programming series, artists, scholars and activists reveal how these spaces function, and where they stop short– making way for thought and action to create justice in societies and spaces.

Just Space(s) aims not merely to show what is unjust about our world, but to inspire visitors to consider what the active production of just space(s) might entail. It asks a crucial question: How do we move from injustice to justice at the level of the body, the home, the street corner, the city, the region, the network, the supranational trade agreement and every space within, between, and beyond?

Through the lens of conceptual and physical landscapes, the artists and activists of Just Space(s) explore themes of prison reform, immigration and labor, economic inequality, environmentalism, race, and indigenous rights.

Furthermore, this exhibition will blur the distinction between art, education, and activism. A library/infoshop and symposia and event series extend the scope and scale of the main exhibition. By transforming LACE, in part, into an active learning environment, Just Space(s) seek to provide visitors with tools to consider alternatives to the current social and political discourses that dominate and constrain our conceptions of space and justice.

For more information and programming schedule visit: www.justspaces.org

Click here for the press release.

Ashley Hunt (map detail)

AN ATLAS
Opening reception: Wednesday 26 September 7 - 9 p.m.

An Atlas is a traveling exhibition of artists working with “radical cartography”—a practice that uses maps and mapping to promote social change. The 10 participating artists, architects, and collectives take on issues from globalization to garbage and explore the map’s role as a political agent. The exhibition and accompanying catalog contribute to a growing cultural movement that cuts across boundaries of art, cartography, geography, and activism.  It is a companion exhibition to the publication, “An Atlas of Radical Cartography," (upcoming Fall 2007, Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press, Los Angeles.) 

Works include Ashley Hunt’s intricate diagram of the social effects of the global prison-industrial complex; the Center for Urban Pedagogy’s mapping of the people who make and manage the “garbage machine” in New York City; Jane Tsong’s drawing of how nature and culture clash in Los Angeles’ watershed; and Trevor Paglen and John Emerson’s route map of CIA rendition flights.

AN ATLAS CONTRIBUTORS

An Atlas is made possible in part by a grant from the LEF Foundation, and is a sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts. For more information, please visit www.an-atlas.com

Click here for the press release.

Out Side In
On view: 29 August - 9 September 2007

OUT SIDE IN is an exhibition of artwork by 2007 MFA graduates from the University of California, Irvine, presented at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE). The aesthetic and intellectual interests of this group are varied and expressed using video, photography, painting, drawing, installation, sculpture and performance. The navigation of sites and space is considered in works addressing the militarized landscape, Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion map of the earth, sites of historical trauma, and the everchanging neighborhood where LACE is located. Other artists explore the body and interpersonal relationships. Figures pose in lushly constructed paper rooms, a woman interacts with images of deceased artists, and animated bodies engage with each other in intimate and awkward ways. Others use criticality and humor to expose Dr. Condoleezza Rice, stereotypes of Japanese femininity, and the vagaries of political speech.

The exhibition's title alludes to the various positions and dynamics at play in political, philosophical, geographic, bodily, and emotional states of being. It refers to a fluidity of perspective and the artists' multiple attempts to upset the familiar and re-route its meaning through skillful and thoughtful manipulations of their chosen media. With equal doses of wit, analysis, poetry, and attention to craft, the work in this exhibition exemplifies the diverse influences of the institution where these artists met.

The artists featured are Dan Bayles, Douglas Green, Anna Kim, Lara Odell, Gina Osterloh, Jeff Sheng, Kristine Thompson, Lisa Tucker (collaborating with Matthew Bryant and Cheryl Gilge), Gordon Winiemko, and Chie Yamayoshi. A limited-edition publication will accompany the exhibition.

Click here for the press release.

Click here for more information.

Lucci and Remedios, the Squirrel Cub on the Karaoke Ice tour
Watts Tower Art Center. Photo: Nancy Nowacek

Karaoke Ice
Designed by Nancy Nowacek, Katie Salen and Marina Zurkow

This public art project, an ice cream truck-turned-mobile-karaoke-unit, was deployed throughout Los Angeles to unite people in a collective quest to perform and record new versions of pop songs using the vernacular of ice cream truck music. Karaoke Ice introduced people to the playful ways in which technology can be used to give voice to personal and collective concerns, as well as enable meaningful social interaction between groups, both large and small.

Click here for the press release.

Click here for more information.

The Tour
Breaking out from its LACE Hollywood headquarters, the Karaoke Ice tour will visit an array of distinct neighborhoods across Los Angeles. Lucci and Remedios will make daytime and evening appearances at a variety of public spaces that encourage social gathering. Come and join the tour and rediscover Los Angeles through Karaoke! Click here for a more detailed schedule.