Life Stage: Los Angeles, San Diego, & Mexico (2001)
Life Stage: Los Angeles, San Diego, & Mexico, was a series of collaborative multidisciplinary exhibitions in three cities. Each exhibition was curated to include visual and performing artists from San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego to activate these select locations as creative social spaces. Many of the artists traveled all the way down to Mexico to share and collaborate. We invited communities in every city to participate with Life Stage artists through exhibition, performance, and spoken word. We provided the time and space, suggestions, as well as, some of the necessary equipment. With minimal advising and few parameters, artists would install or perform at each location. Life Stage was a show and tell of art and ideas between artists and their neighboring communities.
A process installation by an unknown artist was built onto the stairway of SPARC that also gave way to performance. Faux squirrel meat samples were being given out at a small booth in the front yard by a new genres student from Santa Monica college. Brandie Maddalena fabricated a copper orb and invited people to hold it and relay a fond memory.
|
Beyond Baroque Literary Art Center: June 27
Individuals took advantage of the interior and exterior architecture of Beyond Baroque Literary Art Center. The building is the old Venice Beach courthouse, adjacent to the old police station and jail, which his now the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC). Artists transformed the front lawn into an interactive sculpture garden on Venice boulevard with collaborative music and dance by the Venice Beach Hare Krishnas and many other artists. Eric Wong’s art was scattered around the front entrance, leaning against bushes, and scattered throughout the lawn with a sign inviting people to “take my art”. Marianne Goyette assembled a video installation and projected images in an old shed around the side of the building. Another of the SF travelers carried her body weight in bricks through the theater and and later up the stairs placing one brick at a time on each side of the stairway. On the front porch, Tony Alard engaged in automatic typing while reading the obituaries. 
|
|
Mixed media works and installations filled the interior of the building both upstairs and down. In the Mike Kelley gallery was a video installation and a stage for spoken word. Smoke filled the air on the stairway as people were invited by Jason Rogalski to take one from the many cigarettes he made into a mandala with hand written text. Choke! They were Mexican cigarettes! The back yard was dominated by poets and DJ's from two different cities. Artists projected images of their work in large-scale onto the back wall facing Venice Blvd. Performances ranged from experimental sound to theatrical monologue and took on a life of their own throughout the building. Though the theater was the official performance area it had become simply, the room with the most chairs.
|
|
Sushi Performance & Visual Art: June 28
Following the event at Beyond Baroque, crowds of artists met for the second Life Stage event in San Diego hosted by Sushi Performance & Visual Art. This event, inspired even more of the unexpected. Sculpture and installations lined the approach to Sushi's entrance.
Simultaneous musical performances emanated at opposite sides of the building ranging from melodic to experimental sound. The Trummerflora Collective with their very visual instruments fueled the energy of the space. Other experimental musicians such as Hirsch the Machine Hirsch and Abel Ashes expanded the vocabulary of the electric guitar.
One artist worked the room passing out his eye lash hairs placed on a mirror. People collected them with their finger tips and passed them on until they eventually made it back to the artist. He then taped his eyelashes to the mirror and mounted it on the wall.
One of the San Francisco artists nailed papayas to a strip of wood with a prefabricated stiletto.
|
Artworks were exhibited on tables, leaned against chairs, and hung on room dividers. Installations were set-up throughout the entire building and increased as the night progressed.
Various performances and interventions ensued on the sidewalk. Some of the arriving guests responded to the art on the street by drumming and chanting on a metal street light near the front door. Two DJ's set-up in a small corner in the lobby recording and sampling various mixes without a PA. More of Eric Wong’s paintings and drawings were given away leaned against the wall opposite the box office. The main theater was a dividing network of visual art, installation, and performance spaces.
Most of the guests took advantage of the open forum and engaged themselves throughout the space.
|
The evenings end included an art parking ticket that wished fortune and goodwill for everyone who could find parking space. A meter maid was also a recipient of this piece.
Georgio Santini Gallery, Baja, Mexico, Friday, June 29, 2001
The following day artists traveled to Baja, Mexico. Here, at the Giorgio Santini Gallery we completed the final leg of the Lifestage journey. We bid farewell to the San Francisco artists who continued on to Bahía de los Ángeles teaching art at orphanages along the way. This more modest event included an intimate performance by the San Diego based experimental Trummerflora Collective, and a wedding ritual of sorts in which two of the SF artists recited vows while burying the other. Sadly, we were unable to document the final happening.
