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.
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.
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Sushi Performance & Visual Art: June 28
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.