Sparkasse Soest

trans angeles
crossover experimentation
2014
ARTISTS
FAT E M E H B U R N E S • C O S I M O C AVA L L A R O • G I S E L A C O L Ó N • G R O N K • K u B O • M AYA M E R C E R • K I R K P E D E R S E N
M E I X I A N Q I U • K AT S U H I S A S A K A I • J O H N W H I T E • J A E H WA Y O O • Z A D I K Z A D I K I A N • K U R AT O R : P E T E R F R A N K
Los Angeles has become recognized as a world hub of artistic activity. Long a center of art practice and education
– more important on the American scene than any other
center besides New York – L.A. secured its place in world
art over the past two decades, and now produces young
art stars and “re-discovered” veteran experimentalists widely respected in the international discourse.
One of the characteristics of the Los Angeles art scene
making it so internationally vital is the willingness of its
artists to experiment – indeed, to maintain a tradition
of experimentation and unorthodox practice that goes
back at least a half-century. And one of the most significant factors here is the easy transition Los Angeles-area
artists make between concepts, disciplines, even styles.
We in the art world have come to accept that artistic
production is distinguished by sensibility rather than by
style or even discipline; but in L.A. interdisciplinary
practice is almost presumed, collegiality spills over readily into collaboration, and a single artist’s oeuvre can so
often comprise artworks that are parallel or even hybrid.
“Trans-Angeles” thus demonstrates the inner as well as
outer “globality” of the southern California artist. He or she
can practice, or build on practices, associated with Los Angeles; she or he can also reflect the peculiarities of the climate, the terrain, or even the local industries (Hollywood
not least). But in his or her metamorphic notions of artistic
practice, all this becomes part of something bigger, a sense
of the world – not just L.A. itself – as a site of transformation,
translation, and even transcendence
Peter Frank, Los Angeles, June 2013
„
And one of the most significant factors here
is the easy transition Los Angeles-area artists make
between concepts, disciplines, even styles.
„
TRANS ANGELES
Crossover Experimentation in Southern California
Similarly, the lives of the artists themselves are fluid and
multi-layered. Many come from other places, and many
others go back and forth between them. Many transit between identities and life conditions. Many make their living
far from the studio but bring into the studio what they
learn on the outside.
Peter Frank
Jae Hwa Yoo
Kirk Pedersen
Mei Xian Qiu
Los Angeles
preparation of the show in Los Angeles // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Peter Frank
John White
Zadik Zadikan
Los Angeles
Preparation of the show in Los Angeles // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Cosimo Cavallaro
Peter Frank
KuBO
Los Angeles
Preparation of the show in Los Angeles // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Soest is a town of around 50,000 inhabitants in the eastern part of North-Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Its medieval townscape, beautiful churches, historical buildings, and cultural heritage create a vivid atmosphere and attract many visitors. The town walls of Soest are almost completely preserved and encircle the medieval city center.
Soest
Soest is located on the historic Hellweg (Salt Road). The “white gold” of the town’s salt springs was so enticing for
early merchants that they established a settlement in what is now the Soest municipal area. The original name of
Soest, “Sosat,“ was first mentioned in 836 AD.
The Soest City Archive boasts the largest collection of medieval town records and certificates north of Cologne.
This is one reason Soest is sometimes referred to as the “secret capital of Westphalia.”
But the town does not only concentrate on its glorious past. Contemporary Soest has a great cultural life,
offering an array of theatre groups and music ensembles. There are live music pubs and open air events. A wide
range of restaurants and cafés in Soest offer local specialties, traditional and adventurous cuisine, cozy ambience,
and warm, attentive service.
Soest is also very attractive for artists and others interested in the visual arts. One reason is the unique green
sandstone used locally for the construction of houses and churches since medieval times. The Cathedral Museum
offers treasures of the Middle Ages and vivid impressions of human spirituality during that era. The Green Sandstone Museums, the Osthofentor, the French Chapel, and the Burghof Museum all provide fascinating glimpses
into the culture and history of the town. The Burghof Museum also displays the copper engravings of Heinrich
Aldegrever, notable early examples of the art of the Reformation. Works of the gifted painter Wilhelm Morgner,
increasingly recognized as an important figure in European modernism, are displayed in the Wilhelm-MorgnerHaus, which also mounts exhibitions of modern and contemporary art of all kinds. The Wilhelm-Morgner-Haus
was the originating venue for “Trans Angeles.”
events at the museum during the show // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Kunstmuseum Wilhelm-Morgner Haus
Wilhelm Morgner
Soest
Designed by Wiesbaden architect Rainer Schell, the building housing the Wilhelm-Morgner-Haus was constructed in 1961-62. It has since become
recognized as a historical monument. The building exemplifies architectural styles of the early 1960s, notably Brutalism and the International Style. Its
reinforced concrete construction and modular grid are clearly legible in its strict cubist structure, consistent both inside and outside. The calm, restrained design of the building’s facade carries into the interior and is notable for its simple clarity of form and the sparing use of materials.
Since its completion, Schell’s building it has served as a performance center, as the town art gallery, and as a permanent home for the works of the
Soest-born Expressionist and abstract painter Wilhelm Morgner. Changing exhibitions of modern and contemporary art augment the permanent display of Morgner’s art. The Kunstmuseum houses the municipal art collection of Soest, which documents artistic creativity and artistic life in the city and
region. But the collection’s centerpiece is the 60 paintings and over 400 drawings and graphic works by Morgner (1891-1917), who died in World War I
at the age of 26, was considered “degenerate” in the Nazi period, and is now regarded as a significant figure in modern art history.
The large gallery on the building’s upper storey, which opened in December 2007, houses a rotating display of Morgner’s works. The gallery also
displays other works by mostly German artists from Soest’s art collection, including works by Christian Rohlfs, Otto Modersohn, Emil Nolde, Franz
Nölken, Max Schulze-Sölde, Josef Albers, Eberhard Viegener, Wilhelm Wulff, Johannes Molzahn, Paul Werth, and Hans Kaiser. Many of these also had
connections to Soest and the region. Additional galleries in the building feature changing exhibitions of modern and contemporary art, including
“Trans Angeles” in the spring of 2014. An ambitious expansion program that closes the Kunstmuseum for two years beginning in fall 2014 will double
the Kunstmuseum’s exhibition space.
Wilhelm Morgner
Astrale Komposition, 1912
Oil on Cardboard ( 74 x 100 cm.)
Wilhelm Morgner Himmelfahrt 1912
Oil on Cardboard ( 71 x 89 cm.)
WEinzug in Jerusalem KmLL
Wilhelm Morgner 1916/17
source: artnet.com
events at the museum during the show // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Museum Team
Soest
preparation of the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Museum Team
Soest
preparation of the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Museum Team
Soest
preparation of the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Museum Team
Soest
preparation of the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Peter Frank
Juri Koll
Soest
Trans Angeles headquarter in Soest //trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Museum
Soest
HeVg`VhhZ
HdZhi
invitation card and poster large // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Interview with
Peter Frank and
Juri Koll
Soest
preparation of the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Soest
opening of the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Maya Mercer
Juri Koll
Jae Hwa Yoo
Katsuhisa Sakai
Soest
opening of the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Museum team
Juri Koll
Stefanie Nafé
Peter Frank
Jae Hwa Yoo
Soest
opening of the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Visitors
Soest
opening of the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Anett Mende
Juri Koll
Los Angeles/Soest
WDR 5
17.04.2014
Trans Angeles -
Grosse Kunst im kleinen Soest
Art from far away
Juri Koll:
I think what special about this show is that is brings together artists who are from other countries, who live
in Los Angeles, who work in Southern California. This is one-of-a-kind and it comes to Soest! It carries the
artists’ stories of a very exciting place into a city in Germany that has a great, rich art tradition, and this kind
of communication between different languages of art and life is what makes the show special.
Anett Mende -Host, Trans Angeles Commercial - German Version
In Soest zeigt eine neue Ausstellung, welchen Einfluss die große quirlige Millionenmetropole auf
Künstler verschiedener Stilrichtungen hat.
Trans Angeles heißt die neue Ausstellung. Sie ist zusammengestellt von dem renommierten amerikanische Kunstkritiker und Kurator Peter Frank und sie bringt einige der spannendsten und vielfältigsten Künstler aus Kalifornien zu uns nach Deutschland. Viele von ihnen sind in den unterschiedlichsten Ecken der Welt aufgewachsen – im nahen Osten, in Asien oder in Europa. Sie alle aber
leben und arbeiten in Los Angeles, weil diese Stadt sie inspiriert wie keine andere. Zu sehen ist Trans
Angeles in Soest, nach der Art Cologne. Schauen Sie sich das Ganze an, es lohnt sich!
This exhibition in Soest shows the influence the big, lively megacity of Los Angeles has on artists of
different styles. The exhibition is called Trans Angeles. It is compiled by the well-known American
critic and curator Peter Frank, and brings some of the most exciting and diverse artists from California to Germany. Many of them grew up in other parts of the world, in the Middle East, in Asia. or in
Europe. All of them live and work in Los Angeles, because this city inspires them in a way no other
city can. Visit the exhibition, it will be worth it!
Juri Koll - VICA
Ich denke, das Besondere and dieser Schau is, dass sie Künster zusammenbringt, die aus anderen Ländern
stammen, die alle in Los Angeles leben, die in Südkalifornien arbeiten. Das is einzigartig, was hier nach Soest
kommt. Es trägt die Geschicte der Künstler eines sehr aufregenden Ortes in eine Stadt in Deutschland, die
eine große, reiche Kunsttradition hat und diese Art der Kommunikation zwischen den Kulturen, zwischen
unterschiedlichen Sprachen der Kunst und des Lebens ist was die Schow so besonders macht.
Dr. Wex – Kunstmuseum Wilhelm Morgner Haus:
Los Angeles´ Kunst ist ja bekannt für ihren experimentellen Charakter, die es in dieser Art allenfalls auf der
Art Cologne zu sehen gibt.
Art from Los Angeles is known for its experimental character, this kind of art is usually only shown at the Art
Cologne.
radio interview Juri Koll and Trans Angeles video clip // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Soest
the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Soest
the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Soest
the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Soest
the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Soest
the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Soest
the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Soest
the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Soest
the show in Soest // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Dr.Annette Werntze
Soest
One of the most impressive and diverse exhibitions ever shown in the MorgnerHaus. Thank you for a great experience!
Different, in a good way!
Such an impressive exhibition! The
works are interesting and varied
and you constantly discover something
new. Thank you very much.
Really great art in small Soest! Outstanding, excellent
artists, very inspiring. Thank you for the impressions. You
can feel that this exhibition was created with love. Made
me happy, wish to see more. Nina
guided tours and guest book // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Dr.Annette Werntze
Soest
Magic, thrilling stuff! Unusual
enjoyment - thanks!
Congratulations on an exhibtion that is energetic and
up-to-date! Thank you
guided tours and guest book // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Dr.Annette Werntze
Soest
Amazing, versatile exhibition! Thanks Christoph
The exhibition was nice, I especially loved the beans.
Nordmann with Mama
guided tours and guest book // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Dr.Annette Werntze
Soest
A special exhibition!
Amazing!
A great exhibition - inspirangeles!
guided tours and guest book, poster small // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Guitar Concert
Wolfgang Bargel
Christoph Schönle
Soest
events at the museum during the show // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Concert
Satie Quartet
Soest
events at the museum during the show //trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Stefanie Nafé
I liked the exhibition because the pictures were not
unambiguous and you had
something to think about,
everybody saw something
different in the works.
I liked all works. I loved the
one with the city and the
marathon. The colorful jelly
beans are really funny!
Soest
I think this is a very interesting exhibition. There are
many beautiful and interesting works. Some pictures
were really hard to interpret,
butif you look at them long
enough you finally understand them.
Great exhibition, I think it is really facinating. I would love to
buy three pictures. Eric
The exhibition is good, the glow
pods especially have a positive,
hypnotic effect and look. If
you know something about the
background of the works, you
look at them in a different way.
So some information boards
would be useful. The exhibition
is a success!
I think the picture of the city is very fascinating and inspiring
Some works are really cool
guided tours and guest book // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Stefanie Nafé
A spectacular art form
Soest
I loved the exhibition! The works by
Mei Yian Qiu (especially the picture
chapel) were the best. If I had money
I would by it. The oval melt glo-pod
and the oblong ooze were facinating.
Some pictures were not so great but
others were amazing.
These were the top three by Eric.
We think the exhibition is awesome because most of the pictures were painted vaguely, so
you discovered the details at
the second view. We really like
the jelly beans and the optically illusive pictures!
A great exhibition! Diverse!
An upsetting exhibition!
A very inspiring exhibition, I have learned a lot!
I liked the works on
the groundfloor. This
was upsetting: the
pictures of the naked
people
The toilets (in the museum) suck. Need for improvement!
guided tours and guest book / /trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Carl-Jürgen Schroth
Soest
It’s fantastic to have people who are encouraged to bring international artists here. I think the
people of Soest will be excited. Soest was one of the major cities during the Medieval period, so
we have a great tradition of art. Now we take the big step into contemporary art, which is the
exciting part of it…
Carl-Jürgen Schroth - Kunstsammler und Museumsförderer
art collector and museum supporter
source: Trans Angeles Film
Interview CJ Schroth form Trans Angeles film and anouncement of the show in local media // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Kunstmuseum
Wilhelm-Morgnerhaus
trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Fatemeh
Title:
Color Field I
2012
ARTWORK
Format:
32 x 48 inches
blications, conducted art-education documentaries, and
worked with an international array of artists and art professionals.
Fatemeh Burnes
Fatemeh Burnes was born in Tehran. She first came to the
United States in 1973, spent a five-year period between
three continents, and settled in Southern California in
1977. Classically trained in Persian art and verse (she was
mentored by her uncle, poet Salek Esfahani, and was
featured on several radio programs devoted to poetry),
Burnes also studied biology, modern Persian poetry, and
western artistic practice – including painting, drawing,
printmaking, photography, art history, and exhibition design – in Iran, Europe, and ultimately in California, where
she received degrees in art and art history.
Since the 1980s Burnes has taught fine arts, design, and
art history in colleges throughout Southern California.
She also led special programs in public art, which resulted in the creation of murals dealing with environmental
themes, and has taught plein-aire painting internationally. Since 1992 she has served as Gallery director and
Curator as well as full-time Professor of Drawing and
Design at Mt. San Antonio College, focusing in particular
on art education and curriculum development in exhibition organization and design. At the gallery she has
curated over 100 exhibitions, authored numerous pu-
Burnes has exhibited her own work extensively since the
1980s. In January 2012 Zero+ Publishing released drift, a
book of Burnes’ photographs, and in March 2013 she published a 220-page full-color catalogue, Imprints of Nature
and Human Nature, to accompany a solo exhibition at Mt.
San Antonio College celebrating her two decades with
the school.
Writes Burnes:
I am preoccupied by nature, the nature around us and
within us, the history we have made and the one we make,
a history that is defined not by time, but by energy -- as is
nature, and as is art. My artworks, in all media, offer complex levels of comprehension and provoke a multiplicity of responses. I resist at
every turn our tendency to simplify the world by categorizing it into kinds of things, or kinds of art. There are no categories for me, only experiences.
Material:
Archival inkjet print and resin
on panel
Title:
Wedding
Format:
24 x 60 inches
Material:
Archival inkjet print and resin
on panel
Title:
I Was Born! (Factory)
2012-14
Format:
6 panels, 62 x 40 inches
Material:
Oil, acid, natural pigments on
aluminum
Title:
Imperfect Geometry
2012
Format:
16 x 16 inches
Material:
Oil, acid, natural pigment on
cold-rolled steel, 16 x 16 inches
Fatmeh Burnes // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Cosimo
ARTWORK
curity of the womb and the chill uncertainty of the world.”
COSIMO CAVALLARO
Cosimo Cavallaro was born in Montreal in 1961. The son
of Italian immigrants, Cavallaro was raised both in Canada
and Italy. He attended art school in various countries before setting up shop as a sculptor in Montreal in the early
1980’s .
Eventually Cosimo fell into film direction when a film
director friend asked him to help out on a movie set.
Within days he was assisting in set design.
Soon he was a full-time production designer, working
first on features and then on television commercials. As
a TV commercial film director Cavallaro won numerous
awards, including Director of the Year in Canada and
the 1990 Canadian Film Festival Juno award for best
music video.
Cavallaro’s artistic impulse remained evident in all his
work and foremost in his mind. In 1995 he moved to
New York where he began focusing all his time on creating art. His work speaks to a variety of audiences and
expresses (in his own words) “the struggle between
need and desire; the known and unknown; the warm se-
Title:
Me and my arrow
stainless steel painted yellow
2014
Format:
16 x 16 x 4 inches
Material:
stainless steel sculptures
Cavallaro’s media have ranged from photography to large
sandblasted steel sculptures to installations using perishables to rubber sculptures and fiberglass resin.
Title:
Love your bean
candy pink
2013
Format:
11 x 11 x 19 inches
Material:
resin lacquer
Title:
Love your bean
green pick up
2013
Format:
11 x 11 x 19 inches
Material:
resin lacquer
Title:
Me and my arrow
polished stainless steel
2014
Format:
21 x 21 x 5.5 inches
Material:
stainless steel sculptures
Cosimo Cavallaro // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Title:
Oblong Ooze Pod (Gold/Green/
Hot Pink)
2012
Gisela
Format:
88½ x 30 x 8 inches
ARTWORK
GISELA COLÓN
Gisela Colón was born in 1966 in Vancouver, Canada, to a
German mother and Puerto Rican father. She was raised in
San Juan, Puerto Rico and attended the University of Puerto Rico, graduating in Economics. Colón moved to Los Angeles to pursue graduate studies, receiving a Juris Doctorate degree from Southwestern University School of Law
in 1990 and receiving a Congressional Scholarship Award
by the Harry S. Truman Foundation in recognition of outstanding academic excellence. Colón was able to turn to
art full-time in 2002, quickly developing a following for
her abstract paintings.
Colón’s increasing interest in light and space and issues
of visual perception brought her to her present series of
work.
Colón work can be found in the permanent collection
of the Museum of Art & History in Lancaster, CA, where
it was included in the museum’s inaugural survey exhibition “Smooth Operations: Substance and Surface in
California Art,” in 2012, and was presented in 2013 in a
solo exhibition titled “PODS.” Her work was also featured
in the 2008 Awards Exhibition of the Museum of Latin
Material:
Acrylic automotive lacquer on
blow-molded plastic
American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach, CA, and was as a
winner in the 2013 Pacific Coast competition of the publication New American Paintings. In Europe Colón has exhibited in Düsseldorf, Germany at Galerie Bernd A. Lausberg,
and at Art 1307 in Naples, Italy at the Villa Di Donato.
Colón’s work has been associated with California Minimalism, specifically the Light & Space and Finish/Fetish movements more broadly referred to as “Perceptualism.” Her
sculptures investigate the properties of light in solid form
and luminescent color through the use of industrial plastic materials. The Glo-Pods, meticulously created through
a proprietary fabrication process of blow-molding and
layering acrylic, mark Colón as part of the next generation
of southern California artists using light as an exploratory
medium. Colón‘s use of amorphous, organic, asymmetrical lines and light-reflecting and radiating media make her
objects appear to pulsate with light and energy, simultaneously appearing both to materialize and to dissolve into the
surrounding environment, allowing the experience of pure
color and form in space.
Title:
Blue Ice
2012
Format:
60 x 60 x 3 inches
Material:
Oil and Resin on wood
Title:
Oval Melt Glo-Pod (Iridescent
Blue)
Format:
26 x 40 x 8 inches
Material:
Blow-molded acrylic
Title:
Square (Fluorescent Green)
2013
Format:
24 x 24 x 3inches
Material:
Fabricated acrylic
Gisela Colon // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Title:
Piano Key 2
2014
ARTWORK
GRONK
Gronk is the artistic name of Chicano painter, printmaker,
and performance artist Glugio Nicandro. He was born
1957 in East Los Angeles, California. As an artist, Gronk
is largely self-educated. He was a founding member of
ASCO, a multi-media arts collective active in the 1970s
and early 80s. Influenced by European film, existentialism,
and literature (Camus, Beckett) as well as the political and
social movements of the day – in particular the Chicano
justice and identity movements – Gronk and his teenage
cohorts made „movies without film“ and staged farcical
happenings on the streets.
Gronk is best known for his murals, including those at Estrada Courts in East Los Angeles. More recently his murals
have been intentionally painted as temporary art works,
to be whitewashed later, He has been involved with theater since his teenage ASCO days, through more elaborate
stage design for organizations such as the Los Angeles
Opera and Santa Fe Opera. His scenic work has also been
featured onstage with Latino Theater Company and East
West Players.
In 1996, Gronk won a Los Angeles Dramalogue Award
for Set design of the theater piece La Chunga. He collaborated with composer Joseph Julian Gonzalez on Tormenta Cantada, a visual/musical piece performed in 1995,
and with Kronos Quartet at the University of California Los
Angeles. In 2003 Gronk was in residency at University of
New Mexico, as part of the Cultural Practice/Virtual Styles
project and was given a career retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Gronk‘s murals, paintings on canvas, and widely-collected
screen prints, relate to the direct visual aesthetic contained in works by German Expressionist Max Beckmann
and the cartoon-like late paintings of American Philip
Guston, along with vernacular arts of early civilizations
(e.g. Toltec figurines).
Format:
73 x 54½ inches
Material:
Acrylic, oil pastel, charcoal on
canvas
Title:
Note to Self (black)
2014
Format:
16 x 22 inches
Material:
Monoprint (ink and oil pastel)
Title:
The Indian Queen
2013
Format:
11 x 14 inches
Material:
Collage, canvas, pastel, acrylic,
ink on paper
Title:
Opera Drop
2012
Format:
27 x 39 inches (framed)
Material:
Acrylic, charcoal, ink, oil pastel,
pencil on paper
Gronk // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Title:
untitled
Format:
55 x 79cm / 21,5 x 31inch
ARTWORK
KuBO
KuBO, born in 1962, has lived and worked in Los Angeles,
Hong Kong, and Sweden as well as his native Germany for
the past several years, as much to accommodate his international business work as to stimulate his artwork. His artmaking encompasses painting, sculpture, photography,
and combinations thereof, and capitalizes on his extensive employment of and research into pigments, inks, and
coatings. This research in turn has been spurred by his
longtime commitment to worldwide ecological practice,
and his experience with such materials allows him to give
a peculiar luster to the surfaces of his images and objects.
Before settling in Hong Kong KuBO lived and worked in
several other Asian cities, most notably Istanbul. The nom
de plume “KuBO” comes in part from the Cantonese term
referring to a broken but repaired vessel, a metaphor for
reconciliation after a period of dispute.
Material:
paper, multilayer color coating
Title:
Artefacts from Good Old Times LA Marathon 2013
Format:
180 x 120 cm / 71 x 47 inch
Material:
photo Fuji crystal on alu
dibond
Title:
untitled
Format:
180 x 125 cm / 71 x 49 inch
Material:
paper, multilayer color coating
Title:
Artefacts from Good Old Times –
Schweden 2
Format:
239 x 15 x 15 cm
198 x 15 x 15 cm
128 x 15 x 15 cm
Material:
Multi layer coated wood, metal
Kubo // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Maya
Title:
Why: Sean
2009
ARTWORK
Format:
12½ x 96 inches
indiscreet ‘ charms’ of the bourgeoisie – are themselves decadent. Her images are saturated with luscious color. Her
subjects are young, beautiful, tragic and playful.
MAYA MERCER
Maya Mercer grew up amongst actors, playwrights, artists and musicians. Daughter of actress Maria Machado
and radical English dramatist, playwright, and screenwriter David Mercer, Maya was raised in Paris, Los Angeles,
London, and other locales, She has always lived in a narrative world, at once English and French, experiencing “life
as theater” from early childhood. In such an intense and
tumultuous environment Mercer’s perception of reality
acquired a visionary dimension of elaborate density.
Having embodied characters invented by others in her
onstage career, Mercer now directs others in visual stories and tableaux of her own invention, working in Los
Angeles, northern California, and Paris, both in photography and in video. Mercer’s work has been shown in galleries and art fairs throughout North America and Europe,
and was given a solo show at the Stephen Cohen Gallery
in Los Angeles in 2013.
Mercer‘s art recalls a fin-de-siècle decadence. But, whereas the decadents of the Symbolist era proposed an alternate tonality to the bourgeois propriety of their day,
Mercer‘s work declares that our lives and lifestyles – the
Material:
C-print
Title:
Unknown Soldiers: Samuel
2013
Format:
23½ x 30 inches
Material:
C-print
Title:
Desperate Land XII
2010
Format:
34 x 25 7/8 inches
Material:
C-print
Title:
Satyricon Generation: Hollywood Cultus II
2012
Format:
16 x 20 inches
Material:
C-print
Maya Mercer // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Kirk
Title:
Bangkok
2006
ARTWORK
Format:
22½ x 30 inches
To date the imprint has published almost 30 unique titles,
many of them including deluxe limited editions designed
by the artists in concert with Pedersen.
Material:
Watercolor
KIRK PEDERSEN
Kirk Pedersen received graduate degrees from San Francisco State University and Claremont Graduate University. He
has exhibited extensively at major galleries, art fairs and
museums throughout the United States, Germany, Switzerland, and China, including the Today Art Museum in
Beijing and Shanghai’s Duolun Museum of Modern Art.
Since 1997 Pedersen has served as professor of
painting and drawing at Mt. San Antonio College
outside Los Angeles.
Traveling to Hong Kong, Bangkok, Tokyo, Taipei, Kuala
Lumpur, and many other cities in Asia to capture what
he calls Urban Asia, Pedersen examines the seemingly
ordinary stuff of life—sidewalks, curbs, markets, alleys—
and, through his eye for rhythm, color, and synchronicity,
reveals new truths about the world around us. He works
in various painting, paper, and photographic media.
Pedersen launched ZERO + Publishing in January 2009.
The imprint, which specializes in monographic publications, focuses on street and Pop Surrealist artists from
Los Angeles.
Title:
Tsukiji Fish Market Cans
Tokyo
2007
Format:
13 x 24 inches
Material:
Photograph
Title:
Wan Chai
2012
Format:
72 x 56 inches
Material:
Acrylic on canvas
Title:
Urban Asia and Tradeoffs
2010
Format:
13 x 13 x 3 inches
Material:
Books in clamshell box
Kirk Pedersen // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Mei Xian
Title:
8099
2011
ARTWORK
Format:
18 x 24 inches
stances with humor and social satire. She plays on clichés
and stereotypes, investing the work with a subversive
edge, but also a poetical one. Ultimately she seeks, in her
words, to “recapture cultural legacies in a fantastical way.”
Material:
Photograph
MEI XIAN QIU
Mei Xian Qiu is a Los Angeles based artist. She was born in
the town of Pekalongan, on the island of Java, Indonesia,
to a third generation Chinese minority family. At birth, she
was given various names in preparation for societal collapse and variant potential futures. She bore a Chinese name,
an American name and an Indonesian name given by her
parents, as well as a Catholic name by the local priest. In
the aftermath of Indonesia’s Chinese and Communist genocide in the mid and late 1960s, the family immigrated
to the United States.
Qiu was moved back and forth several times between
America and Indonesia during her childhood, a result of
her parents’ initial perception of life in the U. S. as amoral,
countered with the uncertainty of life in Java. Partially
out of a growing sense of restlessness, her father joined
the U.S. Air force and the family lived in various places
around the country, sometimes staying in one place for
just a month at a time. As an adult, Qiu has also been
based in Europe, China, and Indonesia.
Qiu’s art reflects this sense of fluid identity and political
urgency, but tempers the seriousness of these circum-
Title:
8801
2012
Format:
40 x 40 inches
Material:
Photograph
Title:
Hollywoodland
2010
Format:
18 x 36 inches
Material:
Photograph on Plexiglas
substrate
Title:
Immacolata
2013
Format:
12 x 16 inches
Material:
Photograph
Mei Xian Qui // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Title:
1979
2009
Katsuhisa
Format:
46 x 69 inches
ARTWORK
Material:
Oil on canvas
KATSUHISA SAKAI
Katsuhisa Sakai was born in Tateyama City, Japan. He received his undergraduate degree from Musashino Art College in Tokyo in 1971, then came to the United States to
earn his graduate degree at the Yale University School of
Art. Upon graduation in 1973 he received a fellowship in
experimental filmmaking and video art.
Title:
Red
2010
Title:
Memory of the City
2006
Format:
23 x 28 inches
Format:
25 x 13 x 12 inches
Material:
Oil on canvas
Material:
Basalt and stainless steel
In 1975 Sakai returned to Tokyo, where he showed his
films and video work in art colleges and cultural institutions and worked in television broadcasting as a producer of live news programs.
Around that time Sakai became dissatisfied with the limitations of film and video as art media and began making
drawings – in painting as well as drawing media – and
objects with wood. He showed his drawings in New York
in 1983 and drawings and sculpture in Los Angeles the
same year. He has exhibited since in New York and California, enjoying solo shows at Brooklyn’s Janet Kurnatowski gallery and, in 2010, a survey show at Look Gallery in downtown Los Angeles. Around 2000 Sakai began
working in stone as well, allowing him further to explore
dimensions of time and space.
Title:
Angular Scape #4
2010
Format:
19 x 31 x 12 inches
Material:
Acrylic and stain on Chinese
elm
Katsuhisa Sakai // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Title:
Bird Opera 6
John
Format:
ARTWORK
Material:
Museum in 1971, a CETA Grant in 1979, and a Djerassi Fellowship in 1989. Since 1989 White has focused on installation and painting, performing rarely but leading several
workshops in performance.
JOHN WHITE
John White is a painter, sculptor and performance artist.
He has been exhibiting publically for almost 40 years. Influenced by the political and cultural climate of the late
1960’s, White’s work exemplifies this period of redefinition
and experimentation.
Throughout his career White has focused on three major
areas of work: performance art, site-specific installations, and drawing and painting. Always interdisciplinary,
his work is primarily autobiographical in nature and always includes some element of humor. Considered one
of California’s seminal performance artists, White has
staged hundreds of public performances over nearly
a half-century.
He is included in numerous public museum collections,
including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, New
York’s Guggenheim Museum, La Foret Museum in Tokyo,
Total Museum in Korea, the Seattle Art Museum, the
Palm Springs Art Museum, St. Louis Art Museum, the Oakland Museum and others. He is the recipient of three
National Endowment for the Arts grants and was awarded the New Talent Award from the Los Angeles County
Title:
BO 3
Title:
BO 13b
Format:
Format:
Material:
Material:
Title:
Solimar Beach Elements 20
2011
Format:
48 x 48 inches
Material:
John White // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Title:
Red Hill (11-4)
2011
Jae Hwa
Format:
108 x 106 x 19 inches
ARTWORK
She has exhibited nationally and internationally and her
works are in numerous private and public collections, including the Korean National Museum of Contemporary
Art in Seoul.
JAE HWA YOO
Jae Hwa Yoo is a Korean-born artist who has lived and
worked in Los Angeles for almost three decades. She received her undergraduate degree from the School of Art
of Hong Ik University in Seoul and her graduate degree
from California State University in Los Angeles.
Yoo creates primordial, space-focused painting installations in which seemingly compulsive and assertive yet
meticulous and meditative marks and erasures combine
to reveal an abundant wholeness and presence residing
in apparent emptiness. Yoo is guided in her work by early
memories of the closeness of nature and of the pasted
and patched-together, multi-layered palimpsest studies
of calligraphy practice. These have become both inspiration and paradigm for her self-scrutinizing studio practice of marking and unmarking. This practice produces
sometimes dense, sometimes restrained, and constantly revised spatial networks of simultaneous affirmation
and effacement. Yoo is known for her association with
the Tansaekhwa / École de Seoul group of Korean artists.
Material:
Acrylic on canvas, approx
Title:
Wind Space (13-9)
2013
Format:
23 x 27 inches
Material:
Acrylic on muslin on wood
Title:
Void (13-2)
2013
Format:
68 x 74 inches
Material:
Acrylic on canvas
Title:
Wind City (12-1 to 8)
2012
Format:
various dimensions
Acrylic on wood
Jae Hwa Yoo // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Title:
Nude
2013
Zadiak
Format:
10 x 15 inches
ARTWORK
Material:
Acrylic and water pencil on
parchment paper
tity of his own. In 1976 he covered his entire home and
studio, 10,000 square feet of walls, floor, and ceiling, with
industrial gold, pounding and gilding the metal to transform it into a singularly radiant vision.
ZADIK ZADIKIAN
Zadik Zadikian was born in 1948 in Erevan, Soviet Armenia. At the age of 15 he entered the Art Academy of Erevan.
While still a student he exhibited his sculpture in the museums of contemporary art of Erevan and Moscow. At the
age of 19 Zadikian escaped the USSR by swimming across
the freezing Arax river in winter, guard dogs and machinegun bullets in pursuit, and made his way west.
In 1969 Zadikian arrived in San Francisco. There he became assistant to the sculptor Benjamino Bufano, a friend
of Brancusi, who was making large scale commissions
for public spaces. Zadikian was greatly influenced by
Bufano’s productivity, and under his influence developed
a keen sense of scale and color, and for studio discipline.
In 1974 he moved to New York City, became friends with
Richard Serra, and assisted him in producing many of the
huge black oil-stick wall drawings. (The first of these was
named Zadikian.)
Both the physical and cultural life of New York had a
profound effect on Zadikian. Amid the diversity and
“poverty” of possibilities, exercising contempt for chaos,
decay, and “angst,” he strove to establish a unique iden-
A predilection for the magic and majesty of gold leaf led to
the 1978 project 1000 Bricks Gilded in 24Karat Gold Leaf.
In his push towards distilling the essence of form and surface, Zadikian’s next iteration was to create unique unit/
brick-like structures and gild them. Gold having become his
unifying material, like an alchemist, Zadikian transmuted
everything into this Noble metal, from ancient stone reliefs
to alien figures. These auric works recreated worlds beyond
the realm of everyday thought, bordering on the threshold
of the timeless and the eternal.
Zadikian has worked in other materials besides gold, including contrastingly base materials such as Styrofoam and Hydrocal, especially since coming to Los Angeles two decades
ago. But he frequently combines these with gold to create
profound visual, physical, and social contrasts.
Title:
Untitled (Three Graces)
2012
Format:
5 x 5 x 6 inches
Material:
Gold-plated bronze
Title:
untitled
2014
Format:
108 x 24 x 24 inches
Material:
Imitation gold leaf on Styrofoam
Format:
6 1/4 x 9 x 9 inches
Material:
Hydrocal over Styrofoam
Title:
Reclining Nude
2013
Format:
21 x 53 x 60 inches
Material:
Styrofoam
Zadiak Zadikian // trans angeles // crossover experimentation 2014
Peter
Juri
PETER FRANK
Peter Frank is an art critic for the Huffington Post and Associate Editor for Fabrik Magazine. He has served as Editor of
THEmagazine Los Angeles and Visions Art Quarterly and
as critic for Angeleno magazine and the L. A. Weekly. Frank
was born in 1950 in New York, where he wrote art criticism for The Village Voice and The SoHo Weekly News, and
moved to Los Angeles in 1988.
Frank contributes articles to numerous publications and
has written many catalogues for one‑person and group
exhibitions. Frank, who recently served as Senior Curator
at the Riverside Art Museum, has organized numerous
theme and survey shows, including “Driven to Abstraction: Southern California and the Non-Objective World,
1950-1988,” for the Riverside Art Museum; “Artists‘ Books
U.S.A.“, “Mapped Art: Charts, Routes, Regions“ and “Line
and Image: The Northern Sensibility in Recent European
Drawing“, all for Independent Curators Inc.; “Fluxus Film
and Video” for the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid; “Young
Fluxus“ for Artists‘ Space in New York; “To the Astonishing Horizon“ for Los Angeles Visual Arts; “Southern
Abstraction“ for the Raleigh (NC) City Gallery of Contemporary Art; “The Theater of the Object, 1958‑1972“
for New York‘s Alternative Museum; “Visual Poetry“ for the
Otis/Parsons Art Institute in Los Angeles; “Multiple World“
for the Atlanta College of Art; and, most notably, “19 Artists
– Emergent Americans,“ the 1981 Exxon National Exhibition
mounted at the Guggenheim Museum.
Frank has taught at Pratt Institute, Columbia University‘s
School of the Arts, the Tyler School of Art, the University
of California Irvine, Claremont Graduate School, California
State University Fullerton, the University of California Santa Barbara, the University of California Los Angeles, Laguna
College of Art and Design, and other institutions. McPherson & Co.‑Documentext published his Something Else Press:
An Annotated Bibliography in 1983. A cycle of poems, The
Travelogues, was issued by Sun & Moon Press in 1982. Abbeville Press released New, Used & Improved, an overview of
the New York art scene co-written with Michael McKenzie, in
1987. Frank has also published many artists’ monographs, including Roller: The Paintings of Donald Roller Wilson in 1988
and Robert De Niro, Sr. in 2004.
ViCA
Venice Institute of Contemporary Art
The Venice Institute of Contemporary Art (ViCA) is a nonprofit arts organization devoted to capturing the historical
and contemporary essence of one of America’s most important artistic cities as it is happening. ViCA will protect,
preserve, and promote the values of individual and independent artistic expression that have formed the practice
of creativity in Venice since the district’s founding in 1905.
Through its exhibitions, events, research facilities, and
education curriculum, ViCA will celebrate the art, culture
and community that Venice has provided to Southern
California and the art world at large. This marks the beginning of a concerted effort to capture the world art community through the lens of Venice through ViCA as its hub.
Since its inception, ViCA has and will continue to create
important events and exhibitions that take place in galleries and specialized spaces until it raises funds for an
endowment and finds a home Beach.
The video documentation of Trans Angeles will be done
by VICAs Director Juri Koll.
Juri Koll has produced and/or directed over 60 short films,
both fiction and documentary. His films have screened all
over the world, in over 70 festivals including Cannes, the
Cork International Film Festival, the Australian International
Film Festival, and have won many awards.
After graduating from California Institute of the Arts,
Koll produced his first Art/World documentaries in 1990-1995.
He traveled across the U.S. to work with major curators
in their museums and galleries, such as the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York City. The National Gallery in
Washington, DC, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in
Los Angeles, and the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.
His subjects have included world famous and infamous artists and curators from the Renaissance period to the present.
Koll’s first documentary, In The Steel: A Portrait of Mark di Suvero (1991), was accepted into the Archives of American Art
at the Smithsonian Institution.
Contact
E-Mail:
contact@trans-angeles.com
Website:
www.trans-angeles.com
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/transangeles1
Cover
Gisela Colón
Oval Melt Glo-Pod (Iridescent Cobalt Blue), 2013
Blow-molded acrylic, 26 x 40 x 8 inch
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