'Sodium Fox' (2005) by Jeremy Blake at The Artist's Museum | Courtesy: Jeremy Blake Estate
This week is the last chance to catch The Museum of Contemporary Art’s, (MOCA) two-venue showcase of works titled, The Artist’s Museum: Los Angeles Artists 1980-2010. The exhibition features work by more than 140 artists who helped shape the artistic dialogue in Los Angeles over the past 30 years. It runs through January 31.
The Artist’s Museum represents the diversity and uniqueness of the Los Angeles arts community, and highlights important works from legendary LA artists, including many Chouinard and CalArts alumni, faculty and former faculty.
They are: Amy Adler, Mark Allen, Edgar Arceneaux, John Baldessari, Larry Bell, Billy Al Bengston, Cindy Bernard, Walead Beshty, Jeremy Blake, Jonathan Borofsky, Andrea Bowers, Mark Bradford, Vija Celmins, Meg Cranston, Guy Dill, John Divola, Roy Dowell, Sam Durant, Morgan Fisher, Judy Fiskin, Simone Forti, Llyn Foulkes, Charles Gaines, Harry Gamboa Jr., Jack Goldstein, Joe Goode, Richard Hawkins, Douglas Huebler, Robert Irwin, Jim Isermann, Cameron Jamie, Larry Johnson, William E. Jones, Mike Kelley, Martin Kersels, Barbara Kruger, Liz Larner, William Leavitt, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Rodney McMillian, Dave Muller, Catherine Opie, Rubén Ortiz-Torres, Laura Owens, Lari Pittman, Monique Prieto, Stephen Prina, Joe Ray, Allen Ruppersberg, Edward Ruscha, Allan Sekula, Jim Shaw, Alexis Smith, Frances Stark, Jennifer Steinkamp, Henry Taylor, James Welling, Christopher Williams, Robert Williams and Tom Wudl.
The presentation draws from MOCA’s permanent collection, supplemented by key loans from local collectors and artists, and features more than 250 works–including a number of new projects made especially for the exhibition.
In the most recent issue of CalArts magazine, arts writer Susan Morgan looks at the Chouniard and CalArts presence in the show:
‘Constellation’ is a word that Rebecca Morse [exhibition curator] likes to use when describing the vibrant interconnectedness of the artists featured in The Artist’s Museum, a collection of very distinct individuals, dramatically far-flung but innately connected. The writer W.E.B. Du Bois famously observed: ‘The history of the world is the history not of individuals but of groups.’ As The Artist’s Museum embraces and acknowledges the intertwining histories of Los Angeles art from 1980 to the present, we are reminded again how absolutely indispensable CalArts has been to this conversation.
On the final day of the exhibit, MOCA Grand Avenue will host the world premiere of Machine Project’s first film, which was shot over the course of one 12-hour day. The LA-based collective, directed by Mark Allen, documented activities that happened simultaneously in the gallery, in the apartment above the gallery and in the basement of the building. Captured on film were: “an experimental women’s choir, a drum solo spilling out the second story window, a parent-child car theft workshop, a talk by Jason Brown revealing the secrets of Los Angeles’s occult netherworlds, and a demonstration of paleolithic fire starting technology.” (Reservations required for this event.)
The Artists’s Museum
MOCA Grand Avenue
250 South Grand Ave., Los Angeles
The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA
152 North Central Ave., Los Angeles
To read the CalArts magazine story in its entirety: