Tag Archives: Evan Moffitt

PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA IN CONVERSATION

The subjects in [my] early portraits were friends or acquaintances I was just getting to know, some of whom would become good friends, some with whom I would eventually lose touch. Some I have reconnected with. It was important in deciding to make portraits that they be of people with whom I desired friendship, platonic or romantic relationships. It was also a conscious decision that, regardless of the nature of our connection, the photographs would depict them as if they were, could be, or had been a lover. I wanted that kind of desire to be the foundation, to go all the way and then negotiate back.Paul Mpagi Sepuya*

PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA—the artist’s first institutional monograph—is out now. Co-published by the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and Aperture, the book surveys Sepuya’s various photographic series over the last ten years, and features essays by Malik Gaines, Lucy Gallun, Ariel Goldberg, Lisa Melandri, Evan Moffitt, and Grace Wales Bonner, with an artist interview by curator Wassan Al-Khudhairi.

For a discussion presented by Printed Matter in anticipation of its forthcoming virtual book fair, Sepuya will join Al-Khudhairi in conversation. See link below to register for this online event.

PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA IN CONVERSATION

Printed Matter

Monday, December 14.

5 pm on the West Coast; 8 pm East Coast.

*“Interview with Paul Mpagi Sepuya by Wassan Al-Khudhairi,” in PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA (St. Louis: Contemporary Art Museum; New York: Aperture, 2020).

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, May 17, 2019–August 18, 2019; Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston, October 19, 2019–March 14, 2020. Organized by Wassan Al-Khudhaiti, chief curator, with Misa Jeffereis, assistant curator.

Paul Mpagi Sepuya, from top: Darkroom Mirror (_2070386), 2017; Self Portrait Holding Joshua’s Hand, 2006; A Portrait (0X5A6109), 2017; Mirror Study (4R2A0857), 2016; Studio Wall (_1000021), 2018; A Portrait (File0085), 2015 [Evan Moffitt]; Paul Mpagi Sepuya exhibition catalog cover courtesy and © Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and Aperture, image—Darkroom Mirror (_2060999), 2017 (detail)—© the artist; Paul Mpagi Sepuya, The Conditions, Team Gallery, New York, installation view—Sepuya’s Model Study (0X5A3973), 2017 at left—photograph by Jason Mandella, image courtesy the artist and Team Gallery; A Portrait (0X5A8325), 2018; Orifice (0X5A6982), 2018; Aperture (_2140020), 2018. Images © Paul Mpagi Sepuya, courtesy of the artist.

MICHAELA COEL — I MAY DESTROY YOU

In many ways, Arabella’s story… is very similar to mine, but there are differences that I’ve intentionally kept so there’s always a distinction between myself and Arabella. But yes, I was writing all night in the production office that I was making a TV show for, and went on a break to meet my friend in a bar. And I had a drink, [I blacked out], and then I was back at work typing and finishing the [Chewing Gum] episode that was due and didn’t quite realize my phone was smashed…Michaela Coel

Skye Arundhati Thomas and Evan Moffitt will discuss Michaela Coel’s “uncompromising, profoundly addicting” new show I MAY DESTROY YOU.* See link below for webinar rsvp.

SKYE ARUNDHATI THOMAS and EVAN MOFFITT ON I MAY DESTROY YOU*

Wednesday, August 12.

10 am on the West Coast; 1 pm East Coast; 6 pm London; 7 pm Paris.

Michaela Coel, I May Destroy You, from top: Michaela Coel; Paapa Essiedu and Coel; I May Destroy You poster courtesy and © HBO; Weruche Opia (right) and Coel: Coel (2). Images courtesy and © the BBC, HBO, and Michaela Coel.

VERÓNICA BAYETTI-FLORES ON ARCA

Verónica Bayetti Flores will join Evan Moffitt for an online conversation about Arca and her new album KiCk i.

See links below for album streaming and webinar registration.

ARCA—KICK I

VERÓNICA BAYETTI-FLORES and EVAN MOFFITT IN CONVERSATION

Wednesday, July 22.

10 am on the West Coast; 1 pm East Coast; 6 pm London; 7 pm Paris.

From top: Arca; Arca, Nonbinary, 2020, courtesy Frederik Heyman; Arca, KiCk i album cover; Arca, photograph by Hart Lëshkina; Arca, Mequetrefe (Deadbeat), 2020, courtesy Carlos Sáez. Images courtesy and © Arca and the photographers.

RACHEL MASON IN CONVERSATION

This weekend, Joan Los Angeles presents an online conversation with CIRCUS OF BOOKS director Rachel Mason and producers Cynthia Childs, Kathryn Robson, and Rhianon Jones, moderated by Evan Moffitt.

For over thirty-five years, the gay porn shop Circus of Books served as an epicenter for LGBT life and culture in Los Angeles. Unbeknownst to many in the community it served, the store was cultivated and cared for by its owners, Karen and Barry Mason—a straight couple with three children. The documentary CIRCUS OF BOOKS is an intimate portrait of the Masons and their journey to become one of the biggest distributors of hardcore gay porn in the United States. Their story unfolds through the lens of their daughter, filmmaker and artist, Rachel Mason.

RACHEL MASON’S CIRCUS OF BOOKS—A VIRTUAL CONVERSATION MODERATED BY EVAN MOFFITT

Sunday, May 24.

4 pm on the West Coast; 7 pm East Coast.

The West Hollywood outpost of Circus had a brief resurrection in the Spring of 2020.

From top: Circus of Books, West Hollywood facade; Karen Mason taking stock; Circus of Books poster; Rachel Mason in 2019 at the Tribeca Film Festival presentation of Circus of Books; the Silver Lake location at Sunset Junction. Images courtesy and © the filmmaker and Netflix.

LIGIA LEWIS AT REDCAT

In MINOR MATTER—part two of her Blue, Red, and White trilogy that began with Sorrow Swag—dancer-choreographer Ligia Lewis and her dancers Jonathan Gonzalez and Tiran Willemse interrogate the color red as a medium between love and rage. 

“[With this piece] I knew that I was working specifically with a very strong relationship to space, so I wanted to animate the periphery as much as possible. I knew that I was trying to interrogate a certain type of body and a certain type of embodiment. I was also trying to play with duration, or at least with creating a relationship to time that had an articulation of memory, and the present, and a sort of posturing towards the future… happening simultaneously…

“I have a very contentious relationship with abstraction, at least in early notions of abstraction being ‘pure’ or unadulterated form, so I go in knowing that I’m not entirely going to get that, or maybe not entirely interested in it, but it’s an interesting place to start for me…

“I was thinking about marks and traces in space, which is me thinking through what it means to be a marked body on stage. How do you leave a mark or a trace?” — Ligia Lewis interview with Emily Gastineau

Returning to L.A. after a preview at Human Resources—see Evan Moffitt’s review—MINOR MATTER is presented as part of this month’s Pacific Standard Time Festival: Live Art LA/LA.

 

LIGIA LEWIS—MINOR MATTER

Friday and Saturday, January 12 and 13, at 8 pm.

Sunday, January 14, at 6 pm.

Redcat, 631 West 2nd Street, downtown Los Angeles.

See Hannah Black on Lewis.

See Martha Kirszenbaum, interview with Ligia Lewis, Kaleidoscope 29 (Spring 2017).

Above: Kaleidoscope 29 (Spring 2017), Ligia Lewis cover.

Below: Ligia Lewisminor matter. Photographs by Martha Glenn.