In conjunction with Hauser & Wirth’s presentation of the work of Avery Singer at Frieze LosAngeles, the artist will join Hammer Museum curator Aram Moshayedi for a conversation “[exploring] Singer’s distinctive use of digital tools, including 3D modeling software, her deft engagement with established traditions of archival documentation, and her groundbreaking techniques that she uses to question the ways in which images and their distribution are increasingly informed by new media and technologies.”*
The most interesting thing for me now is to make sure that the planet is going in the right direction. I keep the words sky, water, earth, fire in my mind. Those are the elements, and that’s what my work has come to be about. That’s what I’m about… When I think about my painting and the political and the planet, it’s about the hope that it’s not too late and that people can still get together and in whatever small way make a difference that adds up. As far as physical strength and ability goes, I’m very weak, of course, because of my age, but I still can paint, I can still draw. And so that’s my contribution…
I enjoy life, and I feel I’ve been different people. I was a different person, for example, when I did these very sexy drawings and paintings of my body, looking at my body. [Laughs] It’s the truth. Sex was all I could think about…
When I used to go to my house in Taos, New Mexico, and go to watch tribal dances, they wouldn’t ask me if I was Indian; they would say, “What tribe are you?” I would say, “Venezuelan.’”And they’d say, “I’ve never heard of that one!”… Within myself, I felt that I was Indian. I felt that very much when I went to the dances, because the tribes had a complete attitude towards the earth, that it was alive. I remember asking why the dances in the winter were different from the summer dances. A lot of stomping went on in the summer. I asked a man about this once, and he said, “Because the earth is asleep, of course, in winter.” Instead of stomping, they drag the foot, so as not to wake the earth. It’s an attitude toward the planet as a living thing. — LuchitaHurtado*
Frieze Los Angeles brings Hans Ulrich Obrist to the city for a conversation with Hurtado, who worked with the curator on her retrospective I LIVE I DIE I WILL BE REBORN—which opens at LACMA on February 16..
The discussion will be moderated by Jennifer King, associate curator of Contemporary Projects at LACMA.
Item Idem (Cyril Duval) is in town for Frieze Los Angeles, where he will present his new experimental short COLD SINGLE—directed in collaboration with Mel Hsieh—and join FriezeFilm curator Venus Lau in conversation.
In the past twenty years, nothing has been more exciting than China’s urbanization, because it has constantly involved people’s survival trajectories. People left small cities to travel to big cities, then left big cities to return to their locales. The texture of the city has been expanding to the suburbs, when the suburbs and villages turn into cities, when factories become art districts, when art districts become commercial districts… These top-down, earth-shaking changes, no matter how grand or personal, can’t be ignored. They accompany every citizen and are unavoidable because we are part of these stories…
Subjectivity and objectivity coexist—that is, I control the theme in a rational and macroscopic way. But as myself, I will always be engulfed in specific emotions. feelings, and become part of the project. I often think that this is most important, that this kind of strength is not a wanton passion. In every project, I always have a deep state of involvement… After filming, it is often impossible to quickly extricate oneself. — Cao Fei*
Cao’s practice documents China’s extraordinary pace of social and economic change. This week, two of her films will screen at Frieze Los Angeles.
Sales are good, tickets are selling out, events are full, and the sun is shining—although a brief shower is forecast for midday Sunday—so the inaugural edition of Frieze Los Angeles should be followed by many more.
We hope Felix returns, too. Co-founded by Morán Morán brothers Al and Mills and collector Dean Valentine, it’s an intimate fair headquartered in Hollywood.
An Arthur Jafa edition of Name That Tune has been added to today’s Frieze Talks, and the fair will close on Sunday with Miranda July and Maggie Nelson in conversation.
When you’re out on the Paramount studio backlot in the Frieze Projects section, stop by the Sqirl/Acid-Free space for Sqirl Away to-go items from the Los Feliz restaurant as well as a selection of art books and periodicals, including Liz Craft’s …my life in the sunshine—published by DoPePress—and the new print issue of PARISLA.
FRIEZE LOS ANGELES
Through Sunday, February 17.
Paramount Pictures Studios
5515 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles.
From top: Ken Price, Return to LA, 1990, courtesy the artist and Matthew Marks (Frieze LosAngeles); Florian Morlat, collage, courtesy of the artist and The Pit (Frieze Los Angeles); JessiReaves installation at Felix, courtesy the artist and Bridget Donahue, New York; KristenMorgin, Jennifer Aniston’s Used Book Sale (detail), ceramic, courtesy the artist and Marc Selwyn Fine Art (Felix); David Hockney, Peter Showering, 1976, C print, courtesy the artist and MatthewMarks (Frieze Los Angeles); Nan Goldin, Blue, 2016, courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman (Frieze Los Angeles).
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