Tag Archives: Pope.L

VIELMETTER LOS ANGELES — TWENTY YEARS

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In January 2000, when I opened the doors of the gallery for the first time, the work that was being highlighted by the most prominent galleries in Los Angeles reflected the discourse of an astoundingly narrow cultural group. I felt this was starkly at odds with the incredibly rich and culturally layered reality that I experienced here. It seemed to be a strangely inaccurate representation of the city’s vibrant art community and a missed opportunity to bring attention to the wide range of powerful voices from the different cultural contexts Los Angeles had to offer. As a result, the gallery’s main goal at that time was not to find the best or most successful artists, because I didn’t trust the parameters according to which those categories were defined. Rather, the goal was to invite artists from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds to bring their practices and viewpoints to the gallery. The hope was that this would lead not only to a much richer and more complex cultural experience, but that this approach would disturb the ingrained hierarchies prevalent in the Los Angeles art world and beyond. What has remained at the heart of the gallery until today is this need to question the metrics by which artists are valuated and to challenge the hierarchies we bring to art and to most other areas of cultural life.

We acknowledge that we have a lot of work still to do, that in fact this work will never be finished. This year, we invite you to celebrate what the gallery has accomplished so far. — Susanne Vielmetter

Vielmetter Los Angeles celebrates twenty years with the first iteration of a remarkable group show, up through the end of the month.

The exhibition includes works by Laura Aguilar, Nick Aguayo, Edgar Arceneaux, Math Bass, Whitney Bedford, Andrea Bowers, Sarah Cain, Patty Chang, Kim Dingle, Sean Duffy, Genevieve Gaignard, Liz Glynn, Karl Haendel, Stanya Kahn, Hayv Kahraman, Raffi Kalenderian, Mary Kelly, Dave McKenzie, Rodney McMillian, Shana Lutker, Wangechi Mutu, Ruben Ochoa, Pope.L, Deborah Roberts, Steve Roden, Arlene Shechet, John Sonsini, Amy Sillman, Stephanie Schneider, Monique Van Genderen, Tam Van Tran, Esther Pearl Watson, and Patrick Wilson.

VIELMETTER LOS ANGELES—20 YEAR ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION

Through August 29, by appointment only.

Vielmetter Los Angeles

1700 S Santa Fe Ave #101, Los Angeles.

Vielmetter Los Angeles, 20 Year Anniversary Exhibition, July 18, 2020–August 29, 2020, from top: Kim Dingle, for the occasion should the current president drop dead, 2019, oil on canvas; Monique Van Genderen, Untitled, 2020, oil on linen; Deborah Roberts, Stinney (Nessun Dorma Series), 2019, mixed media collage on paper; Pope.L, Trophy (Hedgehog), 2007, wood, stuffed animal, oil paint, acrylic paint, acrylic medium, peanut butter, screws; Arlene Shechet, Cure, 2020, glazed ceramic, steel, photograph by Eva Deitch; Wangechi Mutu, I am Speaking, Can you hear me?, 2020, paper pulp, wood glue, soil, charcoal, bone, feathers, shells, wood, metal stands; Edgar Arceneaux, In Between The Steps, #1, 2020, shoes, grass, weeds, sticks, acrylic paint, oil paint and resin on canvas; Esther Pearl Watson, The Strangeness Zone, 2020, acrylic, glitter and foil paper on panel; Stanya Kahn, Dusk Falls Fast on the Eve of the End, 2018, Ink and gesso on canvas; Andrea Bowers, The Tyranny Over Women Is Interlinked to the Oppression of Nature (Ecofeminist Sycamore Branch Series), 2020, archival marker on cardboard; Nicole Eisenman, Tea Party, 2012, 2-color lithograph on Saunders-Waterford HP watercolor paper, published by Jungle Press Editions, New York; Karl Haendel, How long will it be until I’m forgotten?, 2020, pencil on paper; Tam Van Tran, Divinations Jar ll, 2019, high fire ceramic; Shana Lutker, Hands(G), 2017, stainless steel; Rodney McMillian, two Suns, 2016, latex on bedsheet, photograph by Jeff McLane. Photographs, unless otherwise credited, by Robert Wedemeyer. Images courtesy and © the artists and Vielmetter Los Angeles.

DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE CHILDREN ARE?

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As a native Texan, I have witnessed firsthand the discrimination that immigrants face in the United States. I have heard from friends who visited detention centers, and from lawyers representing those detained. I have heard the stories of those who are separated from their families, and read transcripts from underfunded courtrooms operating far beyond capacity. It is devastating. That all of this occurs in the name of “security” and “safety” is the greatest farce of all. — Molly Gochman

DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE CHILDREN ARE (DYKWTCA) is a call to action and exhibition of over 100 unique works of art by 100+ leading visual artists that is organized by the artists and activists Mary Ellen Carroll and Lucas Michael. Each work incorporates, or represents an actual account (in whole or in part) from a child who was separated from their family and detained by the U.S. government. This text may be in the native language of the child or a translation into English. The accounts are taken from the interviews that were conducted by the Flores investigators that included legal, medical and mental health experts who visited the detention facilities six months ago in June of 2019. Upon witnessing the deplorable, inhumane, and illegal conditions they found the children in, they decided it was necessary to act upon their findings. They went public.*

The exhibition—WHEN WE FIRST ARRIVED…,curated by Ruth Noack—will open this weekend in Washington, D.C., and proceeds from artwork sales will benefit and support the Safe Passage Project, Terra Firma, Team Brownsville, and the Innovation Law Lab.

WHEN WE FIRST ARRIVED…*

Through March 29.

Opening night: Saturday, January 25, from 6 pm to 8 pm.

The Corner at Whitman-Walker

1701 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.

When We First Arrived…, artwork, from top: Spencer Ostrander, Ricci Albenda, Mary Lum, Molly Gochman, Rob Pruitt, Terence Gower, Jesse Presley Jones, When We First Arrived invitation card, Amy Sillman, Beto De Volder and Leon Villagran, Kay Rosen, and Carlos Motta. Artwork courtesy and © the artists, the photographers, DYKWTCA, Mary Ellen Carroll, and Lucas Michael.

DARBY ENGLISH AT THE HAMMER

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Join Darby English—author of the forthcoming To Describe a Life: Essays at the Intersection of Art and Race Terror—for a talk at the Hammer about “art’s interaction with instituted forms of historical subjectivity and experience.”*

English is featured in Jarrett Earnest’s new book What It Means to Write About Art.

DARBY ENGLISH—UCLA DEPARTMENT OF ART LECTURE*

Wednesday, November 28, at 7:30 pm.

Hammer Museum

10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles.

From top: Kerry James Marshall, Untitled (policeman), 2015,© Kerry James Marshall, courtesy the artist and the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Pope.L, Skin Set: Purple People Are Reason Bicarbonate, 2006-2007, ink, Wite-Out, and coffee on paper; Boym Partners, Lorraine Motel, April 4, 1968, from the series Buildings of Disaster, 1998, bonded nickel; book cover image—Zoe Leonard, Tipping Point, 2016, fifty-three copies of the first edition of The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, Dial Press, New York—by Wilcox Design, courtesy Yale University Press.