12.5.15 JULIE TOLENTINO: The End of the Party, 2015 + subtitled by my sister, Rita: (I hope she doesn’t) Fall Asleep In The Ocean

The End of the Party, 2015
subtitled by my sister, Rita:
(I hope she doesn’t) Fall Asleep In The Ocean

Julie Tolentino with the eternal players:
Mark So, Pigpen, Maria Garcia, John Bertel, Patrick Murch, Tamaki aka Banetoriko,
Leon Hilton, Ivan Ramos for N.T. and the rest of the worst of us

Human Resources
Saturday, December 5, 2015, 11pm

I may be fully missing the mark --
this space with you, this piece, the spaces opened by Her
 
out of my range
overdue
out of luck
under
disenchanted

while completely immersed --
Her: non-verbal, horizontal, chip-like, adducting
She reveals herself as material & person, righteously object, abject 
r e a l    
and wandering
unreal, curved, sweet even, out-of-time
non-psychoanalytical, not familial, not dull
deeply seeking pleasure, comfort
steeped in animal scent
queerest of them all, resistant
elusive and delicate
 
fully invested --
to relate to this -how- and learn about the unreal stretch of time that it may
actually
take
to
die
“naturally”
 
very there, running too
loyal
moving on, dismantling
re-engaging
 
yet vaguely aware that we are “waiting” as Frank O’Hara says,
"for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern.”

- Julie Tolentino

Julie Tolentino creates intimate movement-based installations, including performance, objects, sound and video works. Her diverse roles have included host, producer, mentor, and as collaborator/performer with artists such as Meg Stuart, Lovett/Codagnone, David Rousseve, Kelly/Gerrard, Diamanda Galàs, Pigpen/Stosh Fila, Ron Athey, Catherine Opie, Robert Crouch, Mark So, Matanoise, Stanley Love, Maya Munoz, Madonna, Gran Fury, Candidate, and Rodarte. As an extension of her practice after twenty-five years in New York City, she designed and built a small solar-powered live–work residency in the Mohave Desert called FERAL House and Studio, where she explores remote forms of one-to-one physical inquiry through landscape and texts. Her work has been presented at Participant Inc., The New Museum, The Kitchen, Invisible Exports, Performa 2005 and 2013, Wexner Center, St. Mark’s Danspace, High Desert Test Sites, Tramway, Spill Festival, DanceExchange, queerupnorth, Theaterworks, Singapore, Myanmar FC Project, Manila Contemporary, Green Papaya Gallery in the Philippines, as well as Broad Art Space at University California Los Angeles (UCLA), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts In-Community program with Alter Space and the Luggage Store with Ryan Tacata and Kadet Kuhne and five young emerging artists, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Commonwealth & Council, Volume at the Night Gallery, Honor Fraser, PSI19 at Stanford, Perform Chinatown, Install Weho, MOCA, Incognito at Santa Monica Museum of Art, Church of the Epiphany, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, San Francisco Art Institute, Derive-Mulholland Drive, NYU Abu Dhabi, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Pact Zollverein, Essen, Germany. She is developing three works: the VOID Series, THE SKY REMAINS THE SAME archiving the work of Stanley Love in NYC and LOLAs, upcoming with Ryan Tacata. She is the co-editor of the TDR Provocations section and editor of an upcoming book entitled: Guard Your Daughters - Clit Club 1990-2002.


This performance is part of the group exhibition The Closer I Get To The End The More I Rewrite The Beginning curated by Suzy Halajian and on view until December 13, 2015 at Human Resources.

JT thanks Suzy, Pigpen, Mark, Sho, Rita, Vardui, Human Resources

Image: Christopher Wormald

11.21.15-12.13.15 The Closer I Get To The End The More I Rewrite The Beginning

Image: Klara Liden, Bodies of Society, 2006, DVD, color, sound, 5:08 min, courtesy the artist, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York and Galerie Neu, BerlinThe Closer I Get To The End The More I Rewrite The Beginning

 with Basma Alsharif, Doa Aly, Gilda Davidian, Mariah Garnett, David Horvitz, Hiwa K,                        Mark Leckey, Klara Liden, Christine Rebet, Julie Tolentino, Erika Vogt, and Hanna Wildow

texts by Doa Aly, Janine Armin, Shoghig Halajian, and Litia Perta
& a video program organized with Clara López Menéndez

Curated by Suzy Halajian

Human Resources

Opening Saturday, November 21, 7-10pm
November 21-December 13, 2015 (Gallery Hours: Tues-Sun, 12-6pm)
Video program and performance info below.

Bodies are moving, swaying, spinning, coming together in ecstatic relief, only to come apart in Mark Leckey’s 1999 video work, Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore. The video mashes up found footage of British youth culture in various underground dance scenes from the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s with a single soundtrack unifying the images. Serving as a starting point to the project, the work presents a timeless social experience that celebrates the party as a political tool in its diehard resistance to the capitalistic workweek, as well as transcendence found through the act of 'getting lost' in subcultural dance codes and ultimately, in fatigue.

The Closer I Get To The End The More I Rewrite The Beginning (1) presents works by Basma Alsharif, Doa Aly, Gilda Davidian, Mariah Garnett, David Horvitz, Hiwa K, Mark Leckey, Klara Liden, Christine Rebet, Julie Tolentino, Erika Vogt, and Hanna Wildow to explore the state of exhaustion, through the time and space that make it possible. The project questions the appearance and contours of social spaces that enable this condition, and locates instances within these sites that allow for new forms of sociability. By considering both individual and collective states of being together situated within a neoliberal and mutating model of capitalism, the exhibition asks how these spaces may be realized in a state of nonstop action and renewal and how their potentials may unfold over time. The works in this exhibition reimagine, re-perform, consume, and even obliterate images and places set in motion. They refuse to remain static or meet at the center, but continue to turn and shift, only to begin again.

The exhibition brings together artists’ works, a video program, and writings that respond to spaces found within relentless states of operation. It takes into account more recent political insurgencies and sites of dissent; refusal and/or withdrawal from work, action, and participation; a lack of physical tenacity due to the durational; and the effects of these on cultural and historical imagination that define both the personal subject and public event. Further expanding out from the exhaustion of space due to withdrawal and protest, the project stresses the position of indefinable bodies in the social sphere, as well as an all-consuming understanding of institutional frameworks in a move away from the authorial. It does not advance the notion that once an option disappears its potential is lost; but rather it is in the act of clearing out, the voiding of, that allows for new possibilities to come into fruition or to be made visible. Once emptied, fields of echo, repetition, and perpetual reflection can prove useful. 

1. Part 1 of this project, The Recorder Was Left On, Or The Closer I Get To The End The More I Rewrite The Beginning, was on view at LACA (www.lacaarchive.org) from August 7 to September 26, 2015. Both exhibitions partially borrow their titles from Alejandro Cesarco’s installation, The Streets Were Dark With Something More Than Night Or The Closer I Get To The End The More I Rewrite The Beginning (2011).

-

Video program 

Part 1. Screening & Discussion at 1009 N. Madison Ave. LA, 90029      

Saturday, November 14, 2-9pm

Screening of Peter Watkins’ La Commune (Paris, 1871), 2000, 345 min.

Sunday, November 15, 5:30-9pm

Screening of Jasmina Metwaly and Philip Rizk’s Out on the Street, 2015, 71 min, followed by a discussion on both films.

Note: The screenings above are scheduled before the exhibition opens at Human Resources.

Part 2. Screening at Human Resources

Friday, December 11, 7-9pm: Screening featuring works by Malin Arnell, Phil Collins, Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn, and Basim Magdy followed by a Q&A with Malin Arnell, Harry Dodge, and Stanya Kahn. More info

Performance by Julie Tolentino

Saturday, December 5, 11pm: More info

-

Thanks to the support provided by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States.

11.13.15 Two Performances - Elliot Reed and Gema Galiana / Andrea Tzvetkov

8-10:30PM

Running The Gauntlet (sections I-III) - written and performed by Elliot Reed in the exhibition HR

Long Distance is a project that explores live performance created by members of The Syndicate across great distances. Long Distance Los Angeles is created and performed by Gema Galiana and Andrea Tzvetkov as a physical response to HR, a solo exhibition by Sabrina Chou.

--------
Elliot Reed is a visual artist and musician from Chicago, IL where he attended The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. He has given presentations at The University of Minnesota and Macalester College, in addition to performing at Northwestern University, The Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Chicago, The Gene Siskel Film Center, FOKL Arts Center Kansas City, The Bijou Theater, and other venues in Baltimore, Nashville, Minneapolis, Chicago, Phoenix, Tuscon, Los Angeles, Marfa, and Austin TX. His album ‘Anxiety Magic’ was recently listed in ‘The Wire’ magazine, and his video short ‘Out Now’ is featured in issue #2 of the Video!Video! VHS zine project.

In 2014 Elliot Reed created Elliot Reed Laboratories (ReedLabs), where he currently serves as Founder, Director of Lab Operations, and sole employee. Due to the scale of the operation, Elliot occasionally uses the name ‘Corporate Headquarters’ while making public appearances. ReedLabs holds a Library of Congress registered copyright.

Elliot will debut an ongoing performance titled, Running The Gauntlet (sections I-III).

Long Distance November 13th, 2015 is a play created by The Syndicate in which members from Austin, Brooklyn, Chicago, Myrtle Beach, and The Hague provide material to be performed in Los Angeles by Gema Galiana and Andrea Tzvetkov. Over the next 6 months, it will be performed in each of the above named cities in a new configuration with different members.

Andrea Tzvetkov is a Los Angeles based artist and founding member of The Syndicate. Most recently she directed Memory Palace at The Pico House and Bobrauschenbergamerica at The Semel Theatre. Among others, she has performed in My New Friend Su, a collaboration between Robert Wilson and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the MIT Cube and The Watermill Center. Training includes the SITI Company Conservatory in NYC and BFA from Emerson College.

Gema Galiana is a performer, specializes in physical theatre, training with Iben Nagel Rasmussen, Isabel Ubeda (Odin Theatre), Gabriel Gawin (Song of the Goat), Raúl Iaiza (Regulam contra Regulam), Olivero Pavi/Kate Perry (Obra Theatre Company, Au Brana). She is one of the eight founding members of Studio Matejka at The Grotowski Institute, creating her solo performance The Woman Decomposed, directed by Matej Matejka. Invited by the dancer Vivien Wood, Gema took part in the project EXILE commissioned by Dance City, UK. Gema has trained eight years in Karate Do Goju-Ryu. She is a movement consultant for film and theater.

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11.8.15 Carlin Wing: Episodes in the Life of Bounce

Machine Project and Cabinet magazine team up to present two new episodes in the life of bounce from artist (and former professional squash player) Carlin Wing – hosted by Sabrina Chou’s experimental sporting exhibition, HR.

From 1pm to 4pm, join us for a Live Ball Orchestra! Artist Carlin Wing, assisted by Luke Fischbeck, will lead a workshop about the sonic and musical properties of bounce. Participants will use balls of all types to sound out the architectural space of Sabrina Chou’s exhibition at HRLA. We will explore the aural characteristics of bouncing objects, test the range of acoustic relationships between ball and surface, and experiment with building tonal and rhythmic arrangements. Some bounce audio will be recorded. Balls will be provided but participants are also encouraged to BYOB.

Following the workshop at 5pm, we’ll head to the bleachers for Episodes in the Life of Bounce, an illustrated talk by Carlin about rubber as the foundational material of modern sport. All cultures play games with balls, but the rubber ball has a special history. In their time, the Aztec and the Maya built entire cosmologies around rubber bounce, while in recent centuries sport-crazed Europeans and North Americans have tirelessly experimented with rubber’s uncanny properties in pursuit of “true bounce.”

10.30.15 Semiotext(e) Book Launch for Dodie Bellamy + Jennifer Doyle

 

8:30PM

Join us for a celebration of the publication of Bellamy's When the Sick Rule the World, and Doyle's Campus Sex/Campus Security — Hosted within the context of Sabrina Chou's exhibition "HR".

Dodie Bellamy: When the Sick Rule the World
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/when-sick-rule-world

Review from James Reich in The Rumpus — http://therumpus.net/2015/09/when-the-sick-rule-the-world-by-dodie-bellamy/

Jennifer Doyle: Campus Sex/Campus Security
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/campus-sex-campus-security

Semiotext(e): http://semiotexte.com/

Sabrina Chou, "HR"
http://humanresourcesla.com/current-exhibition/

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10.25.15 In the Memory of Chantal Akerman We Watch

Doors at 6PM, Screening at 6:30PM 

Saute Ma Ville, 1968, 13min
Je Tu Il Elle, 1976, 86min
Toute une Nuit, 1982, 89 min

On Sunday October 25 we want to pay tribute to Chantal Akerman, a filmmaker that has changed our lives and our eyes to see cinema, to be cinema. We can’t believe and don’t want to accept her disappearance. We felt the need to mourn and homage her with a screening, in the silent social created before her images. We chose these three titles because they broke our hearts and shattered our gazes to what cinema had the power to do, a tool in the right hands. It also will give us a way into her many paces, rejoicing in her surgical cinematography.

Join us to say good bye to Chantal and long live her memory, her legacy made celluloid, taken by the hand of her strong, quiet heroines. 

Films will be preceded by an introduction by Berenice Reynaud, curator of Film at REDCAT Theatre.

Free of charge. FB event

10.17.15 - 11.14.15 HR

HR

Sabrina Chou

ft. Great States Reel Lawn Mower
(available for rent: reellawns@gmail.com)

October 17 – November 14, 2015
Opening reception October 17th 7-10pm

From the manufacturer:

The power source behind our mowers hasn't changed much in 100 years. It's still readily available on demand. You can still fuel it for the price of a banana and a glass of milk. It always works when you want it to, and it doesn't leave any residue for the environment to absorb other than a couple of footprints in a perfectly cut lawn. People—the power behind our mowers in 1895, and the power behind them today. What has changed is the product available to the people. At Great States, we've applied a century of technology to a good old-fashioned idea: the reel lawn mower. Today's reel mowers are lightweight and easy to maneuver. They're ideal for today's smaller lawns, and today's hectic lifestyles. They're always ready when you're ready, and they're almost maintenance free with no spark plugs to foul or engines to clog up. They're good to the environment and they're good to the lawn, snipping the grass for a clean, precise cut. A cut that's helped us carve our niche as the nation's largest manufacturer of in-demand, on-demand reel mowers. We've spent 100 years of perfecting our reel mower designs, streamlining our production processes and searching for the best possible materials to build the best reel mowers possible. And we're proud of all that. But more important still, we've spent the last 100 years, and we'll spend the next 100 more, keeping America Green.

Did you think it was going to be easy?

Look down. The astroturf beneath your feet is melting.

- 

Human Resources presents HR, an exhibition of new work by Sabrina Chou consisting of backdrops, equipment, furnishings, and clothing. The exhibition proposes an ambiguity around these objects, and how they might oscillate between aesthetic proposition, functional use, and absurd adaptation. Assembled around us, the works outline open-ended sets, figurative utopias, and allegorized landscapes. Somewhere between the field, the court, the lawn, the desert, the discotheque, and the office, our unattributed bodies can find vaguely open seats and space to move.

Performances and events during the exhibition to be announced.

Sabrina Chou (b. Los Angeles) is an artist based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She is the founder of GOODxPRACTICE, a subscription-based clothing line. HR is the second in a series of solo exhibitions in three acts. Act I was presented at Pracownia Portretu in Łodz, Poland and Act III will be presented in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. This series of exhibitions is supported in part by Centrum Beeldende Kunst Rotterdam.

10.10.15 The Adonis Project: Masquerade

The Adonis Project: Masquerade
Saturday, October 10th, 2015

For the second year in a row the notorious Adonis Theater, legendary gay adult movie house will be creatively resurrected for one night only as artists from the LA queer community descend on Human Resources to share their hot visions around themes of Gay Sex and Queer Liberation in context of the current state of assimilation, evolving LGBTQ space and shrinking ghettos. It is a creative activist effort and sexy night of interactive queer entertainment which will transform Human Resources into a sexual amusement park of gay art, video and performance.

This year we are introducing the the theme of masquerade. Masks are a potent subject for queer people, from being forced to grow up in the closet and wear the mask we are given by society, to the multiple masks we wear as adults as we negotiate between the heterosexually dominated world and the various queer spaces we inhabit and create. Historically gay sex spaces featuring masquerade parties were designed to celebrate debauchery and to threaten the very social fabric of the land; i.e. protest homophobic fascist government and also provide a safe anonymous provocative gathering place for alternative types. Complimentary masks will be provided for the audience and a clothes check will also be available.
At 8 PM we will have an open gallery with interactive installation artists, photography and video art. Performances will begin at 9 PM, followed by a DJ, open galley and a midnight show.

Join us for a night at The Adonis.

8:00 PM Open Gallery, Installations & Video Screenings
9:00 PM Show

$10 (Ages 18+)

Tickets: theadonisproject.bpt.me
Info: facebook.com/AdonisProjectLA

#theadonisproject #planetqueer #getmoregay

Human Resources, 410 Cottage Home Street, Los Angeles, California 90012

10.2.15-10.4.15 Karen Anzoategu: Catholic School Daze

Karen Anzoategui brings their solo show Catholic School Daze to Human Resources LA in Chinatown, Oct 2nd-4th, 2015. 

Catholic School Daze is an autobiographical solo performance that tells the story of ‘Karen’ who finds humor and pain while surviving the challenges of gender norms, sexuality, and faith. Karen is forced to take the blame for an act of "lesbianism" in front of the whole school. Bullied by administrators and schoolmates alike, Karen is forced to make difficult decisions as they survive Catholic High School and the intersection between queerness, faith, and self-infiction.

Anzoategui is currently working on a documentary based on this work; developed  through workshops with their audience members at the UCLA Chicano Research Library, Cal State Northridge and the Cal State Fullerton Queer People of Color Conference.

Catholic School Daze

written and performed by Karen Anzoategui.

Presented by Human Resources LA

Three night run w surprise guests each night!

Friday, Oct 2nd -  8 p.m.
Noche De Santa Joteria w/ DJs Brown Bruja, Por Vida & Sister Mantos.

Saturday, Oct 3rd -  8 p.m.
with East Los High panel- writer Vicotr Duenas and Maria Escobedo

Sunday, Oct 4th -  6 p.m.
Q and A focus on the intersection of Queerness and Faith
 

General admission $15.00

Students: $12.00

Groups of 10 or more $10.00 with code CSD10

Purchase tix:

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2268338

More info:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1176825078998361/

http://www.karenanzoategui.com/#!csd/crce

Contact: queerpr@gmail.com 213.248.6281

Human Resources LA

410 Cottage Home St,

Los Angeles CA, 90012

9.20.15 - 9.28.15 It's Just the Beginning

It's Just the Beginning -- Umbrella Movement anniversary exhibition. 「命運自主」 雨傘運動一週年展覽 - 洛杉磯

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 
6 p.m. : Opening 
7:30 p.m. : Musical Performance featuring songs of the Umbrella Revolution

SATURDAY & SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26 & 27
7:30 p.m. : Film Screening 

HOURS
Monday through Sunday : Noon to 8 p.m. 

In Fall 2014, Hong Kong experienced an unprecedented civic uprising. A series of students-led walkouts and sit-ins -- in protest of a legislative proposal by the National People’s Congress of China to assert control over Hong Kong’s electoral system -- escalated into a leaderless movement of massive civil disobedience that came to be known as the Umbrella Movement. Police tear gas and pepper spray did nothing to stop everyday people from coming out into the streets in droves to demand true democracy. Using umbrellas as shields, protesters shut down highways, tunnels, and bus routes, occupying major arteries of the city for 79 days, despite multiple crackdown efforts from the authorities. One year later, people of Hong Kong continue to fight for their future.

Hong Kong Forum Los Angeles presents a multi-disciplinary exhibition of the Umbrella Movement in Chinatown. The exhibition serves both as a reflection and a projection of Hong Kong’s struggle for democracy. It highlights moving moments from the protests, and the feverish creativity that blossomed throughout the strikes and occupations. It also offers an opportunity for the LA HK community to process and raise awareness about what is happening in our city collectively. 

The key images of the exhibition are drawn from "The Umbrella Festival", researched, curated and organized by Oscar Hing Kay Ho and the students at the Cultural Management Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, first shown in Hong Kong in May 2015, presenting images and artwork by occupiers, artists and news photographers who participated in the movement. 

Other central contributors includes: 
// Hong Kong // 
Photographer Martin Witness
Cartoonist Max Ip 
Design Collective Hong Kong Social Design Narration
Sketching Umbrella Movement: Stella So, Wai Wai, Alvin Wong and members + more! 

// Los Angeles //
HKFLA community: Musicians Shirley To + Alan Chan, Artists Mei Lois Koa Morimoto, Monica Dong + Megan Dong + Sandra Fong + Lillian Chin + Wing Cheung + Perry Ng + more!


9月份將會係每個香港人感覺複雜的一月：因爲87粒催淚彈，因爲被政府暴力對待的同路人，因爲目睹香港嘅社會撕裂。作爲身在海外嘅香港人，雖然我們能力有限，但唔想坐係電視機面前感到無能爲力。在這一年，各位在外嘅同路人一直用各種方法向當地社會展示香港人追求公平自由嘅決心，而洛杉磯嘅香港人都唔例外。 而一年過後，洛杉磯嘅各位壇友籌備於9月20日至28日在唐人街 Human Resources Downtown LA 舉行主題展覽向當地社群解釋雨傘運動。

大部份圖像在2015年五月與香港舉行的「雨傘節」展出，展覽組織者：中文大學文化管理部學生與何慶基教授。展覽來源於參與佔領運動嘅50多個佔領者，藝術家，攝影記者。

其他作品貢獻來源：
// 香港 // 
-- 馬丁-- 
-- 社會設計 --
-- 速寫遮打運動 : 慧惠, Stella So, Alvin Wong + members --
-- Mud Mud Mud 

+ 洛杉磯嘅香港人!

websites and references:
www.umbrellafest.com
www.facebook.com/martinwitness
www.facebook.com/hksocialdesign
www.facebook.com/sketchoccupycentral
www.facebook.com/waiwai.sketches
www.facebook.com/stellasomanyee

09.17.15 It's My Party!: Tribute Show to Girl Groups of the 1950s & 60s

Doors 8PM | $12 purchase tickets in advance here

He loves me. He loves me not. He's from the wrong side of town. Parents don't understand. Boys are good. Boys are bad. These issues defined the sweet and sassy songs of girl groups from the 1950s & 60s. On Sept 17th at Human Resources, some of our favorite local bands will perform their favorite tunes from the early days of rock, pop, and rebels on motorcycles! 

with L.A. Witch, Katy Goodman (La Sera/Vivian Girls), Tashaki Miyaki, Nedelle Torrisi, Vicky & The Vengents, Bloody Death Skull, White Dove, Irene Diaz, Alex Lilly, Veronica Bianqui, and more

plus DJs Lee Set, Taylor Rowley, & Mukta Mohan

Stick around for a dance party after the performance. 

Enjoy this playlist of Girl Group tunes:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG027Sehf8n3fBSMIW89zyc-YoPa4oGPw


Event by Daiana Feuer aka FEVER FB event page 

9.11.15 Gautam Tejas Ganeshan

In connection with the exhibition Keith Rocka Knittel: Let it Yellow, Human Resources is pleased to present a performance of Carnatic vocal compositions by Gautam Tejas Ganeshan.

Friday September 11, 2015
7pm - 10pm
$10 suggested donation, no-one turned away for lack of funds

Gautam Tejas Ganeshan’s authentic voice and intelligent approach breathe new life into an old tradition. His concerts reflect a traditional aesthetic, embracing a classical style instantly recognizable to aficionados worldwide, and transforming it through the creation of an ongoing body of original works based in love and understanding of Carnatic music - its elaborate structures, extensive improvisations, and the utmost sincerity that distinguishes its greatest practitioners.

Delivered in chamber ensembles, his performances are typically presented strictly acoustically, with nothing plugged in, honoring the strictures adopted by an earlier generation of musicians. But in rendering exclusively his own songs, he inflects this highly cultured musical heritage through himself, expressing authenticity more than ethnicity, immediacy more than nostalgia, and allowing listeners the unprecedented experience of having a natural linguistic purchase on the complex song forms of a rich oral tradition.

With musical accompaniment by Karthik Vasan (mridangam), Pallavi Mynampati (bamboo flute), and Jaeger Smith (tambura).

9.9.15 - 9.14.15 "Let it Yellow" Keith Rocka Knittel

Keith Rocka Knittel
Let it Yellow
September 9 - ­14, 2015

Opening reception: Thursday, September 10, 7 - ­10 PM

Please join us for performances taking place inside the exhibition:
Friday 9/11/15 7-10pm: Gautam Tejas Ganeshan
Saturday 9/12/15 9-11 pm: Carl Pomposelli, Steve Kado, TMO, Leslie Dick, John Hogan, and Keith Rocka Knittel

The work in L​et it Yellow is process driven - performances build objects creating a syntax as gestures break down their materiality, starting the process over again. Art objects exist equally as both a means of representing the present and a remnant of the past, both combined to reflect upon the future.

The s​how is entered through a corridor of paintings of spinning, generic newspapers. Headlines declaring “World At War” and “Environmental Catastrophe” imbue the transitional space between the outside world and the gallery with the anxiety of a punchline that never lands. I​n the gallery, a room divider made from larger than life paintings of the artist’s cats doubles as a sound deadening wall. A grid of sixteen inch by nineteen inch abstract paintings, roughly eight feet wide by twelve feet tall in all, forms a large, fluid mosaic. Within the grid, vacant spaces invite the components to be rearranged on a whim. A stack of “$40 Paintings” ­ a series of black line paintings including a bedraggled cat toy beside the words “Secondary Nature,” and a phone jack with the phrase “Ride of Your Life” ­ sit atop a pedestal. The paintings may be viewed by digging through the stack, shuffling them in a constant flux of loopy narratives.

Assembled in part from previous works, some shown by Knittel in the Human Resources space when it was Cottage Home Gallery, a twelve foot high tower of cubes descending in size climbs toward the ceiling. The top of the tower can be viewed from the cut-­throughs in the wall of the former projection booth on the second floor of the gallery. From this room, viewers may observe the show and watch a video while sitting on a foam cube carved with an inviting seat.

Keith Rocka Knittel holds an MFA from CalArts and his work has been shown in contemporary art galleries and museums, most recently at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles as part of KCHUNG’s contribution to “Made in LA 2014,” and at 356 Mission in Los Angeles as part of “Another Cats Show.” He hosts a radio show on KCHUNG (kchungradio.org) titled “Everything Must Go! FM,” entering its third year of airing. He is currently a visiting lecturer at UC Riverside and lives and works in San Pedro, California.

9.4.15 - 9.6.15 "What it Means to Learn" Johanna Jackson & Dana Dart-McLean

“What It Means to Learn”

Johanna Jackson & Dana Dart-McLean
September 4th—September 6th, 2015
Opening Friday September 4th 7-9pm 


At the opening, Peter Hernandez, Busy Gangnes, and Nickels Sunshine will dance in a collaboratively choreographed piece, using sculpture by Dana and Johanna.


In addition to their individual work, Johanna Jackson and Dana Dart-McLean have used this opportunity to create collaborative paintings, sculpture, and installation. Each of the works on view engages a similar humor about blurring between representational and functional objects: a sculpture that is a mirror, a painting that is a hat.

What does the skin say?  When is it done?  What does it mean to learn?

Learning is the feeling of your brain changing. It doesn't only flow in one direction, a lot of learning is forgetting. Out in the world we are taught, and some things we can let in and some things we can't and a lot of things we shouldn’t—especially since everything is everything. There are forevers of different realities and ways of being, seeing, and making perform constant appearances and flips and dissolves. Making pictures together, we balance across our separateness. We send it out and return with something definite there on the page, some proof, something coming out of the muddiness. A way of learning without mastering, a way of taking the earning out of learning. What do you have left ? Just an L.

Here's another sentence inspired by democracy.

Collaborative art is generally less economically valued than work made alone or with paid help. Why? What about friendship and equality makes things cheap? We relate to cheap.

Combining various forms of knowing comes naturally. Through somatic, structural, contingent, and tactile ways of being, we register knowing and not knowing with various states of  discomfort and comfort. Preference, style, and habit arise in response. Look, the neck muscles between the shoulders and head are tight. The teacher's hands direct the student to slightly release. A slight adjustment reconfigures the entire form. Breathing and shifting, the body is always recording and responding. A landscape seen with the eyes registers differently from the way hair apprehends, though pedagogies rarely include hair's understanding. We might spend so much time doing something stupid if we tried to incorporate that. But maybe we would come up with some very good hairstyles.

Laura Riding Jackson wrote, "I want the time-world removed and in its place to see—nothing." Mediating the real and the unreal while being together, we wonder what it means to learn. Is it skills we are after?  What skills? Gendered, raced, classed, sexed beings, we navigate webs of interaction accumulating memory and style as an expression of habit. Beyond this, what is unnamed remains as another awareness.



Johanna Jackson is an artist living and working in Los Angeles. She has a BA in English Literature and Art History from the University of Maryland and an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute. She is interested in making objects out of feelings. 

Dana Dart-McLean is an artist and art teacher who wants to know what paintings can tell us about mapping sight and memory. She teaches art at Sankofa Academy, a public school in Oakland, CA. She has taught at museums, art centers, community centers, schools, public libraries, and an apothecary. She has an MA in Counseling with a focus on Expressive Art Therapy. 

9.2.15 HOME Again - Film works by Adam Laiben

Adam Laiben screens his 2011 film HOME AGAIN, an adaptation of Yann Arthus-Bertrand's 2009 French documentary, HOME. A six-minute short film by Laiben will accompany the feature film. Also, come early and stay late for live music by Izapa.

"This film is regarded as one of the most important documentaries of our time and it transformed the way I look at this planet. Drawing from the inspiration of other non-verbal greats like Baraka, Chronos, Koyaanisqatsi, and Samsara, I set out to create a companion to the original using only music. Gather what you will from my particular take on this incredible French film; I saw these songs fall into place so perfectly, guiding me through a similar story of which the director was telling, but acting as a guided tour into the depths of audio/visual meditation, allowing the viewer to take in an immediate and more personal response from the images." - Adam Laiben
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More info: 
Covering landscapes of 54 countries, this beautiful documentary is filled with aerial images of some of the most breathtaking parts of planet Earth. The story, originally accompanied by a minimal score and an ongoing narrator, takes you through the formation of the planet, the beginning of plant and animal life, creation of Mankind, and ultimately explains how mankind is now destroying the place which created him. 

The visuals of Arthus-Bertrand's film remain intact, but Laiben has dropped the soundtrack and added his own mix of electro, drone and orchestral works by a dozen well-known and obscure artists to create an engaging ambient soundtrack.

Doors: 7:30pm
Films start promptly at 8pm.

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Izapa - http://www.soundcloud.com/andrewfelix

08.02.15 - 08.23.15 A MAN OF AVERAGE MEANS

A Man of Average Means

Opening Reception: August 2nd 4-7pm with a performance by Dawn Kasper at 5:30PM

In 1978, frustrated by his country’s inability to produce quality films, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Il embarked on a plan to appropriate proven foreign resources.  With this intent he carried out the well-documented abduction of South Korean filmmaker Shin Sang Ok and his ex-wife, the actress Choi Eun Hee, independently of each other during visits to Hong Kong.

Approximately two years after the abductions, Kim held a celebratory banquet in which the two captives were presented as guests of honor.  Only then, upon seeing each other, did they become aware of their parallel circumstances.  This reunion, coupled with a rather heartfelt admission by Kim himself, revealed the true significance of his fantastic and aggressive gesture – the desire to find a poetic moment from within the perfectly constructed ideology he embodied.

Shin and Choi produced thirteen films in the following six years of their strange circumstance (during which they were remarried), until they escaped while attending a Viennese film festival. They would eventually migrate to Los Angeles, where Shin worked under the pseudonym, Simon Sheen.

A Man of Average Means is an exhibition featuring works by:

Peggy Ahwesh, Keren Benbenisty, Jakob Brugge, Fiona Connor, Dawn Kasper, Dawn Kinstel, Lucas Knipscher, Charles Mayton, Viola Yesiltac, Yoni Zonszein

Organized by Eric Kim and Thomas Torres Cordova 

Gallery Hours: Wed-Sun, noon-6PM

7.26.15 Claire Cronin, Ezra Buchla, Emily Lacy and Kathleen Kim

7.21.15 Ron Athey presents Rosé Hernandez, boychild, Divinity Fudge

8PM/$10

An evening of solos, experimentations, works-in-progress organized by Ron Athey. Featuring Rosé Hernandez, boychild, Divinity Fudge and La Poscha, plus a special group finale, Walking Meditation with Sage Charles on percussion.

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07.18.15 Bulbs / Lee Noble / ZeekSheck / Tralphaz

Doors at 8PM

https://youtu.be/ShmG3baFrXA

Bulbs is guitar with pedals/PD and electronic drums, live electronics https://youtu.be/GLEryy02XL0?t=2h9m16s

Lee Noble Includes electronics, tape, guitar and voices https://leenoble.bandcamp.com/

Zeek Sheck recently released a record on resipiscent and it sounds like field recordings of alien life.  http://resipiscent.com/artist/view/46
http://swezlex.com/infinity/

Tralphaz is one being that can soundtrack the radiance of solar flares or metamorphic rock churning https://soundcloud.com/tralphaz

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6.28.15 - 7.19.15 Johanna Breiding: Epitaph for Family

Image: Johanna Breiding, Andrea, film still, 2015.

Opening reception: Sunday, June 28, 2015

Exhibition: June 28-July 19, 2015

Gallery hours: Thu-Sun 12-6pm

Events staged during this exhibition include:

FRI JULY 3: Your Motion Says: Dance to Arthur Russell: Christopher Argodale, Shade Theret, Peter Hernandez, Eydie Mcconnell & Nika Kolodziej, Tatiana Lubovski-Acosta, and Emily Jane Rosen 9PM FB

TUE JULY 7: tir talk (1): conversation with Johanna Breiding, Jennifer Moon and Tyler Matthew Oyer; screening of She Male Snails. 7PM FB

FRI JULY 10: HRLA Volunteer drop-in session — come by and learn about getting involved with HRLA. 5-7PM

SAT JULY 18: Music and Visuals: Bulbs, Peter Kolovos, Zeek Scheck 8PM

SUN JULY 19: Interview with Johanna Breiding and Jennifer Moon at KCHUNG Radio 1630AM 6-8PM

Epitaph for Family is a multi-media project exploring love, intimacy, loss, and queer family-making through the image and connotations of the horizon line. 

Drawing distinction between that which is distant and within reach, the horizon line serves as an orientational tool that locates one at home. It determines space by assuming a linear perspective and a single, stable spectator, defining notions of time, place, and the subject.

Extending a line from the metaphor of the horizon to the idea (and ideal) of family, Epitaph for Family explores the way in which family serves as a locator, as the primary introduction to community, and an orienting device that shapes one’s relationship to gender, race, class, and intimacy. As a pre-determined structure, family becomes practical, prescribing a socioeconomic and political agenda towards heteronormativity and legibility.

The project turns toward the notion of queer family-making to examine various constructions of family, as well as the desires, needs, and ideologies that influence family-making and relationships. It questions the difference between, and sameness within, queer and heteronormative family structures, and how these constructs define the individual and community. If one’s position in the world is determined by their inhabitance in space, can one find place on unstable ground? Through formal connections, disruption and repetitive acts, the project aims to destabilize the notion of family as a reachable end, skewing the centrality of this ideal through rearticulation and refusal.

Epitaph for Family consists of a major installation of 16mm film projections of the horizon line at the Pacific Coast, suspending the viewer within the blue hour (l’heure bleu) before sunrise and after sunset; and a multichannel video depicting queer-identified individuals discussing their experiences of family and love (connecting the horizon line to the dinner table). Participants include: Dean Spade, Calvin Burnap, Rachel Carns, Darius Morrison, taisha paggett, Julie Tolentino, Samuel White, Don Romesburg, and Asha Romesburg.

The exhibition also includes a series of traditionally constructed still-life photographs that reconsider the dinner table’s role as a space of representation, exchanging familiar objects with their deviant others (butter becomes Cristo, an hour glass loses its sand); and an archival film essay of home footage reflecting on memory, loss and belonging, made in collaboration with Jennifer Moon (Jennifer Moon & The Revolution) and Cary Cronenwett (director of Maggots and Men and Piece of Mind); and a 35mm photographic slide projection of objects and people positioned between the photographer and the offing, piercing through the horizon.

The project also includes commissioned texts by Maggie Nelson, Malene Dam, and Don Romesburg, and an exhibition catalogue designed by Bullhorn Press.

*Further programs to be listed shortly.*

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Johanna Breiding’s practice stems from photography, considering the medium’s history, its representational role and limits. Expanding to video and installation, Breiding locates her work within the intersection of analog and digital technologies, the construction of gender and cultural identity, and a critique of heteronormative ideologies within the personal and social space. Recent projects address a range of topics, including the death of analog photography via small town Keeler in Owens Valley, CA; the art historical canon of Land Art through portraiture and landscape photography; and the notion of hyperobjects and the (Post­) Anthropocene. Breiding currently teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in New Genres at San Francisco Art Institute, and junior high art workshops through Urban Arts in South Central, LA. She is based in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and originally from Switzerland.