STEPHEN PRINA     GALESBURG, ILLINOIS  +   SPRÜTH MAGERS       

        LOS ANGELES        MAY 12 - AUGUST 11, 2018   

 

Stephen Prina's first exhibition with Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles, is his post-conceptual, semi-autobiographical show, Galesburg Illinois +, on view at the gallery May 12 to August 11, 2018. This is the second time the installation has been exhibited in the U.S. and the fourth iteration to date, shown previously at Petzel Gallery N.Y., Kurhaus Kleve, Germany, and Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen in Switzerland.

Stephen Prina, born 1954 Galesburg, Illinois.

Aguably, Prina's decision to venture west in the late 70's and attend The California Institute of Arts under the tutelage of conceptual artists John Baldessari and Michael Asher made it difficult for him to consider or apply any autobiographical information into his art early on. It was said widely in academic circles that autobiography was not pertinent to an artwork, hence not very useful to the viewer, or more over, not an appropriate canonical response to art after Duchamp. 

The artist is quoted as saying "The exhibition was really about whether I could embark on an autobiographical project that I deemed acceptable."

It appears the impetus to Prina’s nostalgic digging into the past is the Harbor Lights Supper Club, a long forgotten Galesburg restaurant where the artist played music during his early years. An original matchbook decorated with the restaurant’s silhouette and telephone number triggers memories implied here and propels Prina to recall his associations with his hometown. Correspondingly,  the set of objects he displays coalesces into various works, referring to different stages in Prina’s or the town's biography, their only true link being the connection to Galesburg, Illinois. 

The exhibition ties together a sparse but interconnected set of tables, swathes of upholstery fabric displays (Harbor Lights Supper Club insignia taken from a match book printed on fabric) painted frames, window screens, objects, photographs, paintings, giclee prints and music (self made album "Ode to Galesburg") playing in between a custom designed seating arrangement, speakers on opposite walls both facing cushions and seated viewers. Reminiscent of Martin Kippenberger's cover songs but perhaps more deadpan (less schlocky) is Prina's style and wit, maybe even sincere because he actually covered Carol King's "It's Too Late" while in high school, possibly in front of John Cage coincidentally.

"While in high school, I played guitar with Joe Padilla & Company at Taco Hideout Lounge, Galesburg, Illinois. One night, a large group of people arrived for dinner. I recognized a few of them as being associated with Knox College. A week later, while working at my father’s grocery store, a woman approached me to compliment me on my performance, indicating that she had been part of the group from Knox. She informed me that the dinner was in honor of John Cage while he had been a visiting artist at the college. Having recently started singing lead vocals with the band I would like to think that I have sung “It’s Too Late” by Carole King to John Cage that evening."

It's difficult to say whether or not the music is supposed to feel sincere or have emotional connection between the artist and his hometown, or lineage for the artifacts and memories it evokes, however the viewer might have the feeling that the songs act as a proxy for the heartbeat of Prina or the town's spirit itself. Mining more objects in the exhibition, one finds the simple relationship between a six-volume set of books on Abraham Lincoln (author Carl Sandburg) and multiple prints of a figurative soft sculpture (artist Dorthea Tanning); both artists were incidentally born in Galesburg. Stephen Prina was born there in 1954. His ongoing project Exquisite Corps: The Complete Paintings of Manet is also included in the installation in which I'm not sure where the relationship to Galesburg exists but regardless, seamlessly flows into the other objects like it's meant to be there. The artist performed music at the Gallery on July 14th at 7pm.

View Stephen Prina catalogues

Stephen Prina (b. 1954, Galesburg, Illinois) lives and works in Los Angeles, California and Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he is Professor, Department of the Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University. Solo exhibitions include Museo Madre, Naples, Italy (2017); Museum Kurhaus Kleve, Kleve (2016); Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Sankt Gallen (2015); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (2013); Vienna Secession, Vienna; Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2011); Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2010); Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, Seville; Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2008); Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main (2000); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (1992); The Renaissance Society and the University of Chicago (1989). Group exhibitions (selection): Mumok, Vienna; Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2015/2016); The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014); Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2013); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2012); Whitney Biennial, New York (2008); Documenta IX, Kassel; Museum of Modern Art, New York (1992); Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (1991); Venice Biennial (1990).

Please join us for Chapter 5: Phosphorescence, Pheasants, and Unpleasants, as L.A.-based artist Shana Lutker tells the story of the Surrealist fistfight that took place on the Boulevard Montparnasse in Paris on the night of June 14, 1935 between André Breton and Soviet critic Ilya Ehrenburg.  The performance will take shape as a multimedia lecture with performers, weaving together poetry, film, and emphatic criticism of the Surrealist Era.

This is part of Shana Lutker's ongoing research and work, Le "NEW" Monocle: The History of the Fistfights of the Surrealists. Works from the series have been exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and Pérez Art Museum Miami; the 2014 Whitney Biennial and Performa 13 in New York; and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, 18th Street Arts Center and LAXART in Los Angeles.

View Shana Lutker's books.
View a video of this event.

Image: Documentation from The Nose, the Cane, the Broken Left Arm 2 at Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich. Courtesy of the artist and Cabaret Voltaire

Please join us to hear designer, art director, producer, and film poster connoisseur Mike Kaplan in conversation with Kenneth Turan, film critic for the Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio's Morning Edition, about the artistic and historic significance of posters from Hollywood's Golden Age.

The conversation celebrates the opening of the Art of the Movie Poster: Highlights from the Mike Kaplan Collection at LACMA, which will be on view from February 24 through July 1, 2018.

Read LACMA Unframed: New Acquisition: The Mike Kaplan Movie Poster Collection



"Smoke Ashes Fable" is personally my favorite catalogue to be published and arrive this new year of 2018. Hope and optimism is running high in our society of distress and inequality. Who better to celebrate than William Kentridge. A true man of the world, Kentridge enraptures his audiences with poignant operatic presentations and installations of drawings and animations that capture a universal feeling of truth even if you can't quite put your finger on it when you are in the moment of viewing.  During his operas, his onstage energy is so persuasive, there is no questioning his gravitational pull of faith; a desire to learn from him and his messages of peace and the plight of the unrepresented.  With essays by Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Joseph Leo Koerner, Margaret K. Koerner and Harmon Siegel, we invite you to stop by and peruse "Smoke Ashes Fable" by William Kentridge to delve into the artists ideas on enlightenment and realizing our relationship to it.

Buy it here.

Exhibition in Bruges link.

Alex Israel and critic and curator Jack Bankowsky will be in conversation at Art Catalogues on November 12th on the occasion of the publication of Alex Israel, b. 1982, Los Angeles.

Please join us as we celebrate the release with a discussion, book signing and reception.

Ahmanson Building at LACMA 

November 12, 4-6 p.m.

Photo by Hans-Georg Gall
Courtesy the artist

Pre-order a signed copy of the catalogue by clicking here.

Alex Israel, b. 1982, Los Angeles

Edited by Eric Troncy, with texts by the artist, John Kelsey, Jon Leon and Eric Troncy

Les Presses du Reel, Dijon, 2017

Hardcover, 456 pp., $90

 

Click here to view the video from the October 8, 2017 talk.

Please join us to hear artist Mary Corse in conversation with art critic and historian Suzanne Hudson about Mary's unique practice at the crossroads of abstract expressionism and minimalism.

Sunday, October 8 from 4-6 p.m. Conversation, book signing and reception. Free and open to the public

Ahmanson Building at LACMA, Ground Floor

Mary Corse with Untitled, 1976. © Mary Corse

Mary Corse

Text by Suzanne Hudson with interview by Alex Bacon

Inventory Press and Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles, 2017

Hardcover, 132 pages, 55 color illustrations, $55

Mary will sign only books purchased at Art Catalogues. 

To pre-order a signed copy, please click here, call (323) 857-6587

or email artcatalogues@lacma.org

 

Please join us to hear artist Sam Durant in conversation

with Timothy Phillips, CEO and Founder of Beyond Conflict,

about art's role in addressing social conflict and imagining

possiblities for resolution and reconciliation.

 

Conversation, book signing and reception.

Click here to purchase: The Meeting House / Build Therefore Your Own World

Sam Durant, Pedro Alonzo, Tisa Bryant, Danielle Legros Georges, Robin Coste Lewis,

TIm Phillips, Kevin Young. Blum & Poe and Black Dog Publishing, 2017.

Paperback with dust jacket, 100 illus, 96 pp., $24.95 

Art Catalogues at LACMA : Ahmanson Building

Sunday, July 16th : 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Free and open to the public

Sam will sign only books purchased at Art Catalogues. To pre-order a signed copy, please

call (323) 857-6587 or email artcatalogues@lacma.org.

Sam Durant, Transcendental (Wheatley's Desk, Emerson's Chair), 2016; Painted wood,

53 3/4 x 34 1/4 x 34 1/2 inches. Fabricator Dyson & Womack.

Courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo.

Photo Joshua White 

With the confluence of cultural diasporas living and contributing to all countries disseminated and collective identities, it is difficult to imagine celebrating a national holiday such as Memorial Day without offending or upsetting a war veteran in some way. People sub or consciously approach the holiday as simply another long weekend to celebrate the arrival of summer bar-b-ques.  

Riding my bike through downtown L.A. and Skid Row everyday to work, I encounter kaleidoscopic views and sounds that sometimes shock and sometimes numb my consciousness.  One message scrawled on a piece of white paper caught my mind's eye; "Memorial Day is hard for homeless vets."  The simple message reminded me that Memorial Day is not celebratory for many vets--especially homeless ones.  

This weekend here at Art Catalogues we are looking at artists(Horn, Arneson, Gonzalez- Torres, Holzer, Durant)  and architects(Lin, Liebeskind) who have made and are proposing memorials to many groups of peoples in a collective effort to bring solace to the living while honoring the dead.  We invite you to come in and check out what we have found and also to let us know what you think about Memorial Day.

Please join us to celebrate the publication of Marching Bands, Jules Allen's latest book, and to hear Jules and UC Irvine professor Joe Lewis in conversation about the complexity, pageantry and the contribution of Black Marching Bands.

 
Image courtesy of Steven Kasher Gallery

Performance by Centennial High School Marching Band at 4 p.m. on BP Plaza

Talk, reception and booksigning to follow.

Marching Bands Introduction by Joe Lewis with photographs by Jules Allen      
QCC Art Gallery, Oakland Gardens, 2016  
Hardcover, 96 pp, 95 full page black & white images, $45.00

To purchase a signed copy of Marching Bands click here.
Art Catalogues is located in the Ahmanson Building at LACMA.  

5905 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA  90036

Please join us on February 12, 2017 from 4-6 p.m. when Wallis Annenberg director of LACMA, Michael Govan talks to Flavin Judd, Curator and Co-President of Judd Foundation about furniture, architecture and art.

Donald Judd and Floor, 101 Spring Street, New York, 1985

Talk, reception and booksigning to follow

Donald Judd Writings (click here to purchase signed copy in advance.)

Edited by Flavin Judd and Caitlin Murray

Copublished by Judd Foundation and David Zwirner Books, New York, 2016

1,056 pages/ 180 color/ 47 b/w illus./ $39.95

Flavin will sign only books purchased at Art Catalogues. 

 

Please join us to experience Ana Prvacki's Tent, quintet, bows and elbows. At once a sculpture, a sound piece and a performance, Tent physically contains and embodies sound to make physical the ephemeral.

Ahmanson Building, January 15th, 2017 4-6 p.m.

The tent will activate at 4:15 p.m. Performed by the Lyris Quartet

Talk, reception and booksigning to follow.

Finding Comfort in an Uncomfortable Imagination: A Catalogue of Ideas

by Ana Prvacki

Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore, 2015. $40

To pre-order a signed copy, click here.

To watch the video of the performance, click here.

Published books sometimes have a very limited edition size. Whether large or small, thin or voluminous, Art Catalogues holds a vast repository of out of print books from modern to contemporary artists, group show catalogues and art movements.

One of our favorites is the catalogue for the now legendary exhibition at MOMA in New York titled "INFORMATION."(click on title to see product page.) I imagine the art world in 1970 was looking forward to innovative strategies to  after the Summer of Love in '67 and the tumultuous student uprisings of '68.

A watershed moment for conceptual artists and like minded collaboratives, INFORMATION included 100 international artists from Mel Bochner to Lawrence Weiner.  Hans Haacke famously contributed his institutionally critical survey piece questioning viewers; "Question:

Would the fact that Governor Rockefeller has not denounced President Nixon's Indochina policy be a reason for you not to vote for him in November ?

 Answer:

If 'yes'
please cast your ballot into the left box
if 'no'
into the right box.

New York Governer Nelson Rockefeller was a member of the board of trustees of MOMA and planning a run for the U.S. Presidency at the time.  

INFORMATION was edited by Kynaston L. McShine, Associate curator of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA at the time of the exhibition.  In 1980 McShine became senior curator in MoMa's Department of Painting and Sculpture, a position he served in until 2001, when he became Acting Chief Curator of the department. In 2003, he was named Chief Curator at Large. 

For the book INFORMATION, 100 artists were "invited to create [their] own contribution to this book, a situation which meant that the material presented would be either directly related to the actual work in the show or independent of it. Therefore, this book is essentially an anthology and considered a necessary adjunct to the exhibition."

 



                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

              David Hammons                                          Francis Bacon

Arthur Jafa and Hans Ulrich Obrist 

at Art Catalogues on December 4th, 2016 from 2-4 p.m.

The inpiration for this encounter is filmmaker Arthur Jafa's series titled Notebooks, 1990-2007--three ring binders which he has filled with clipped images to create filmic montages, or in his words, "markers that track my thoughts, my interests."

Please join us for a talk with Arthur Jafa and Hans Ulrich Obrist, followed by a reception and booksigning.

Arthur Jafa 

Love Is The Message: The Message Is Death 

Edition of 250 copies, $35.00

 

Arthur and Hans Ulrich will sign only copies purchased at Art Catalogues. 

 

Manfredi Gioacchini and Jonas Wood

at Art Catalogues September 18th, 2016 from  4-6 p.m.

Over the past several years, Manfredi Gioacchini has visited the studios of Los Angeles artists to capture informal portraits for his new book,.

Please join us to see the portraits, and to hear Manfredi speak with Jonas Wood about the ongoing project.

 

 

 

Talk with Manfredi Gioacchini and Jonas Wood, followed by a reception and booksigning.

Link to artist talk video, click here.

Manfredi Gioacchini

Portraits of Artists 

UTG LLC, New York, 2016

Hardcover, 150 pp., Edition of 500. $60.00

To purchase the catalogue click here.

Manfredi will sign only copies purchased at Art Catalogues. 

 

 

Alexandra Grant and Keanu Reeves at Art Catalogues

The Haas Brothers and Liza Lou at Art Catalogues

Link to Libertine (the book.)

Bob Colacello, Vanity Fair writer and former editor of Interview magazine, comes to Art Catalogues to talk with Catherine Opie, American photographer, about his book, Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up, her book, 700 Nimes Road, fame, pop culture, and pop politics.

Art Catalogues at LACMA  Ahmanson Building  

Sunday, September 20  4pm-6pm   Talk, booksigning and reception

Catherine Opie: 700 Nimes Road

Contributions from Hilton Als, Tim Mendelson and Ingrid Sischy, Prestel, NY, 2015.  Hardcover, 148pp, 129 color. $60

 

Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up

Bob Colacello, Vintage Books, NY, 2014.  Paperback, 692pp. $18.95

 

Cathy and Bob will sign only books purchased at Art Catalogues.  To purchase a signed copy in advance, click on the highlighted, book title links above or,

Email: artcatalogues@lacma.org

Phone: (323) 857-6587

Performing and Dreaming the Archive Vessel : review essay on

Lars Jan / Early Morning Opera

THE INSTITUTE OF MEMORY (TIMe)

Performed at REDCAT, Los Angeles, May 28-May 31 2015

 

If Dan Flavin’s light sculpture was the last phenomenon Donald Judd experienced before closing his eyes in slumber every night while in his SOHO sleeping loft high above the city streets, then surely he could have dreamt of the netherworldly and penetrating fluorescent light that pierced, flickered and pulsed from the recent onstage design by Christopher Kuhl in Lars Jan’s recent production The Institute of Memory (TIMe) presented at REDCAT.

Photo: Josh White. Donald Judd Art © Judd Foundation. Licensed by VAGA, New York. Artwork © John Chamberlain. © Lucas Samaras. Dan Flavin © Stephen Flavin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Donald Judd FurnitureTM © Judd Foundation.

Lars Jan’s The Institute of Memory (TIMe)  induces role players’ wet dreams a plenty. The two onstage characters flip flopped between traditional male and female roles with the male usually making the most domineering decisions with the daughter character occasionally rebelling or standing up for what she wanted to do but mostly agreeing with the male (her boyfriend/mate/father?) actor’s choices. Scenarios unfolded into no semblance of narrative that I can recall other than the telling of terrible and not even funny(no one laughed) Pollock jokes.  There were more "What if"(s) than anyone could shake a stick at. But that’s not how the production started. The male walked around the stage with the neon floorplan suspended above and tried to remember the exact layout and objects arranged by Henryk Ryniewicz who could perhaps by the writer/director Lar’s father but there’s no way to be sure. Being introduced to Henryk Ryniewicz by the onstage female character as his daughter confuses the gender relationship even more as does the occasional lapses into European accents and voice manipulations through the amps and speakers. 

photo courtesy Steve Gunther

Throughout the evening, the life of Henryk is told rather coldly with very little intonation of happiness by the daughter in pained but sweetly nostalgic stories that are loosely chronological.  One of my favorite sequences, however, was when both actors relayed historical and life events that all happened yesterday which strongly supported the socio-cultural factoid that the Aymara people believe the past is in front of the ego since it can be seen and faced while the future is behind it as the unknown.  The program notes aka Silva rerum, or a few pages from the TIMe chronicle provide vital clues and pointers toward the way the dialogue continually moves around the stage and in our present while reflecting on events that may or may not have happened to Henryk, his family and his contemporaries.

I have a bit of an obsession with the topic of time and memory(who doesn’t?). Therefore, The Institute of Memory (TIMe) is of particular fascination to me in it’s abundance of cerebral tight rope balance that felt continually taut with the actors’ truly remarkable memorization of their lines.  I could not imagine talking that much for 90 min.  When the neon lights were lowered by the actors to face us I really felt phenomenally present as the lights created trails as my corneas quickly bounced from actor to actor.  It really felt like my brain was getting a total immersive workout by absorbing the dialogue as it was spewed back and forth and simultaneously attempting to comprehend the spoken phrases.

At that point I thought about Dan Flavin and his Lights.  I recently saw the running installation of Flavin’s fluorescents in Donald Judd’s SOHO building.  It was a delightful shock to encounter them upon entering Judd’s bedroom space.  To delight in the shock of memory—of remembering people, places and things that remain dear and create trails of narrative.  Put simply, that is what The Institute of Memory (TIMe) does most deeply and strongly—still. Since the play was put on back in May, two months ago, and I am still going back to that pocket of an experience, then Lars Jan deserves the support he has gained in his career as writer, director and stage design.

photo courtesy Steve Gunther

actors: Annie Saunders & Ryan Masson