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

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

Please join us on June 28th at Art Catalogues at LACMA to celebrate the 

release of Devendra Banhart's new book:

I Left My Noodle On Ramen Street   (link to purchase on our site)

Devendra will talk to 5 Every Day app head writer Zach Pennington about

aural and visual creations. Accompanied by his band, and supported by

his friend Niki Haas, who will DJ for the reception, Devendra will helps us

navigate his music and his art.

Ahmanson Building  Sunday June 28th 4-6 p.m. 

Talk, performance, reception and booksigning

Devendra will sign only books purchased at Art Catalogues.

No outside materials will be signed. 

To purchase a signed book in advance, please call (323) 857-6587

or email artcatalogues@lacma.org

When we received news and images describing Ricky Swallow's LACMA 2015 edition that will be released through Art Catalogues at the end of the month, I was curious about the chalky white wall relief that resembled a hyper cropped, folded shirt front. With the human form absent, the collar takes on a life of its own as it reaches out into space. Then, I saw the Ahmanson Foundation's gifted Bernini bust for the first time across the way in the Resnick Pavillion on view in the 50 for 50 exhibition. While associating the two works is like comparing apples to lemons, I could not help but to juggle Swallow's bronze collar with the several marble collars in Bernini's sculpture located in the same museum. While the sumptuousness of Bernini's expressive modelling flatters the unidentified subject, Swallow's collar is a view to adornment through a minimalist filter that is sly but powerfully stable and present. The most interesting outcome of this chain of visual events is that I probably would not have given Bernini's collars much attention had Swallow's collar/envelope not been created. The lesson learned is to hold no bars against comparing the contemporary with the historic--they are relatives to some degree. I look forward to seeing Swallow's Envelope/Collar Study After (D.G.) in person. Come by Art Catalogues in May and we will unveil one for you!

Sometimes we get a book we're so excited about that we just have to share it with the world, and Noah Davis's Seventy Works is one of those books. Seventy Works is a small book of small drawings, sized as such "for aesthetic as well as practical reasons."

And the aesthetics of the work alone are incredible. Davis incorporates elements of collage and photographic overpainting into these pieces, creating a chaotic, multidimensional world on every page. This world is further amplified by the heavy texture of the paintings, which creates an illusion of rough tactility -- you just want to reach out and touch each work.

In a 2013 interview with Art in America, Davis seemingly confessed of his practice, "Sometimes I wish there was this deeper meaning, but it really does come down to color," and color remains a focal point in this project. The reds are dark and deep, registering somewhere between rust and blood, while even traditionally airy colors like blue or green are weighted down, imbued with browns and blacks. However, the colors aren't kept separate; they vibrantly overlap in some state of constant flux that practically jumps off the page.

But contrary to Davis's statement, there are always deeper meanings or contexts to aesthetic works; they neither exist nor are created in a vacuum. Seventy Works was "created over the course of several months in 2014 in hospitals and dining tables throughout Los Angeles.” Art Catalogues' own Dagny Corcoran has supplied the epilogue for the book, and she comments that Davis, "paints what he sees and thinks.”

As such, Seventy Works thinks confession and catharsis, pulling the viewer through a lived experience with unabashed honesty and vitality. It's a painfully beautiful book that’s not easy to forget, and we're greatly looking forward to Noah Davis’s exhibition at The Underground Museum in March.

 

Russell Ferguson and Thomas Demand join Michael Fried 
for a conversation about painting, photography and film, from
the 18th century to the present, focused on Fried's new book 
Another Light: Jacques Louis David to Thomas Demand.

Please join us at 4pm for the conversation, followed by a 
reception and book signing.

Celebrating the release of 
Another Light: Jacques-Louis David to Thomas Demand
by Michael Fried
Yale University Press, New Haven, 2015.
Hardcover, 330 pp. $60

Click here to view book in store

Michael and Thomas will sign only books purchased at Art Catalogues.
To purchase a signed copy in advance, please call (323) 857-6587
or email artcatalogues@lacma.org.

Art Catalogues at LACMA
Ahmanson Building Sunday, March 15th, 4-6pm

Drinks and appetizers
Free, no reservation

photo courtesy Michael Fried