ART HAPPENINGS

Posted on by Diversions LA
Synesthesia at Wonzimer/LA Athletic Club

Subjective calendar list for the next two weeks ahead — subjective as in what interests me that’s opening and running, plus a listing of other shows that grab me via Heather Lowe.

Did we miss something? Please drop up a comment or email and perhaps we can add – make sure you have location and opening/closing dates!
NOTE: If it says “Don’t Miss” below listing info, it means I have seen the show, or I am acquainted with past iterations of it and highly recommend. If I do not write those words, it only means I haven’t visited yet.

ENJOY – get out there – wear a mask – get a booster – support artists!

Night Moves at Bendix Rooftop – High Beams

High Beams Collective, Halloween Edition #5 “Night Moves”
Bendix Building Rooftop, 1206 Maple Ave.
October 30th and 31st 8-10 p.m.
Costumes suggested, masks required
Facebook.com/HighBeamsArt; www.HighBeams.art
DON’T MISS

Aimee Mandala “Get to Work”
Studio 347 San Pedro
347 W. 7th Street
November 4 – 30th

Linda Sue Price, Debbie Korbel, and others in group show
Homesick Aliens
564 N. Larchmont
Homesickaliensart.com
November 6th opening, ongoing

Group Show, “Structure” (Mela Marsh, HK Zamani, Chelsea Dean, Stevie Love, other artists)
MOAH (Museum of Art and History)
Lancaster, CA
www.lancastermoah.org
through December 26th
AND
MOAH Cedar
“Perceive Me” Group Show curated by Kristine Schomaker
through 12/12
DON’T MISS EITHER ONE

Joy Ray, Dream Archeologies.jpg
Ghost Visions, Joy Ray

Joy Ray “Ghost Visions”
Shockboxx Hermosa Beach
(IRL and online)
ShockBoxx Gallery
info@shockboxxproject.com
636 Cypress Ave, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254
Closing event October 31st.
DON’T MISS

Leonardo Bravo
Big City Forum
Stairwell LA
Gallery space open Thurs-Saturday
text/email 213.700.0700 or stairwellgalleryla@gmail.com
November 7- December 5

“Synesthesia” – Wonzimer at the Los Angeles Athletic Club
431 W 7th St, Los Angeles, CA 90014
Victory Ballroom, 4th Floor
3D VIEWING ROOM ‘SYNESTHESIA’
wonzimerinfo@gmail.com
October 7th – 28th
DON’T MISS

Sacred Waters: Opening Oct 23 5-9PM With Fine Art, Live Music, Open Bar!
Sacred Waters at MASH

Haleh Mashian “Sacred Waters”
MASH Gallery
1325 Palmetto St Ste 130, Los Angeles, CA 90013
through December 1st

Brendan Lott, Pascal Shirley at Walter Maciel
2642 s. La Cienega, LA 90024, info@waltermacielgallery.com
November 6th- December 23

More cool openings and closings

Megan Francis, “Canopy of Dreams”

Opening Reception:  Saturday, October 30, 2021, 10am-5pm

Gallery 825

825 North La Cienega Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90069

Opulent Mobility 2021 curated by A. Laura Brody and Anthony Tusler

Closing reception Saturday, Oct. 30th, artist talk 10 a.m.-12 p.m; exhibit space open from 1 – 5

Wingwalker Brewery, 235 W. Maple Ave, Monrovia, CA 91016

DON’T MISS

A multi-colored, multi-limbed goddess built into a walker. She has three eyes and holds a red scythe in the right upper hand and a severed demon head in the left.
from Opulent Mobility, listing above

Bob Burchman: New and Recent Paintings

As Is Gallery, 1133 Venice Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90015

October 30 – December 18, Artist’s reception: Saturday, October 30, 2:00 – 5:00 pm

Eugene Daub: Monumental Artist Talk and Exhibition Tour

Palos Verdes Art Center, 5504 Crestridge Road, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275

November 3, 2021; Talk: 10:30am – 11:30am, Exhibition Tour: Noon

Also at PVAC:

Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking? Revelations!” Bernard Fallon, Bondo Wyszpolski, and live music by Brad Webster

November 6, 2021, 2pm – 4pm Register at Eventbrite 

Kelly Akashi, “Faultline”

Ghebaly Gallery

November 5 – December 4, 2021; Opening Friday, November 5, 6 – 9pm

2245 E Washington Blvd. Los Angeles, CA

3 Solo Shows: Anne Libby, Paul Heyer, Elizabeth Jaeger; Also: Grant Levy Lucero

Night Gallery

2276 East 16th Street LA, CA 90021
November 6- December 11, Tuesday – Saturday, 11am-6pm

UPCOMING:

“A Century of California Women Artists” 

Saturday November 13th from 6-9pm opening; through January

Brand Library and Art Center

222 East Harvard Street

Glendale CA 91205

THREE SOLO EXHIBITIONS: NICOLAS GRENIER, EDRA SOTO, LAURA KARETZKY

Nov. 13- Dec. 22; opening Nov. 13 3-7 p.m.

Luis De Jesus

1110 Matteo St., LA, CA 90021

Alison Raggulette, “Liminal”

Diane Berger Gallery at Mt. San Antonio College

Opening reception: November 18, 5 p.m.; through December

Building 1 B, 1100 N. Grand Ave., Walnut, CA 91789

DON’T MISS

Betzi Stein, “ART WORLD FRIENDS AND STRANGERS”

November 17 – December 11, 2021; opening: Nov. 20, 4-8 pm

Tag Gallery

5458 Wilshire Blvd LA, CA 90036

DON’T MISS

Below, compiled by artist Heather Lowe:

June Edmonds “Joy of Other Suns”
Luis de Jesus
1110 Mateo Street, L.A., CA 90021
ends Oct. 30th

Leigh Salgado “As the World Turns”
Launch Gallery
170 S. La Brea, L.A., 90036
ends Nov 13, 2021
DON’T MISS

Michelle Robinson “You Are (Not) Here”
Keystone Art Space, 338 S. Ave. 16, L.A. 90031
“Origin” (group show)
new gallery in Keystone Art Space, IDOLWILD Gallery, #A4
both end Oct. 31

“LA Painting” curated by Saloman Huerta
ART BUG Gallery
2441 Hunter Street, unit B, L.A., CA 90023
ends Nov. 20th

“The Scribes” Group Show
Roswell Space, 3050 Roswell Street, L.A. CA 90065
ends Nov. 7th
DON’T MISS

“Funhouse”
RDFA, Rory Devine, 3209 W Washington Blvd., L.A., 90018
WED-SAT 12-6
ends Nov. 20th

“Creative Exchange” Group Show
SoLA Contemporary
3718 W. Slauson Ave., L.A. 90043.
Thurs-Sat 11-4
ends Nov. 6
DON’T MISS

Robert Gunderman
Diane Rosenstein Gallery “The Quiet Beliefs”
831 N. Highland Ave., L.A.
10-6 Tues-Sat.
ends Dec. 4

  • Genie Davis; Heather Lowe – photos provided by gallery

Meow Wolf Omega Mart is the Cat’s Meow

Posted on by Diversions LA

For once, what happened in Vegas shouldn’t stay in Las Vegas. Meow Wolf, the art collective that has successfully merged critical acclaim, creative force, and financial success, has done it again with Omega Mart, an interdimensional grocery store.

When I first viewed the original Meow Wolf installation in Santa Fe a number of years ago, I was wowed by the completely unimagined complexity of it. The House of Eternal Return presented a combination of immersive art and supernatural haunted house that was mind-bending.

Approaching the Omega Mart concept in Las Vegas was different going in: I knew the kind of artist-realized amusement-park-for-the-senses that I’d experience there.

The Las Vegas iteration is enormous – some 50,000-square-feet located at Las Vegas’ Area 15, and the location’s star.

It seems trivial to say it is enormously clever and humorous, but it is that. Encouraging visitors to uncover a mystery involving aliens, corporate greed, and a take-over by AI, visitors enter through a surreal version of a mega grocery store, explore an alien farming world, a series of corporate offices and mind-alteration areas, a factory, and even enjoy a ride down a fast slide (below) over the course of three floors.

Both cautionary fairytale and pure American success story gone mad, Omega Mart is brilliantly subversive and witty.

My favorite section is the large scale grocery section, with its frightening alien meat counter, strange cat foods, dice-rather-than-pit bearing avocados, zippered avocados (I mean, why not?), and strategically placed video monitors that provide visitors with an introduction to the founder of Omega Mart and his disappearance.

I could’ve spent hours exploring each hilarious food item and laundry product, and there is so much visual stimulation and color that it would be easy for any visitor to do so. But onward, and inward.

Slipping into the back of the store, from one entrance portal or another, the next space is the alien farming community, in which people are disappearing, and a seemingly idyllic existence with surreal flowers and swirling colors. Continue on into the ominous factory space, or travel upstairs to the employee break room and take in a few training videos that will help you find clues as to just exactly what’s going on with the company behind Omega Mart’s products.

The corporate area of Omega Mart includes an interactive AI robot, more clue-filled video portals, and employee cubicles and offices in which attendees can search through computers and files to uncover more mysteries. Branching off from this area are research labs and conference rooms, areas that I thought of as pure interactive art, including a musical room, tunnels of lights, mirrored experiences that seem to defy reality.

All in all there are over 250 art works created by more than 325 artists. The adventure of Omega Mart is to some extent a customized experience, much like the best of video gaming. Linger in one section or another, follow whatever plotline or discovery portal you wish. The basic premise is that the grocery store’s success and its products, as well as the disappearance of its founder and other individuals, are all connected to something called “The Source,” harvested and used by the corporation behind Omega Mart.

There is a resistance, the disappeared, the store staff – follow the story arc you wish. The only aspect you truly must follow is the art. Digital and in constant liquid motion or brightly rooted as the strange flowers growing on one entrance portal’s wall, there is something new to “not miss” around every corner.

Approximately 7 times larger than Meow Wolf’s original Santa Fe installation, and with a more layered and contextual storyline, Omega Mart is both brilliantly entertaining and glittering; over the top and even a bit overwhelming – at least when wearing a pandemic-safe KN-95. It is the ultimate in Las Vegas showmanship seamlessly merged with accessible, stimulating, and often dazzlingly original art.

If you’d like a souvenir, you can purchase one before you leave the Omega Mart store – perhaps you’d like a can of “Camel’s Dream of Mushroom Soup” for dinner, or a pair of lettuce sandals. And while you’re there, pick up a few cans of pigeon mousse for your kitty.

Viva Las Vegas.

Omega Mart is located at 3215 S. Rancho Dr., Las Vegas, NV 89102

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis & provided by Meow Wolf

Sya Warfield Creates Pulp Idols

Posted on by Diversions LA

Working in mixed media on wood, artist Sya Warfield has created a new series, Pulp Idols. Completed throughout the last year, seven of these layered works will open this weekend in a new Santa Clarita gallery space.

Consisting of seven, immediately recognizable images, Warfield used photographic pulp transfer, combined with water-based pigment inks, acrylic ink, crackle paste medium, metal leaf, vintage newsprint and spray paint.

Warfield’s work is quite alive in her depiction of iconic and well-known figures and the ideas associated with them. Elevating these images into fresh focus, the artist has shaped entirely original portraits, centering them in a way in which each individual’s character, cultural importance, and era, are also a part of each artwork.

Warfield says she chose to create “portraits of key figures who have effected change within our societies and cultural lives… [such as] controversial 1980s-era artist Keith Haring, pictured with one of his own designs on his t-shirt; and Andy Warhol, [with] heavy bangs across his eyes and a constellation of stars applied to his shoulders.”

Other images include those of Frida Kahlo, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, Nelson Mandela, and Malala Yousafzai. A direct and intensive gaze is the dominant feature of the artist’s evocation of Kahlo; her works featuring Monroe and Madonna exude a hypnotic sense of both power and sexuality that pull the viewer into these popular stars’ worlds.

She also includes a kindly smiling Mandela and a serene yet watchful image of Yousafzai. While the latter two images are inextricably bound to global politics and just causes, and Kahlo is a passionate icon for art and women’s issues, Warhol, Haring, Monroe, and Madonna are true pop – or pulp – idols.

According to Warfield, “The series invites viewers to reflect on the complexity of life, the passing of time and the ongoing ripples of influence we experience and can exert positively in the world.”

The work also includes a message rooted in “elements of the Japanese notion of Wabi Sabi, deliberate imperfection. There are spiritual elements to this series which include the energies that surround [these] people supported by colors and textures,” Warfield says.

Each image seems to emerge from the wood it is created upon, as if rising from underwater, or the passage of time. It has a resonance that builds upon the featured image, transforming and elevating it. The viewer might consider not only each subject as an icon in society, but due to the image Warfield creates from it, as an updated and secular evocation of a worshipped religious icon.

Her images have layered, gilded quality reminiscent of the Byzantine images that decorated churches from the 4th century on. In a way, the viewer can see Warfield’s idols as just as venerated in our modern culture as the figures of early saints.

Pulp Idols represents just one aspect of Warfield’s work. The artist has created images using photography, video, and mixed media, including the process used in her current work utilizing the “photographic pulp transfer process combined with water-based pigment inks and acrylic inks,” along with a variety of other elements.

“My work has definitely evolved over the years,” Warfield asserts, explaining that she is always seeking new challenges. She’s specifically looking forward “to working bigger and creating installations. I want viewers to be curious, inspired, and hopeful.”

To that end, Warfield has also recently completed a public art commission of 2 utility boxes in Del Rey.

Her current Pulp Idols exhibition is on view starting this weekend in Santa Clarita’s new Canyon Country Community Center. The show opens October 30 at 10 a.m. and runs until December 16th.

Santa Clarita’s new cultural hub, the community center is located at 18410 Sierra Highway, Canyon Country, CA, 91387.

The exhibition is also on view virtually on artsteps.com.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist

Fear Grounds at the Fair Grounds – Ventura Nights

Posted on by Diversions LA

If you’re ready for some Halloween fun by the sea – and don’t mind a bit of a drive from Los Angeles, Fear Grounds at Surfer’s Point Live on the Ventura Fair Grounds should fit the bill. Open Friday-Saturday for the next three weekends, and from Tuesday, October 26th through Sunday October 31st, this lower key, three-maze haunting event is a nice alternative to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal or Knott’s Scary Farm this year.

Produced by haunt-creating pro Edward Marks, the event features the Terror Trail, The Fright Train, and The Cage. There is also a beer garden with other alcoholic beverages called The Dead End, a food stand, and copious picnic tables decorated with oversize pumpkins. Scareactors and other entertainers, such as a stilt walker or two, and spooky femme fatales twirling colorful hula hoops, traverse the area.

Once inside the main gates, The Terror Trail is the most elaborate and satisfying scare, an approximately mile-long journey past a variety of set pieces and talented scareactors as witches, evil clowns, demented killers, ghosts and the like. From bloody wrecks to covens and monsters, there’s something new popping out of the dark around every corner.

The Fright Train is a smaller attraction in which guests ride the dusty backroads of the fairgrounds in a tram, heading past a variety of scares, lit-up Halloween decor, and best of all, passing through a bevy of chain-saw wielding evil doers and into a warehouse from which suspended cocoons containing dismembered bodies hang.

The Cage leads guests through a contained series of metal fencing winding inward, as dark monsters prowl through the chain links and bars, waiting to rattle nerves and torment the unwary.

All three are completely outdoors, well distanced, and thoughtfully laid out for pandemic times.

Marks says “Growing up in California, Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays…guests [will] test their fears at this one-of-a-kind beachside journey…”

Fear Grounds at the fairgrounds is located at 10 W. Harbor Blvd. in Ventura; for tickets and more info visit https://www.surferspointlive.com/fear-grounds.

  • Genie Davis, photos by Genie Davis and Jack Burke