VAIP U B L I C A T I O N

LOS ANGELES ISSUE 01

ISSUE 01JULY 2013

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Photograph by Leah ShirleyChicago 1/30, 2011, Photogram (unique), 14 x 11”

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Los Angeles is commonly attributed to an intricate series of arteries. Each day (and night), automobiles filter through the cement canals guiding residents from point A to point B. Though it is common to think of LA within this trope, we like to think of it more as a system of synapses. Neurons and ideas fire at one another without a specific epicenter as information is transmitted from one place to the next. We, who make up VIA Publication, like to think of ourselves as part of this system, embedded in the transmission of knowledge and invested in moving this information from the initial source of creation to the public.

Mirrors came up continually in the articles and content we collected for this issue.  We felt our core mission as a magazine should reflect the city back onto itself. The symbol of the mirror conjures ideas of self and external observation, alteration and questioning. These themes manifest in subject matter as well as in conversation. We wondered, were we seeking out these topics or were they finding us? It was both. A vulnerability arose in these moments of retraction and progress.

Much of the content we have chosen for our first issue considers these abstractions. Curator Martha Kirszenbaum’s interview regarding her upcoming exhibition at LACE, optical art and new wave cinema weaves in ideas of reflections and ambiguous truths. Similarly, Leah Shirley uses mirrors as a tool in the creation of her vibrant colorgrams. Artist collective Fallen Fruit hopes to manifest Endless Orchard, an arts project that will display a singular fruit tree surrounded by mirrors in order to create the illusion of an infinite orchard. Up and coming  spaces, such as Thank You For Coming and LA Fort, exemplify the reflec-tive state that occurs when initial expectations transform into the inevitable realities of a new venture.

VIA is our voice. It is the vehicle that helps both ourselves and our readers discover, research, and process the visual art, food, and music in Los Angeles. The content we have chosen to investigate in this issue continually disrupts the conventional. We are broadening the discourse surrounding this core hub for creative expression.

We welcome you to the first issue of VIA Publication.

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Front cover photograph by Leah Shirley | Ophelia (Los Angeles), 2011/2012, Photogram and Colorgram Assemblage, 20 x 16 inches

The End of the NightInterview with curator Martha Kirszenbaum about the upcoming show at LACE Contemporary

Fette Sans Photography Feature

On the Architectural Record: John Dreyfuss, A Confederacy of Heretics, and the Politics of the Review

Leah Shirley Photography Feature II

WolvesmouthA Review

Thank You For ComingAn Interview

The Fruits of Urban IdentityExploring Fallen Fruit’s Influence on Angelenos

Following Sound Featured Locals

LA Fort: Doing it Together A New Los Angeles Venue

Introduction 03Masthead & Thank You 60 + 61

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THE END OF THE NIGHTAN INTERVIEW WITH CURATOR MARTHA KIRSZENBAUM

Julie Niemi + Images courtesy of Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions

The End of the Night is a bold two-part group exhibition between Palais de Tokyo and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE). Organized by curator Martha

Kirszenbaum, The End of the Night features the work of four emerging French artists exploring the abstract, the kinetic, and optical illusions in contemporary French art.

Julie Niemi sat down with Kirszenbaum to discuss her background, curatorial practice, and the opening of “The End of the Night” at LACE on October 16, 2013.

Julie Niemi Tell me about your background and how you ended up between New York and Los Angeles.Martha Kirszenbaum I grew up in Paris and when I was 23, I moved to New York. I was always obsessed with NYC: the culture and shared ide-ology of the city. Now the subculture is in a shared space with artists and bankers living in the same neighborhood. Williamsburg is institutional-ized and there isn’t room for pockets of unmapped experimentation in cultural production. That’s why I am so fascinated by LA’s dynamic. The mainstream is so glamorous with Hollywood and the entertainment industry that there is space for real subculture and experimentation. JN What initially interested you in curatorial practice and what is your research method?MK I don’t come from a curatorial or art historical background. Parisian institutions are very conservative with art studies. My practice was not formed with an education in contemporary art history but cultural his-tory and humanities. I’ve always been naturally drawn towards people, and with curating you’re constantly negotiating between audience, institution, and the artists. You’re a middleman and a corresponding link to the larger whole. You’re an organizer.When I moved to NYC for graduate school, I could take cultural history and the history of film. I received a long-term internship at MoMA in the Media Department with Klaus Biesenbach, who helped transform the department into Media and Performance Art. We worked mainly with the Duke Aitken and Rosalee Goldberg to anchor the history of performance and moved the department forward to encompass perfor-mance art. My experience at MoMA really linked the moving image and performance art in contemporary art and culture. I realized there was truly a space to work across these fields and look at how they connect and disconnect. Working with contemporary artists really provided necessary commentary on both historical pieces of moving images and the performative qualities in 2-D works of art.

JN Can you describe the research that went into the production of “The End of the Night?”MK In the 1960s, Paris was reacting to the new wave movement, which became one of the most historically important movements in film. LA had many art movements and artists in the 60s, too: Ed Ruscha, Judy Chicago, Ken Price for visual art and Kenneth Anger producing experi-mental cinema. The idea was to look at experimental film in both cities through the two figures: French filmmaker, Henri-Georges Clouzot and American filmmaker, Kenneth Anger.

One of the last films Clouzot worked on was L’Enfer in 1964. The film switches between black and white to capture everyday life and then to color, showing the madness of Marcel played by Serge Reggiani. The colorful scenes are in the Kinetic art-aesthetic, a technique Clouzot used to capture the jealousy and madness of Marcel as he becomes obses-sively paranoid over the assumed affair of his wife, Odette, played by Romy Schneider. Over 150 technicians worked in the heat on this film, idiosyncratically painting the actors by hand for every color sequenced scene. This experimentation became an obsession with color, deteriorat-ing the importance of dialogue and eventually deteriorating the entire production of the film. It was left untouched until 2009, when French documentary filmmaker Serge Bromberg convinced Clouzot’s second wife to show him the film dailies. In 2009, PS 1 MoMA organized a retrospective of Kenneth Anger’s films and for the first time, I realized how they could fit together; Anger plays with colors, mysticism, visual culture, and the storyline in a very similar way and I was interested in looking at his films as well. I became ex-tremely fascinated by the film motif, the images, the nod to visual artists from the era, and the story surrounding the film.

JN How did the show at LACE come into realization?MK LA was an intuitive fit for The End of the Night, a show that’s pairing the moving image with contemporary artists. The deeper concept of this exhibition is to look at experimental film and cinema in Paris and LA. Both cities are heavily rooted in film and obviously LA/Hollywood is more important than any other arts related institution of persona movement.And Ceci N’est Pas..., the ongoing partnership between LA and Paris to extend the contemporary culture between both cities, opened the op-portunity for me as an independent curator to come to LA and produce the exhibition. I was invited by the program to be curator-in-residence at LACE and proposed the idea of doing dual exhibitions between the two cities; the decision to do two shows will enforce an open dialogue for artists working in a global context not only for exposure, but also for research.

JN Can you elaborate on the title of the exhibi-tion, “The End of the Night?”MK The name comes from a 1967 song by the Doors, End of the Night, which of course refers to Californian pop culture (“Take the highway to the end of the night”), along with its psychedelic side. It also expresses a sort of darkness and mysticism I want both exhibitions to address.

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I also found it interesting that the song’s lyrics refer to William Blake’s poem Auguries of Innocence composed in 1803, particularly in the follow-ing rhyme: “Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night.”

JN So you have the baseline for your research: the cinematography of Clouzot and Anger. How did the artists involved with the LACE show react to the task of referencing and reflecting on the work of these historical film figures?MK I’m constantly asking how film influences visual artists. I set out to answer this question through the curatorial connections of contemporary and historical artists living in Paris and LA. For the Palais De Tokyo show, I decided to show a film by Oskar Fisch-inger active in the 1920s and 1930s. Recently, Center for Visual Music restored RaumlichtkunstIt, a three-channel projection recreation with music. And for LACE, I decided to invite Julio Le Parc for his importance in the Paris optical art movement of the 1960s.I invited contemporary artists Florian & Michael Quistrebert, Isabelle Cornaro and Pierre-Laurent Cassière to submit bodies of work or com-missioned work to the show as well. All four artists work between the intersections of sound, two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects.Pierre will make a sound piece, adding a soundtrack to the badly restored L’Enfer, which was shot in 16mm and 35mm film so the sound is almost nonexistent. Clouzot’s film is about jealousy and paranoia, and he intended a very disruptive sound. The sound needed to be obtrusive and offer a sound of insecurity; Pierre’s static subtle sounds from the objects he creates are a perfect fit. He’s creating a sound installation using light and sound receptors embedded in the walls. The lights make vibrations and projections, caus-ing the walls to vibrate. Brothers Florian & Michael Quistrebert made a series of commissioned paintings that have been inspired by the film, and also, they will exhibit their corner light and projection piece. Florian and Michael work in the tradition of experimental film, inspired by the work of Hans Richter.

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With recent technology and post-production, they photograph mirrors and smoke, post-editing the footage into a kaleidoscopic installation that is a projection of two images in black and white on a silver triangle. Their work incorporates mystic images, shapes and inspires meditative trance-like reactions from the viewer. It’s heavily inspired by the constructivists and early experimental film.And finally, Isabella Cornaro will display two 16mm films. The two films are made with very saturated colors, reminiscent of Clouzot’s use of color. Her other film is constructed with spray paint and is very performative in it’s visceral quality if I do say so myself.

JN Your research has a consecutive theme of fetishization of objects; “The End of the Night” seems no exception both in the selection of artists and the methods of the objects’ production. Can you speak to this?MK I’ve been interested in artists and filmmakers that address both the fetishisation of objects and the exclusive relation between the representa-tion of objects and the body. Exploring the theme of “tableau vivant,” the film screening, Fetish and Figure, that you saw at Public Fiction, which chal-lenges the presence of the human body that disintegrates, allowing objects to come to life on screen as the camera captures them. To me, more than the works in the exhibitions, it is the visual approaches of L’Enfer by Clouzot and Kenneth Anger that share a common approach of feminine representation (Clouzot) or iconography (Anger) constructed around sophisticated accessories —perfume bottles, enchanting jewelry and shimmering pieces of clothing —while questioning images of volup-tuousness and consumption and, finally, reflecting on human solitude, existential melancholy and physical disappearance.

PAGE 6 + 7 Left: Isabelle Cornaro, still from De l’argent filmé de profil et de trois quarts [Money filmed from a side view and a three-quarter view], 2010, 16 mm transferred to DVD, 02 :13 min; Right: Serge Bromberg & Ruxandra Medrea, still from L’Enfer d’Henri-Georges Clouzot , Documentary, 2009, 95’PAGE 9 Florian & Michael Quistrebert, still from The Eighth Sphere, 2010, double channel video installa-tion, 1’41 looped

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FETTE SANSJulie Niemi

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“Serendipitous” is a word rarely heard to describe causal interactions in LA. We seclude ourselves in vehicles to mobilize from one location to another, often unaware of the space outside and the con-nection of one being to another. There is a constant rearing of transience, opening a sensitive space for recent transplants. Transplants have a very specific perception of a location, lacking an institu-tionalized sense of experience and nostalgia that comes with time. The journey becomes a duality between isolation and the urge for a genuine connection.

As photographer Fette Sans travels between Los Angeles and Berlin, she makes a point of captur-ing these moments. Her oeuvre is light and domestic in content, ephemeral yet extremely personal, yielding a playful separation between specific locale and subject. Arguably, her photos aim to disrupt the notion of a specific location. But more accurately, I think of them as a subtle nod to the traveler, describing her documentation as a series of “building baggage, a collection of all the great stuff you find mysterious and majestic about a place. Yet in the end, you’re left with nothing else to do but hoard it around with you.” And yes she does. Sans obsessively documents her journey, collecting the faces and features of strangers she holds so dear, displaying her work both online and in photo books.

An example of such work is seen in the photo book Exhaustion can occur merely attempting to breathe. The photos are meticulously placed in a limited edition book series, which captures Sans’ travels through affluent and working class neighborhoods in central Los Angeles. Exhaustion is paired with an online component, a series of interviews winding you through dead-end streets of makeshift homes with images of 1970s Winnebago vans. The interviews are poignant descriptions of an outsider’s understanding of a confusing sprawl.

This process is a contemporary reminiscence of the Situationist’s concept of dérive during pre-war Paris, where they too were looking for accidental moments struck by off-guard chance and encoun-ter. Today, however, it’s far more difficult to thread these moments of chance on a walk, when the convenience of technology invites enchanting and not-so enchanting strangers. Applications allure us to find each other, dating sites take away the excitement of getting to know one another, and social media satisfies and gluttonizes us with its immediacy. And so the question begs, can we have those moments of serendipitous encounters today?

Sans believes so. She begins her process with the material of black and white film, a medium that today can be described as a decision rooted in nostalgia. By removing herself from the processes of shooting and production, recollection becomes a rejection of time. This simultaneously becomes an act of slowness, creating a gap in the mode of production and the mechanical action of shooting. The space between shooting and production brings the images into their slow existence.

The performance of serendipity is indeed a personal process, a meditation on one’s own boundar-ies between the authentic and the conveniently invited. As we walk, slow down, and understand more about our urban environment, we too act as the archivist in a quest for serendipity, but with a solemn “perhaps” that now is a meditation on sheer convenience for better or for worse.

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ON THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD:John Dreyfuss, A Confederacy of Heretics, and the Politics of the Review

Maura Lucking + Images courtesy of SCI-Arc

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Navigating my way through the oversized architectural drawings installed in the central corridor of the Southern California Institute of Architecture—reproduced on particleboard laminate and folded like so many origami dinner napkins—the immediacy of the current exhibition’s physicality was overwhelming. Entering the SCI-Arc Gal-lery, an abstracted site plan overwhelmed my field of vision. Installed vertically as alto-rilievo sculpture, it tantalized me with its diagonally charged topographic forms and Neapolitan sherbet palette in shades of butter yellow, seafoam green and chartreuse.

In A Confederacy of Heretics, an account of an alternative exhibition space run out of architect Thom Mayne’s Venice Beach home in the fall of 1979, architectural media goes beyond the traditional depiction of physical form, playacting as and eventually becoming a figuration of architecture in and of itself. In a bid to avoid traditional synchronic or thematic analyses of the exhibition’s material and organization, exhibition designer Andrew Zago has built a series of recessive yet subtly mannerist dividing walls and angular vitrines and pedestals that mimic the various unusual diagrammatic projections and architectural drawings used by the included architects—the media of representation giving way to its superstructure.

For this particular group—known as the Santa Monica School—and their socio-political moment during the lean years of the building crisis in the late 1970s and smack in the middle of an intellectual re-naissance on the city’s west side, the conceptualization and presenta-tion of architectural projects was the discipline itself. Collaged section drawings, painted studies, inventive models, and even architectural postage stamps fill the galleries and library at SCI-Arc, buzzing with chromatic and formal dynamism.

These are the heady early days of postmodernism in Los Angeles, manifest. As one SCI-Arc faculty member remembers of the time, many were preoccupied with innovating models of architectural representation, or as she called it, winkingly, “stealing whatever you could from other disciplines to see if it would stick to a building.” And though yes, some of the projects on display—like Morphosis’ 2-4-6-8 House (1978), for example—would go on to be built, the final form of the projects was far less important to their esteem than their conceptual underpinnings. Frederick Fischer’s fantastically morbid design for a solar crematorium (winner of a Progressive Architecture distinction) comes to mind, among others.

Freed from the constraints of communicating built form and urban context in the white cube, the exhibition’s curators curiously chose to tether the objects on display to another form of media altogether: the yellowed and musty pages of newsprint. While the work of included architects Coy Howard, Eugene Kupper, Roland Coate, Frank Dimster, Eric Owen Moss, Craig Hodgetts, Thom Mayne, Michael Rotondi and Frank Gehry speaks volumes, they are stories that would neither be remembered nor given credence (save perhaps for Pritzker club members Gehry and Mayne) without the systematic and inquisitive testimony of Los Angeles Times writer John Dreyfuss.

Dreyfuss, recognizing the uniqueness of the gallery’s construct, cover-ing nine shows in as many weeks on the “fine art of architecture,” chose to document each with its own article, including introductory and concluding remarks on the effectiveness of the whole exercise. Though credited here as an “architecture and design critic,” Dreyfuss was, like most generalist critics, trained in no such profession, having studied biology and worked as a teacher, salesman and reporter for years before becoming best known for his architectural writing. He writes in the clear, unfussy newspaper-speak often derided by those makers and scholars more fond of what’s become known as Interna-tional Art English (or IAE).1 And yet, it is his writings, his selection of the strongest pieces, the most interesting or challenging ideas, and certainly his meticulous attention to the breadth of its architectural media, that curators Todd Gannon, Ewan Branda, and Andrew Zago have mined for their curatorial framework, some thirty-five years later.2

In an utterly bizarre instantiation of modern copyright law, Dreyfuss’ articles are referenced in the exhibition text but, due to the Los Ange-les Times’ paywall, they are not explicitly reproduced or quoted. The only exception is a single frontispiece from his introductory article, ac-companying the now famous beach-blown photograph of the majority of the exhibition’s architects, posed on Venice Beach in their best approximation of 70s “California cool” – Hodgetts in Birkenstocks, Mangurian in ripped jeans, and an unidentified dog on a rope lead.3

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“Behind a messy little stand of trees,” Dreyfuss writes there, “past a gate concocted of chicken wire and

sticks covered with sheets of black plastic, through a red door in a nondescript building with white paint peeling from red bricks-- lies a marvelous space.”4

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“Behind a messy little stand of trees,” Dreyfuss writes there, “past a gate concocted of chicken wire and

sticks covered with sheets of black plastic, through a red door in a nondescript building with white paint peeling from red bricks-- lies a marvelous space.”4

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I will admit that this is not the strongest opener. Such a sentence could be easily obliterated by the legions that openly disdain the sycophantic prose of the average blog-a-day art critic. To the firing squad for the use of “marvelous,” alone. And yet, several of what I would argue are the desirable starting threads of a critical argument reside in this sentence: a reasonably evocative and engaging tone, an eye towards descriptive detail for documentary purposes, a self-consciously politicized selection of subject matter, and, “marvelous,” or not, a definitive judgment.

Dreyfuss, whether knowingly or unwittingly, due to region or venue, has almost entirely sidestepped the tiresome dialectic of postmodern criticality. That cycle, largely ensconced in 1980’s Ivy academia, is neatly summarized by its art historian and former October journal editor Hal Foster: “First, there was a rejection of judgment, of the moral right presumed in critical evaluation. Then, there was a refusal of authority, of the political privilege that allows the critic to speak abstractly on behalf of others. Finally, there was skepticism about distance, about the cultural separation from the very conditions that the critic purports to examine.”5 That distance took the form of a moral skepticism on the part of critics, high and low, on the nature and effectuality of their own discipline. The result, according to master polemicist James Elkins, is that “critics have begun to avoid judgments altogether, preferring to describe or evoke the art rather than say what they think of it.

The turn away from an engaged, passionate, historically informed practice is an amazing reversal, as astonishing as if physicists had declared they would no longer try to understand the universe, but just appreciate it.”6 The problem with these kinds of ideological quarantines, ivory tower ultimatums that have real, genuine effects on professional praxis, is that the finicky opinions, positions, and preferences will inevitably escape around the margins. What might be called Kantian critique (i.e. the belief in the existence of universal guiding principles) or Hume’s standard of taste (a deeply personal, primarily aesthetic, form of judgment) reappears. It finds its way into the supposedly objective writings of the October camp, camouflaged by viscous, theoretical language, and is submerged in the self-selec-tion of covered content—in criticality by omission from the record—by generalist critics. Make no mistake, criticality is still among us.

With this in mind, though naturally still absorbed in fantasies of Elkins’ solipsistic physicists, let us turn back to the Architecture Gal-lery. To Dreyfuss, perhaps the greatest rediscovery of A Confederacy of Heretics, assured and unceasing in his critical analysis and, occasion-ally, ire. He relentlessly interrogates and makes visible the exhibition’s prosthetics, the conventions of the gallery space, the apparatuses and hierarchical interactions of the various architectural media and display mechanisms at play within these shows.

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In particular, Dreyfuss is a staunch cataloguer of architectural media – each paragraph in his three-page article on Eugene Kupper’s exhibition begins with a media qualifier: “five photoprints,” “two floor studies,” “three superstructure studies,” “a planning study,” “conceptual drawings,” “two sketches in ink and colored pencil,” “five drawings and a cardboard model,” and so on.7

But unlike someone like Elkins, who might dismiss this activity as sheer indexical documentation, I find the repetitiveness of such object-naming powerful and intentioned. As media theorist Ian Bogost wrote of one of the greatest modern list-makers, Bruno Latour, listing charts a type of rhetorical ontography, or technique for revealing objects’ existence and relation to one another.8 Culling data for the archive is by no means a neutral activity, evidenced by the praise the current SCI-Arc exhibition has received for its sensitiv-ity to the architects’ innovative treatment of architectural drawing (including painting, collage, and printmaking). In one of the strongest articles from the series, on Thom Mayne and Michael Rotondi’s early Morphosis collaborations, Dreyfuss’ penchant for list-making meets the architects’ understanding of accumulations of media as a politically-motivated archive and conceptual framework, revisiting ideas of prefabrication and standardization from modern architecture in a tongue-in-cheek manner not lost on the critic:

“One project appears to have been purchased at a hobby store. In-deed, part of the exhibit is a box in which the “2-4-6-8 House” kit was packaged. Contents listed on the box include assembly instructions, a complete parts list, working drawings and a picture of the finished house. For good measure, the kit contains a T-shirt […] and a book that the architects just happen to like.”9

Most have likely spent a moment or two quietly eye-rolling the boosterism of generalist “art journalism.” Either cultural spelunking into the exaggeratedly strange and decadent depths of the art world (“Auction prices! Still high!”), or a sometimes baffling adherence to certain figures and events long after their cultural relevance has passed or, at least, been exhausted as matter for viable analysis (“MOCA! Deitch! Still bad!”). Whether it’s the fault of the insular and esoteric machinations of the contemporary art and design worlds, or the lowest common denominator approach amongst media looking to constantly appeal to an audience assumed to know—literally—nothing about the material at hand, most of this writing fails to grasp or communicate the breadth of the work it covers, neither their conceptual nor ineffable matter. How do you write to satisfy multiple audiences in the same piece? How do you write intelligently, about complex ideas, without black-boxing the objects in a murky fog of theoretical and professional jargon?

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The SCI-Arc exhibition teases connections to Light and Space and Fetish Finish work coming out of LA fine art as well as the New Age cosmology of Robert Smithson and land art in relation to space and time in the west, not ideas typically associated with the so-called frivolity of early postmodern design. Literary theory and psychology are a named influence of Eric Owen Moss: “He sprinkles conversa-tions with references to and quotes from sources as diverse as Nietzsche, Phidias, James Joyce, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and the Bible.”10 Notably, many of the architects had former training in fine art (Coate, Kupper and Howard), English literature (Moss) and other cultural fields, interdisciplinary backgrounds that would have been unusual for faculty at more traditional architectural schools at the time, still associated more with applied or technical arts.

It is, however, Dreyfuss’s synthesis of these erudite references with more casual conversations about the role of image and form as a methodological entry point to larger ideas about site, land, and environment that elevates his role from that of documentarian to critic. He pulls specific threads through the articles, allowing one to flow into another and forming something from the so-called “Santa Monica School” that actually sounds like a shared design philosophy.On Roland Coate: “The raw concrete structure stands somewhat at odds with its lush, lawn-covered lush, lawn-covered setting […] ‘The house is, in the Jungian sense, in the ground,” the 49-year old architect said. ‘It has an emotional connection with Mother Earth. It’s a trip through the underworld in the sense Dante wrote about the underworld.’”11

On Frederick Fisher: “’To me,’ Fisher said, ‘architecture is a cosmo-logical art that establishes the relationship between man and the rest of nature […] There is a latent image of architectural ruin. It acknowledges that architecture is very temporal in relation to nature.’ […] It would be nice if everyone recognized the metaphor, and nicer still if everyone thought it was meaningful. That is not the case […] but still, the metaphor is extremely meaningful as a working tool for Fisher.”12

This brings us to the issue of critical judgment, and the critic’s re-freshing openness to something like educated generalist analysis that resonates neither as insider appraisal nor a reactionary outsider’s rejection of the new. Rather than wagging the imperial finger at any of the included architects, Dreyfuss considers their projects, media, and exhibition decisions relative to one another, and on their own merits. Like the compilation of descriptive lists, it is the seemingly be-nign convention of total inclusiveness that allows Dreyfuss’ model of criticism to succeed in genuinely sustaining a dialogue with the work at hand. From the outset, the critic promises equal word counts to each of the exhibited designers, despite his professional or personal opinion of their practices. The articles read, as a result, as a genuine attempt to grapple with the conceptual and artistic imperative of the Architecture Gallery’s mission.*

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If criticism in general has suffered from an ideological identity crisis in the last half century, the discipline of architecture lost conscious-ness altogether. The nineties belonged almost entirely to a school of “post-criticality,” arguing that the postmodernists had been misguided in their resistance against cultural hegemony and capitalism.13

The group decided instead to in Kazys Varnelis’ words, “embrace Koolhaas’s injunction that the architect should surf the waves of capi-tal […] The post-critical condition is supposed to release us from our straightjackets (historical, theoretical, and political), yet for the most part it has abetted a relativism that has little to do with pluralism.”14

As post-modernism returns to fashion on its aesthetic and ideological terms, popping up across salmon pink and duck-shaped buildings, publications, exhibitions, thesis pin-ups and tumbleblogs, it seems worth reconsidering a seemingly obsolescent form of critical writing as well. That is, writing that takes a position – not quite of Kantian or Greenbergian totality, but writing that makes room for the personal to inform the professional.

We, as writers, makers, and participants in the cultural economy, currently practice self-selection in lieu of criticism. This insider posi-tion, what we all surreptitiously aspire to when we raise fingers to keyboards, is what ultimately stymies the growth of the communi-ties we desire to support. Especially when reviewing work outside the professional mainstream, such as artist-run spaces like the Architecture Gallery, self-published zines, student projects, and the like, we find ourselves in the position of aiding and abetting a critical love fest. Showing anything less than blind enthusiasm would be considered antithetical to helping “the community.” But cheerlead-ers don’t compel development and personal evaluation–only honest appraisal from colleagues, competitors and yes, critics, can do that. In an environment where more content is reviewed and made to answer to a generalist (rather than insider) voice, there is room for criticality as a spectrum rather than a form of blanket condemnation or a betrayal of political, social, and ideological weakness. As Dreyfuss wrote in his last article of the series, “The Architecture Gallery has catalyzed a significant segment of the Los Angeles archi-tectural community, precipitating a steady brew of respect, anger, pride, jealousy, excitement, and interest.”15 This fomenting litany of positive and negative emotions, like the trail of architectural draw-ings, models, collages, supergraphics, paintings, postage stamps, and sherbet-colored site plans that incited it, shows the surest record of the Architecture Gallery’s success as a critical enterprise. It shows the beginning of a dialogue. So let’s start making lists.

*In Dreyfuss’ articles, he commends some (“Moss pays enough attention to the rules books to make his buildings work, but not so much that they become predictable.”) and chides others, whether on their ideas (Kupper’s concepts are not easy to grasp…”) or execution (“The major problem is with what is not in the show. Written explanations are totally lacking, so it is impossible to grasp the architectural-sociological message of the exhibition.”).

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1 Alix Rule and David Levine, “International Art English,” Triple Canopy, Issue 16 (July 30, 2012), http://canopycanopycanopy.com/16/international_art_english.2 From the exhibition statement: http://www.sciarc.edu/exhibition.php?date=2013-03-29.3 Photo Ave Pildas, in Joseph Giovanni, “California Design: New West Side Story,” Interiors (December 1980), 50-51, 80-82.4 John Dreyfuss, “One Week Shows By 11 Architects: Architecture Gallery Opens For Business,” Los Angeles Times (October 11, 1979).5 Hal Foster, “Post-Critical,” The Brooklyn Rail (December 2012-January 2013), http://www.brooklynrail.org/2012/12/artseen/post-critical.6 James Elkins, What Happened to Art Criticism (Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003), 14.7 John Dreyfuss, “The Architecture Gallery Opens for Business: Kupper Employs Dual Process,” Los Angeles Times (October 11, 1979).8 Ian Bogost, Alien Phenomenology, or What It’s Like to Be a Thing (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012).9 John Dreyfuss, “Architectural Show: A Sampler of a Duo’s Whimsy,” Los Angeles Times (November 21, 1979), 4.10 John Dreyfuss, “Nine Entrees: Eric Moss’ Architectural Feast,” Los Angeles Times (December 5, 1979), 9.11 John Dreyfuss,“Mystery in Roland Coate’s Work,” Los Angeles Times (October 17, 1979).12 John Dreyfuss, “Showing How to Mix Metaphors,” Los Angeles Times (October 24, 1979).13 This line came from Rem Koolhaas, Peter Eisenman, Sarah Whiting, K. Michael Hays, and others in practice and academia alike.14 Kazys Varnelis, “The Post-Critical Collapse,” varnelis.net (November 3, 2008), http://varnelis.net/blog/the_postcritical_collapse.15 John Dreyfuss, “Gallery Stirs Up Architects,” Los Angeles Times (December 12, 1979), E26.

PAGE 20 2-4-6-8 House, Morphosis Architects, 1978PAGE 24 South Side Settlement, Studio Works (Robert Mangurian + Craig Hodgetts), 1975-80PAGE 25 Eric Owen Moss models, A Confederacy of Heretics, SCI-Arc GalleryPAGE 26 Stamps, Morphosis Architects, 1979PAGE 27-29 Installation images, A Confederacy of Heretics, SCI-Arc Gallery, Photos by Joshua White

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LEAH SHIRLEY:PHENOMENA OF LIGHT & INSTINCT

Casey Winkleman

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Chicago 2/4.3, Photogram Diptych (unique), 14x11” eachChicago 2/4.2, 2011, Colorgram (unique), 14 x 11”Untitled (New York), 2011, Colorgram (unique), 14 x 11”Olympia 3/24.1, 2011, Colorgram (unique), 40 x 30”Chicago 5/3.2, 2011, Colorgram (unique), 14 x 11”

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Entangled within the scientific fundamentals of photography are the human nuances of the artist. LA artist Leah Shirley draws upon her past experiences growing up in Austin, Texas with colorgrams that evoke forms found in nature. Leah writes, “I would go into my father’s backyard, find rocks and try to break them open to see what they were made of. Sometimes I made pebbles, other times I saw quartz. When I found quartz, I took them inside, washed them off and asked my dad to buy them for $1.” In her contemporary practice, reflective surfaces mimic the inquisitive investigations Shirley had as a child playing in the hilly limestone landscape, and the work today is still certainly bound to the elements.

Her process consists of making colorgrams, which are photographs made entirely of light particles and/or waves hitting light-sensitive color photographic paper in the darkroom. Leah explains, “The darkness focuses me and heightens my awareness of my spatial surroundings, but also attunes me to the work I am doing.” Each piece begins with a loose concept, and Shirley leaves plenty of room for playful, performative interpretation once she enters the confines of the darkroom. Slight movements of the hand that hover over the dark space between the enlarger and piece of photo paper produce luminous images that capture photography in its purest form. Working primarily with light, mirrors, photo chemicals, and her intuition, the photograms that manifest in the darkroom become documents of a transcendent experience.

lux (lks)n. pl. lux·es or lu·ces (lsz) Abbr. lxThe International System unit of illumination, equal to one lumen per square meter.

The colorgrams in Lux, Shirley’s most recent series, document a specific time and place personal to her experience as an artist. Lux features personal work in the sense that she can connect each piece to a very specific time in her life; hence, their titles orient each print with the city and year of their creation. They are records of curiosi-ties; confined to their autonomous objecthood upon exiting the color processor, their free-flowing colors and forms undulate as they provoke premonitions of an often emotional degree. Though her colorgrams may take on a personality worlds away from the ideas that originally conceived them, the room left for subtlety reveals the defining details of these colorfield studies.

The light transfixed within the colorgrams and personal illuminations of the artist reveal a universal message in connectedness. Durational actions within the darkroom transform into luminous manifestations that take the form of visual meditations. Such as with Chicago 2011, I and Chicago 2011, II, the pieces bleed into one another in a visual dance of vibrancy. The mirrors used in this diptych speak to the reflections of the artist and the inevitable doubling that presents the viewer to him or herself. Intervening between the enlarger and light sensitive piece of photo-paper, Shirley opens the door to endless variation that display the fruits of laborious tasks which take shape in the evidential prints. Their evidential presence archive her personal history, deeply cementing a specific time and space onto a unique record.

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FOLLOWING SOUND

HANDS Hands’ recent April release of their full length album Synesthesia under Kill Rock Stars is alluring from beginning to end. The album has a particular fluidity while still varying in impassioned high and low points: notice the variation between The Game is Changing Us versus Elegant Road; while the songs deviate in their emotional effectiveness, the rhythm sections and particular vocal ranges of both tracks create a signature element for Hands. The overall thick sound, high pitch atmospheric vocals, and glassy guitar tones create a fo-cal point within each song that effortlessly captures the listener. Their fans are racking up exponentially, indicating the potential for this band lies far beyond the LA music scene.Photo by David Morrisonhandssounds.com

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MYSTIC RABBITMystic Rabbit, formerly known as Blackfeet Braves, trapped us into their psychedelic wormhole after the release of Tripping Like I Do. The kaleidoscopic track embodies the essence of the 1960’s Californian surf rock movement. Though the tone of the band is more lo-fi and garage-psych oriented, the coordination of their instrumentals and noticeably polished musicianship pushes them past an experimental genre. Mystic Rabbit has been actively touring under Lolipop Records between Southern Califor-nia, Texas and Arizona-- all of which are active hubs in the psychedelic rock scene. Elements of Mystic Rabbit’s sound familiar-izes itself with Wooden Shjips, Black Lips, Comets on Fire and, inevitably, The Beach Boys. The full Mystic Rabbit LP is online and available on vinyl.Photo by Oliver Walkermysticrabbit.com

HAIMLos Angeles trio, Este, Danielle and Alana Haim, have been charming us since the release of their Forever EP back in 2012. Haim delivers an electric blend of sounds that trace to Madonna, Stevie Nicks, and the dance element of Grimes. Despite the nostalgic feel in their high-energy techno- pop sound, sharp drum beats and lively melodies, they manage to create something that is crisp and distinguished. The buttery vocals of these sisters are effortless while their harmonic particularity gives Haim their trademark sound. The girls’ combination of dense lyrics, complicated harmonies, and pop presence is increasing their popular-ity in the music industry. Haim won BBC’s Sound of 2013 award and recently made an appearance on Red Eye, a track off of Kid Cudi’s new album which released last April.haimtheband.com

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The music scene in Los Angeles is vast and saturated. In the midst of this massive network, there is a pulsing support for local musicians. Bands are still forming in garages, playing in basements, recording in their bedrooms and eventually emerging from their humble beginnings. There is a foundation built for these musicians forming in LA. Whether we find them at house shows or crowded bars, we live in an active and accessible environment that is constantly generating new bands. The following featured acts are currently emerging from the local spotlight into international circuits.

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GOTHIC TROPIC Cecilia Della Peruti, Daniel Denton, and Liv Marsico form Echo Park’s Gothic Tropic. Influences of Krautrock, Proto Punk, Garage and Jungle music bring old sound into con-temporary compositions. With Influences aside, Gothic Tropic is producing music that is genuinely authentic in its own right. Mon-key Bars, a catchy track off of their 2011 EP Awesome Problems, is unique in its timing, guitar riffs, transitions and high range vo-cals. Their percussion section is motivated by Afro-Cuban beats and is consistently sharp throughout each song. Gothic Tropic’s appreciation for long, spacey instrumental breakdowns provide each track with a pause from the high-tension vocal, allowing the instrumentation and vocals to harmoni-ously complement one another. The band is currently unsigned but has managed to get on bills with considerable acts such as Feist, Florence and The Machine, Timber Timbre, Prince Rama and Chelsea Wolfe. Although Gothic Tropic has not put out a full project since Awesome Problems released, they continue to stay active in the live scene and sell out shows around East LA.Photo by Ryan Aylsworthgothictropic.bandcamp.com

BOARDWALKBoardwalk is the perfect soundtrack for a summer of iced coffee and lounging in your underwear. Los Angeles duo, Mike Edge and Amber Q have recently formed Board-walk, a beautiful ambient project that is perfectly executed with the particular skills of each musician. The ambient and serene approach to their music, with its modesty and softness, is what makes Boardwalk so intriguing in their transcendental sound. The band records on a 2-inch tape recorder, creating a retro, motown-esque intonation.While Edge engineers his own custom pre amps, mics and sequencers, Amber Q’s vocal abilities match perfectly for the project. She tames her voice to a slight demure for Boardwalk by laying soothing, airy low-key melodies over each song. Off the 10-track album under Stones Throw Records released last October, we person-ally recommend paying attention to their encompassing single, I’m to Blame. Photo by Amanda Charchianstonesthrow.com/boardwalk

BEACH PARTYThe new rock n’ roll quartet, Beach Party, is vibrant in their performance energy as well as their song production. The band is currently recording and producing an EP with Ty Segall planned to release in August of 2013. Although they currently have a few accessible demo tracks, the band can bring in a serious crowd. When attending a Beach Party show, the energy picks up at an epic pace. Even in a grungy venue with low quality sound the band has no reservation while they sweat, jump and drop to the floor with their instruments. The tracks that are presently available are far more light-hearted than what you can expect to hear on the EP, which after watching a live set will expectedly be far more thrashy. They pull influence from The Libertines, The Animals, and you can occasionally get a taste of The Strokes as heard in Beach Party’s Brigitte Bardot. Photo by Joshua Spencer  soundcloud.com/beachparty

THE LOS ANGELES FORT,

Ally Hasche + Photographs by Casey Winkleman

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DOING IT TOGETHER

When various DIY creators and thinkers come together to share skill sets and work towards a common goal, the DIT movement is born. “Do it Together,” or “DIT” is a method of production that supports a work ethic which brings people from various areas of a community together to share their skill sets and apply them to a greater project. Typically, the process is volunteer-based and democratically run. Monetary exchange takes place solely to build the project rather than making its way into anyone’s pockets, naturally providing an overall sense of welcomeness and community organization. The LA Fort, a fresh addition to Downtown Los Angeles, is an operative example of how the DIT movement functions.

The new project is most popularly known for its role as a music venue, although they operate as a varietal space that offers anything from figure drawing classes to video game tournaments. The Fort provides a haven that allows the community to share its active re-sources in a broad and multi-purposeful format. It is currently in the midst of construction, projected to be finished by summer of 2013. The space is being entirely established by the members of the Fort.

Seeing as the Fort is still being assembled, it currently has a somewhat makeshift feel, although the evolution of the space makes it clearly subject to change. The first floor is organized as a lounge area with vintage couches and donated furniture, and a large stage dedicated to providing a space for underground shows. It is crafty in its aesthetic, which contributes to its eclectic and uncurated vibe. The 5,000 square foot upstairs floor has been under construction for artist studio spaces.

A steady set of organizers have been toiling with the concept of the Fort for the past year, and took the initiative to go into construction last November. While under construction, the crew manages to keep the space active and utilized a few times a week. There is a particular amount of stress around the idea that the Fort community is ever-expanding and always welcoming newcomers.“We’re just members like everyone else,” said Carmen, who is titled as a Special Operations Manager but purposefully humble about it in order to avoid any sense of hierarchy. “No one person is in charge, no one has any more power than anyone else here,” said Matteo, also a Special Operations Manager.

Because of its democratic and grassroots attitude, the Fort project can be considered a social experiment. The politics involved in build-ing and running the Fort are entirely community-based and dictated by the growing number of members. The LA Fort in its present form is a private institution, at least until they are able to fill the codes in which a public institution is allowed to function.

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“We would love to offer after school opportunities for kids who live around the area at some point in the future, so we don’t plan to stay private forever. The codes are different when it comes to public vs. private institutions so it takes time and learning,” said Matteo.

Taking a tour through the space during its off hours and going back to see the Fort in full force was essential in understanding how the space activates. Attending the Mount Eerie show earlier in the year was a moment of seeing the space come alive. Attendees had to RSVP to a guestlist prior to the show, making it a private event. “All the money we make from the shows goes directly to the bands,” said Matteo. The crowd was mostly hip and young, although it felt inviting to anyone who was interested. The patio was set up with a bike-rigged vegan taco stand where attendees mingled in between sets.

The positive environment the Fort emanates is put forth by an eager effort to eliminate any pretension that can come with running a popular venue. “People come here to draw on their own canvases. It has been really beautiful,” said Carmen. Although the Fort is exclusive in the means of membership-only, memberships are attainable at three different levels of participation. Whether you want to simply input your ideas, or build an entire studio space, it is stressed that any level of participation is necessary. “We have meetings to discuss the changes that the Fort is going through, and then we normally take votes. This can be anything from upcoming events to the next moves with the space. Sometimes the meetings can last for hours, but everyone is involved,” said Matteo. Where other venues, art galleries, or multi-purpose spaces are commonly run with management and a business model, The LA Fort has adopted the DIT method of a more open and intermutual approach. Although the infamous one-time warehouse raves or ever-so-charming pop up restaurants can prove temporary cases of the DIT method in Los Angeles, The Fort’s strategy in becoming a permanent venue may prove to be a prototype for how to run a consistently open DIT space in Los Angeles. “Hopefully this can be a model for people in the future. We are figuring this all out right now, and once we do, we will be able to pass on these methods and traditions to people who can keep running these types of spaces,” said Matteo.

LA Fort’s sister venue, The Dial, is a similar multifarious space based out of Temecula, CA. According to The Dial’s mission, their goal is to “enable creative minds to feel comfortable and supported.” Though the objectives behind these DIT spaces may seem questionably open-ended, it would be difficult to provide a more precise mission when it comes to the constituent elements that build a multipurpose venue under the DIT method. The LA Fort has recently taken artists into residency, hosted a full house show headlined by LA Girlfriend, worked with Art Share LA, and has consistently held craft and work nights.  While considering the eclectic nature of the Fort, as vast as “opening a space for the creatives” may sound, it is precisely what they are doing. What is not to love about a space that hosts the creativity of a community as large as LA?

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WOLVESMOUTH

Grant von Aletti + Photographs by Casey Winkleman

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Fed Like Cattle.

Wolvesmouth’s mysteries are carefully maintained. There is no phone number to call. The address is a closely guarded secret, revealed only to invited guests on the day of the event. There is only a website, offering an email address and a cryptic message as much warning as invitation: “if you are led like cattle, you will be fed like cattle…”

So every week or two, hundreds of would-be guests shoot emails off into the ether, hoping to charm or beg or impress their way in.

“i’ve always wanted a dining experience where i knew no one and i was placed next to the most elaborate interesting stranger. this seems to fulfill that desire,” one would-be guest emailed.

Another touted his bona fides in the food industry. “I worked at Dunkin’ Donuts throughout high school and still have every donut memorized, in alphabetical order,” he wrote. “I worked at a bakery in Paris until I was fired for allowing gypsies to come into the store in defiance of my (racist, if you ask me) manager.”

A third made a more personal plea: “This meal will be step four in the process of recovering from the revelation that my parents fed me my pet rabbit for Easter dinner when I was 7.”

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1 http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/2010/11/wolvesmouth_craig_thornton_par.php

Strike. Tear. Chew.

The subject line of the email announcing each dinner is always the same: strike. tear. chew.

Part of the appeal of an underground restaurant is the hint of dan-ger: you could be poisoned (intentionally or not), or fed to the other guests a la Mrs. Lovett. That risk is part of the thrill.

And from the moment of my arrival, every aspect of Wolvesmouth—beginning with the very name, all blood and teeth and howling—leaned into this suggestion of malice.

The 17 other fortunate guests and I arranged ourselves around the huge, lone table in the loft where Craig Thornton, the chef/host/financier/savant behind Wolvesmouth, not only lives, but also throws these lavish dinner parties for strangers.

As we took our first, hesitant sips of the wine we had brought, still unsure how we had all ended up here, I realized we were sur-rounded by a litany of menacing images: animal bones hung from the ceiling; paintings, some on the walls, others just sitting on the floor, depicted distorted, bloody figures; one stuffed bird mounted on the wall was mauling another; a jar on the sideboard contained a rodent, pickled in formaldehyde; and in the center of the table where we had been gathered, an alligator skull gaped at us, its jaws wide, showing off its teeth.

The third course was a murder scene. The ocean trout had been spattered with beet juice. Drops of the deep red liquid cut across the plate, pooling near the fish, where delicate yellow flower petals lay scattered, as though some innocent, bouquet-wielding girl had been attacked there, carried off or thrown into a pond, leaving behind only blood and petals.

We were to eat this evidence of the crime, to become accomplices of sorts. The moral implications of what we were consuming—animals had been killed for our sustenance and enjoyment, after all—had been dramatized in the presentation.

Served such violent plates of food, surrounded by such morbid ambi-ance, I wondered if early Wolvesmouth guests—before the breath-less reviews had brought Thornton a fame that grows week-by-week and now draws foodies from across the continent—worried they had made a very serious mistake in coming.

Clearly, that reaction was part of what Thornton had in mind. A picture of the ocean trout dish on the Wolvesmouth website is captioned “the fox is in the hen house…” Another dish called “wolves in the snow,” which Thornton has described as “a wolf attack-scene,” features not only spattered blood, but also a piece of venison with a chunk ripped out and tossed across to the other side of the plate.1

Taste was not the only sense Thornton hoped to arouse. He had a more holistic, unsettling experience in mind. He wanted to get under our skin.

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“There were never enough crunchberries,” he said, noting that the fruit-flavored bites were lost amid a sea of the traditional Cap’n Crunch they were mixed with. “I wanted to make something that was just the crunchberries.”

Having initially hesitated to take my phone out of my pocket—I would not normally do so at a restaurant, much less at a dinner party in someone’s apartment—I soon found that those usual rules of etiquette simply did not apply at Wolvesmouth.

Each time a course arrived, we all took our phones out, not only to document it, but to instantly gloat. We posted the pictures to Facebook and Twitter, to blogs. I sent one to a friend, along with a braggart text. His reply was exactly what I had hoped for: “How did you get in???”

The sense that we were sharing something fleeting, something that would not ever be precisely replicated, bolstered a sense of com-munity around the dinner table. As we passed around our wine—in one case, a chartreuse from 1880, whose owner happily poured out the entire bottle as she went around the table—we discussed how we had all ended up there. Out-of-towners seemed to hold some advantage; a food blogger from Seattle and her husband had made the cut, as had a woman in town from the east coast to attend a con-ference. And I for one assumed that the two Hollywood types (one the showrunner for an Emmy-winning series, the other the producer of a film that had won an Oscar just a few weeks prior) had likely included their resumes in their emails to Thornton.

For the most part, however, we all remained mystified.

There Were Never Enough Crunchberries.

Yet, nothing about Thornton was intimidating. As difficult as he was to reach over email, he became the most approachable of chefs for those who made it inside his apartment.

Slight and quiet, he approached the table almost meekly at the start of each course to announce what we were about to eat (and more than once, conversation did not stop because he spoke too softly for some diners to hear him). He invited us to walk around and inspect his loft, to ask questions, even to come into the kitchen and watch as he and his half-dozen assistants prepared our food.

This, Thornton said, was the experience had had always wanted as a diner—the freedom to get up and walk around and digest, to peer into the kitchen, to ask the chef questions. But those freedoms were impossible in a traditional restaurant setting. So he set out to create it on his own.

As Thornton spoke about his vision for Wolvesmouth, his desire to share his food in a more intimate way than a restaurant allowed seemed genuine to the point of innocence. He has delegated almost all responsibilities, like the guest list, to others, so he can focus on only the cooking. He described the meals as, simply, “the food I would actually want to eat,” as distinct from most tasting menus around the city, which he found ostentatious and too heavy to eat comfortably in a single sitting.

With one dessert, which combined strawberries in almost every possible form (fresh, dehydrated, made into meringue, cooked into a wafer) balanced atop a buttermilk panna cotta, he hoped to evoke the Cap’n Crunch cereal he had eaten as a child.

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This Is Exactly What We Wanted.

But slowly, through the course of the evening, Wolvesmouth’s work-ings began to reveal themselves.

Some courses that looked like abstract art on the plate clicked into focus only after I began to chew. The rabbit with balls of cornmeal and cilantro sauce was actually a deconstructed taco. A dish described as pork belly and lobster turned out to be a slyly winking surf and turf. The “surf” was a modernist lobster roll, with the meat piled atop a remoulade—celery root provided the traditional celery flavor while thin slices of snap pea offered the flecks of green and the crunch.

One of the desserts, a chocolate mousse with raspberry sorbet and blueberry meringue, which was probably my favorite dish of the night, tasted like a walk through the woods.

When all nine courses had been consumed and guests began to wan-der very slowly towards the door, Thornton and his staff hung around and answered questions. Caleb Chen, one of his early disciples, con-firmed that, as we’d suspected, Wolvesmouth did try to accommodate out-of-towners when possible, because it might be their only chance to attend, whereas the rest of us could keep emailing month after month. He showed off the array of melon ballers in a dozen sizes, the smallest of them scooping out nearly microscopic spheres, which they used to shape just about everything but melons.

“This is exactly what we wanted to create when we first set out to do this,” Thornton said.

But Wolvesmouth is expanding. In June, Thornton hosted his first dinner in New York. The move to a proper, above-ground restaurant is inevitable.

He is already looking for a space. It would be the same idea, Caleb said: one seating a night at a communal table, so as to keep the feel the same as it is in his apartment.

Yet, as Wolvesmouth becomes more accessible, as it becomes pos-sible to make a reservation with a simple phone call, it will also lose some of the vital elements from its current iteration.

The intimacy of eating in the chef’s own apartment will be gone. Even if he allows diners, in defiance of health regulations, to wander into the kitchen as they do now, we will no longer be able to inspect the books stacked on his floor (Dan Brown’s “Deception Point” lay at the apex of the pile) or photograph his bathtub (where he has allowed colorful candle wax to drip down along the tile wall).

That is, guests will no loner get a taste of how the chef lives, as well as how he cooks. A Wolvesmouth restaurant, no matter how hard it is to get into, will just be about the food. Doubtless, it will do just fine on food alone. For my money, the food kicks the ass of what’s on offer at the city’s top modernist restaurants, like Ink, which compared with Wolvesmouth, feel, well, a little dull.

But those hints of danger already grow fainter as Thornton’s notori-ety continues to grow. The air of mystery that permeates the entire Wolvesmouth experience will be almost impossible to preserve when health inspectors are posting letter grades on the window.

At that point, Thornton may no longer be the cattle’s savior. He will likely become another cattle driver.

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COMINGAlly Hasche + Photographs by Casey Winkleman

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In December of 2012, Thank You For Coming emerged as a new restaurant and volun-teer-run food and art hybrid in Atwater Village. Ally Hasche sat down with organizers Laura Noguera, Jenn Su, Jonathan Robert and Cynthia Su to talk about how the marriage of food, music and art creates a conversation about the importance of community. How do you start, maintain, and move forward with an abstract and multi-purpose space?

Ally Hasche How did the idea for Thank You For Coming generate?Laura We were all living in LA. We started working on the idea and we had some ideas for a food space for a long time. We really started working on this around November 2011.

AH Are you all chefs?TYFC No, none of us are chefs.

AH How do you think the interaction with food becomes a social and emotional connection? Jenn I don’t think it becomes it, it just always is it. I think it’s a given. Laura That’s part of what nourishment is in general.

AH What do you hope your patrons take away from the experience of dining and collaborating with TYFC? Laura Let’s talk about the collaborating first. Right now we are in the process of figuring out how to better collaborate within our space. Part of that is restructuring how we run our residency program and trying to figure out how to better value our volunteers in this whole process. They add so much to the experience and the projects that we’re housing in this space. We worked on the Source Family Project and one of the intentions in the project was to explore what it means to communally produce work rather than sort of just collectively support each other’s work. The Source Family was a commune and a collective in the late 60s, early 70s. They lived in the Hollywood Hills and ran a restaurant on Sunset Boulevard called The Source. They were at the peak of their membership when they had around 140 people in one house, “The Father House.” The amount of work they produced during that time was so extensive.Jenn Their restaurant was really popular; they were bringing in around half a million a year. They made a lot of babies and publica-tions and they performed a lot and housed concerts.Laura Their aim was to be of service to the community of LA  while including their spiritual practices. That’s been a jumping-off point for us.

AH Do you try to understand The Source Fam-ily as a model for TYFC? Or was it a general interest in their model and ideology?Jenn People are really interested in The Source Family from the standpoint of popular culture.

There was a book published on them in 2007 and their documentary film recently came out, which is why we partnered with Cinefamily for that residency. There are members of the family that are still active and talking about their history. It’s a big part of LA, rock n’ roll, and psychedelic history, as well as 60s and 70s counter-culture. We love their story and the things they did. We love that they had a restaurant, but it’s also interesting how they were able to be so prolific. What did they do to become what they were? Of course there are interesting things about their structure, like the patriarchal father figure.Laura We have chosen not to re-create that part...

AH Beside discluding the patriarchal structure, are you avoiding the commune-type approach?Laura We are here a lot. So even though we don’t sleep here, having this communal experience of eating at least two meals together a day and that sort of thing... that happens here. That part of it is inher-ently in our project. Using that experience to make more stuff, make more music, you know. Create more.

AH Is TYFC considered a restaurant or a multi-purpose space?Jenn It’s definitely a multi-purpose space. We label it as a restaurant so we can legally sell food.

AH When your dinners take place are the customers purchasing their food?Laura Yes. We’re volunteer-run, all of our proceeds from our food sales go to support the basic organizational costs; essentially, rent and utilities. No one is paid any sort of salary. Everyone gets fed.

AH What have been the main challenges you’ve faced in getting started?Jenn Well, there is definitely all of the stuff that goes into trying to start a business. We are trying to explore all of these ideas and work with each other and people. But at the same time trying to under-stand how to sustain ourselves. That’s really difficult.Laura I would definitely say one of the biggest challenges has been figuring out how to do everything without being pigeonholed. Being accepted only as a restaurant, only as an art space, only as a music space, or whatever it is. Everyone wants to define our project and put it in a box that isn’t always applicable, and it doesnt hurt us - but we have to remember we are free to do whatever we want. The challenge is cultivating that open-mindedness to the press as well as the public.

PAGE 51 Laura, Jenn Su, Jonathan, and Cynthia of TYFC (Top)

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AH Is there a conceptual theory or theme that is meant to be shared with every resi-dency? Do you pick the residents according to the theme of their proposal? Laura Our residents propose the projects and we collaborate to pull it off.Jenn Once we start getting into a project, because it is so collabora-tive and we are working closely with people, it becomes our project too. We start thinking about context and start thinking about why this project is important to us and why we are interested in doing it, presenting it and working on it. It’s important for us to have those things to motivate us to want to do it.

AH Can you talk about the ways in which you draw inspiration from artists, such as Flux-ist performance artist Alison Knowles and in particular, “Identical Lunch,” her piece for the SMART Museum’s “FEAST: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art?” Could you expand on how this particular artist influ-enced a series of meals TYFC created?Laura That was a week long project that we did. We called it the same thing that she called it, Identical Lunch, and we served the same meal that she ate for that project.

AH And you served it for the entirety of a week?Laura A whole week for lunch and dinner.

AH How did that go?Laura It was amazing. It was definitely an exercise in adhering to an artist’s vision and a way to explore a good structure for us and our volunteers. How to figure out how to get our volunteers and all of us behind the same project was interesting. We figured out what the lunch would look like and what it was. It was three pickled carrots, a glass of buttermilk on a tray and a sandwich cut in half. Everything had to look the same, so we had a photo. It was good. It was also about figuring out how to say no to patrons who didn’t want to eat tuna and letting them know that that was all we had. It was difficult for some of our volunteers but that was the beauty of it as a practice.

AH What do you think about the LA food cul-ture and how it has affected opening TYFC?Laura I don’t feel like we’re very popular amongst food people. Jenn It’s difficult for us to understand our context within something and again, we don’t necessarily want to be pigeonholed within it. Obviously we are interested in food and what food does, how food tastes... Cynthia I don’t know if we even understand the food culture in LA and if we participate in it. Jenn Well...we participate in it, I just don’t think we are actively trying to be part of that one thing.

Laura The coolest part about our participation is the only way we know anything is from the actual chefs that come through. We have chefs that volunteer with us occasionally and they teach us so much and tell us what’s going on. That’s our connection to food culture.Jonathan We created our own culture when it just came to us eating together. It’s like “Hey, I cooked a big pot of soup, come over and hang out, lets do Supper Sunday.” It just came out of eating and being together. I think that’s LA based in that way but it is really our own type of community that we are trying to share with more people. Laura That’s how TYFC started. Cynthia We are reacting in the way that we eat together. We un-derstand what it means to go to a restaurant versus what happens when we all cook food and eat together. Jenn I think a lot of people talk about us and are interested in us ideologically, but all of us have had conversations with people where it’s like, “Oh,  I’ve totally heard about it, that’s cool.” And it’s like... then come in! A lot of people have talked about it and not come in. That’s what we’re saying in terms of the challenges. We’re not worried that people find this interesting but it’s more of actually coming and eating and hanging out, that’s what we do here. I mean...an example of the way we are connected is working with a local food farmer in Pasadena. We go and harvest stuff on his farm when we can. Those kinds of connections are cool.

AH Do you have goals that you haven’t tagged down yet?Laura We always have to remind ourselves  that this is a process and we haven’t fully figured it out yet. We’re still a work in progress. It’s always evolving.Jenn It’s experimental. Everyone always has goals and visions with these kinds of things, but it’s the beauty of it that we don’t know what’s going to happen and if it doesn’t happen that’s ok. We’re still participating actively in the process and figuring it out.

www.thankyouforcoming.la 3416 Glendale Blvd. 90039

THE FRUITS

OF URBAN IDENTITYCasey Winkleman + Photos courtesy of Fallen Fruit

Liberated by the open sky and light breeze upon exiting the doors at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the expansive courtyard, albeit caged in by restricting fences and thought-fully planted palm trees, is an inviting sight after a lengthy walk through the museum labyrinth. A half-dome seating area draws you in, and a sim-ple fruit tree stands tall in the center of the oasis. Artist collec-tive Fallen Fruit’s “Public Fruit Theater” invites you to sit and reflect on the ever-present fruit tree that is commonly lost in the urban landscape. The piece generates a thoughtful space that effectively highlights the abundance of harvest through-out the streets of Los Angeles.

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Fallen Fruit is a collaboration between artists Matias Viegener, David Burns, and Austin Young, who always position fruit trees at the center of their process. Coining the term “public fruit,” the food-based initiative has continuously expanded notions of space and the function of art in contemporary culture. Though they have never adopted the loaded label of “community organiz-ers,” rather opting to identify strictly as artists, they have repurposed would-be wasted fruit in past projects, and have a history of activating volunteers. To the artists themselves, knowing the extent of change they are creating seems less important than the perpetuation of their projects within an art-oriented context. Austin told VIA Publication, “We don’t think of ourselves as a charity project. We’re artists, and if we shift communities in the process, this is not our initial aim but we are pleased to see it happen.” With an emphasis more in line with aesthetic art-making than long-term community problem solving, the argument for widespread change is merely a symptom of their artistic process.

Their work dwells deep within the immaterial encounters and offerings manifested by their many participants. Since the inception of Fallen Fruit, great attention has been paid to the numerous fruit trees that dot the city. Documenting each neighborhood’s fruit trees and plotting their location on digital “public fruit maps,” their data collections serve as a platform of focus for these resource-ful entities.

Institutions that have featured Fallen Fruit’s artworks, including LACMA and the University of Chicago’s SMART Museum, provide an academic context for the show. But how does this kind of work transfer into the socio-political economy? Art historian and con-tributing writer to October Journal, Claire Bishop, notes, “One could argue that in this context, project-based works-in-progress and artists-in-residence begin to dovetail with an ‘experience economy,’ the marketing strategy that seeks to replace goods and services with scripted and staged personal experiences.”1 It is still highly debated whether or not these sorts of projects engage real, lasting social change. The artworks that exist within the experiential space of personal encounters are difficult to measure in terms of their longevity in breaking social stigmas of the place of fruit trees in our lives, and more-over how their usage creates new communities.

Most recently, Fallen Fruit has generated new communities outside of the institutional space and into the public domain. On-the-ground community-building connections manifest in the events and fruit tree adoptions facilitated by the trio. Engaging the com-munity surrounding Del Aire Fruit Park, California’s first public fruit park, the collective was free from the hierarchy of institutional regulation. Sought out by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission to beautify the area with 27 fruit trees and several events, they spearheaded a fruit tree adoption, and an installment of a Public Fruit Jam, where participants created homemade jams.2 The adoptions moved trees out of the park and into homes to decorate and serve as food sources on private property and among domestic spaces. User-based art projects such as these add to the expansion of how and where this work is being perceived and understood. Progressing from this “goods” turned “experience” economy poses loaded questions pertaining to the advancement of real change this kind of work produces in the world. Within the act of voluntary participation comes other actions such as planting more fruit trees, spreading the word, and initiating fresh perspectives in relation to these often overlooked subjects.

Because museums like LACMA are rooted in a history of a traditional art-viewing experience, new forms of encounters are naturally being founded by contemporary artists themselves in order to expand the definition to the age-old question: what constitutes art? By annihilating the requirement for institutional validation, activist-based art takes to the public sector where individuals may have a unique, unplanned experience of the work. In this new model, spectators become participants for a more immersive connection with artworks. Claire Bishop addresses the traditional museum’s limitations for participatory art: “Rather than a discrete, portable, autonomous work of art that transcends its context, relational art is entirely beholden to the contingencies of its environment and audience. Moreover, this audience is envisaged as a community: rather than a one-to-one relationship between work of art and viewer, relational art sets up situations in which viewers are not just addressed as a collective, social entity, but are actually given the wherewithal to create a community, however temporary or utopian this may be.”3

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PAGE 54 Public Fruit WallpaperPAGE 57 The Way Potatoes Go, by Åsa Sonjasdotter, curated by Fallen Fruit at EATLACMA, 2010 (Top),“Public Fruit Theater” at EATLACMA (Bottom)

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Opting for a process which adopts an idealistic outlook, the concrete results are attuned to the realities of urbanism. This is not to say the results of their labors become blinded by visions of euphoria, rather when their projects go live and people populate the work, authentic interactions conjure unexpected relations and inevitably raise economic quandaries relating to this urban environment. In maintaining this atypical approach, innovations in experience arise in the freedom of what kinds of spaces this work belongs in. Varying the ways in which art is observed, understood, and in time absorbed into society at large invites an array of options for the question of “where?”

Within the projects that lie ahead for Fallen Fruit, their current ideas will expand upon the work that has already been created. Fallen Fruit executed a detailed, idealistic vision for their LA2050 proposal, Endless Orchard.* The concept behind the installation involved the presentation of a fruit tree surrounded by kaleidoscopic mirrors, creating a hypnotic illusion of an infinite orchard. Though the grant money instead went to The Hammer Museum’s proposal in the Arts & Cultural Vitality category, the loss was not met with hopelessness. “Even though we did not win, we will find a way to fund this project. It has been in the works for some time, and though it is still in the conceptual stages we want to make Endless Orchard happen,” Matias said in interview. The vision behind the installation and determination to see it through is undoubtedly reflective of their idealic perspective that has pushed their collective forward for nearly a decade.

Funding for Endless Orchard will likely result from grant applications geared towards creative placemaking principles. Project for Public Space, or PPS, defines place-making as a “multi-faceted approach to the planning, design, and management of public spaces. Put simply, it involves looking at, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work and play in a particular space, to discover their needs and aspirations.”4 The National Endowment of the Arts illustrates what they look for in their creative place-making grant: “Our research finds that through creative place-making, arts and culture make substantial contributions to local economic development, livability, and cultural industry competitiveness. These contributions have not been given their due in public policy.”5 Questions concerning whether or not public projects such as Fallen Fruits’ have economic viability in the mar-ketplace come close to reaching answers when considering the active part their projects play within neighborhood communities.

To test Fallen Fruit’s specific change would be nearly impossible, since much of their art lives within the performative, personal experiences of its participants. The spread of change does not exist in a vacuum, rather the expanse of their work is immeasur-able in that their influence crosses over numerous territories. In considering the prolific body of work produced by Fallen Fruit, ambiguous continuity exists outward into the public parks, residential pathways, private domestic spaces, and discursive conver-sations that hold just as much weight as the physical space to which it is bound.

Whether presenting work in a prestigious museum, artist-run gallery, or outdoor public park, there is always an inherent criticality of the spaces themselves. The constant is the fruit tree, a symbol for abundance, growth, and vitality.6 Interactions facilitated by Fallen Fruit use this living thing as a way to initiate conversation and performative social engagement. The art of it only comes forth once an intimate situation with people takes place. Establishing community in these varying spaces around LA gives way to a solidifying identity in relation to fruit trees. Like these trees, Angelenos also bare a desire to plant roots, no matter how nomadic or transitional their experience to this transient city may be. There is little separation between communal identity and a feeling of closeness to the diverse urban terrain.

1 Bishop, Claire. “Antagonism And Relational Aesthetics.” October 110 (2004): 51-79. Print.2 ”Civic Art: Del Aire Park.” LA County Arts Commission. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 June 2013. <http://www.lacountyarts.org/civicart/projectdetails/id/182 >.3 Bishop, Claire. “Antagonism And Relational Aesthetics.” October 110 (2004): 51-79. Print.4 “Project for Public Spaces | What is Placemaking?.” Project for Public Space. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 June 2013. <http://www.pps.org/reference/what_is_placemaking/>.5 Markusen, Ann, Markusen Economic Research Services, Anne Gadwa, and American Archi-tectural Foundation. NEA 2010. 77 pp.. “Creative Placemaking.” National Endowment for the Arts Home Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 June 2013. <http://arts.gov/pub/pubCat.php?cat=Design >.6 Burns, David , Matias Viegener, and Austin Young. “About Fallen Fruit .” Fallen Fruit. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 June 2013. <http://fallenfruit.org/about/>.* Spearheaded by the Goldhirsh Foundation, LA2050 was a semi-democratic, competitive grant divided into eight subcategories: education, income and employment, health, public safety, housing, environmental quality, arts and cultural vitality, and social connectedness. LA2050 grants were awarded in late Spring of 2013.

PAGE 59 Public Fruit Tree Adoptions, public participatory project, 2007 – ongoing (Top), Public Fruit Meditation, public participatory performance, 2011 – ongoing at Hammer Museum (Bottom)

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JULIE NIEMIJulie Niemi is an organizer, writer, and researcher interested in the intersections of contemporary art, politics, publications, and curatorial practice. She holds a BFA in Arts Management and Art History from Columbia College Chicago and currently lives in Los Angeles, where she is a communications organizer at NationBuilder, a tech start-up based in Downtown LA.

CLAIRE BOUTELLEClaire spends her time designing and letterpress printing in her downtown Los Angeles studio, Small Press LA. Her inclinations to organize, document, and share mean that she’s often taking pho-tos or recording audio, and are also reasons why graphic design satisfies her creative cravings. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Claire has been living in the Arts District of LA for two years.

ALLY HASCHEAlly Hasche is a musician originally from Northern California and is currently residing in LA. She is the manager at The South Pasadena Music Center and Conservatory and is working towards her BA in Art History at Cal Poly Pomona. Ally founded LAADS Magazine, an annual Davis-centered arts and culture publication in 2010. She moved to Chicago in 2012 to work as a gallery assistant for Alderman Exhibitions. Her interests in music, art, and culture favor to the rest-less research that backs VIA.

CONTRIBUTORS

GRANT von ALETTI FALLEN FRUITFETTE SANSLA FORTLEAH SHIRLEY MARTHA KIRSZENBAUMMAURA LUCKINGSCI-ArcSTONES THROW RECORDSTHANK YOU FOR COMING

CASEY WINKLEMANCasey Winkleman is a freelance photographer and writer currently living in Los Angeles. Born and raised in the Chicagoland area, she went on to study Art History and Photography at Columbia College Chicago. Before moving to LA for a job at Samy’s Camera, Casey worked in Registrar at an arts restoration house, second shot for photographers around the city, and organized art talks and symposia.

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THANK YOUTO ALL WHOSE CONTRIBUTIONS HELPED US PRODUCE ISSUE 01

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Melinda AmatoMelinda Culea

Nicholas ChiricoNicole Hilaire

Nicole PandolaPam MossPat Elifritz

The Pie Hole LARichard Alicea

Roberta ReichtellSamantha Doyle

Sarah CikoSarah DixonScott Liken

Scott PaganoSpmcc Inc.

Sunny WinklemanSusan Sironi

Taylor PineiroTempestt Hazel

William Kaminski

Aaron RandAbraham Handler

Alexandra StalionisAlison PearlmanAndrea Carroll

Augustine CarrilloCatherine Boutelle

Cato KyvikChari Pradel

Cherri and Russ DeCiccoCindy and Herb HascheClif and Judy Boutelle

Control RoomCraig Tiger SmithDavid Winkleman

Debbie WinklemanEthan RoederEve Ruether

Gavin DeSchutterGillian Bergeron

Ishan ChakrabartiJackie Dandelion

Jasmine Mkrtchyan Jason MeerJeff Moss

Jeffery AustinJennifer Farrell

Jim GilliamJonathan Pivovar

Jordan SaiaJoseph ConteJustin SullivanJustin TeichenKatie YordingKimberly KimLaura BealerLaura Milas

Lauren HallmanLauren MermelLeonard Decicco

Louise RaguetMatt Austin

Matt WovroshMaura Lucking

VIA Publication is a quarterly print magazine and online platform that documents visual art, music, and food culture within contemporary LA life. We publish and archive original content brought forth by our staff and contributors.

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