Break-up Billboards

Billboard on Venice Blvd just west of the 405.  Image from AdiosLA.  All Rights Reserved. 

Map of Billboard Locations - all locations are tagged in Google Maps for easy directions.  Image from AdiosLA.  All Rights Reserved. 

In the spirit of change and new beginnings, an LA-bred designer brings some year-end cheer to LA with AdiosLA, an art project using billboards and the web to publicly break-up with the City of Los Angeles as he prepares to move to New York for a new job.    Curbed LA has the story:

Designer Jon Jackson grew up in Glendale and has lived in and around Los Angeles his whole life (right now he's in Santa Monica), but recently he decided to take a job as a creative director at an interactive advertising agency in New York, and he's breaking up with his long-time lovah via billboard. You couldn't have texted, Jon? Jackson tells Curbed in an email that he thought this was an appropriate way to say goodbye to "a city where art is always tough to find, but rewarding when you do." He writes: "I hope that there will be a bit of inspiration from the boards, intrigue and definitely a laugh. I think we all have things in our lives big or small that we know we need to 'break up' with." While a friend at a billboard company helped him out with the project, he says that prices are low right now and "I paid what anyone else would pay." Jackson's five designs went up yesterday and will stay up until January 15. You can see some outtakes here.
· Adios LA [Official Site]

Definitely a funny way to say goodbye to your hometown, and a nice way to use an iconic feature of LA to communicate your message, similar to the MAK Center's billboard-based art exhibit earlier this year.  Good luck to Jon in New York,  although I have a feeling LA will be happy to take Jon back if he changes his mind sometime in the future. She is a forgiving mistress. 

Santa Monica Glow

"Intersection" by Freewaves & SuperExpo

This post is a few weeks late in coming, but I had the chance to attend the 2010 Santa Monica Glow festival this year, and was duly impressed by the scope and scale of the event.  Glow showcases a number of light artists and light-focused installations for one-night in downtown Santa Monica, and on Santa Monica Beach around the Santa Monica Pier.  Typically the installations feature interactive components in addition to light-based art, and the event draws as many as 250,000 attendees every year.  As you can tell from some of the pictures, the projects vary from the whimsical to the reflective.  Because of the sheer scale of the festival, I wasn't able to see all of the projects, but probably my favorite was an interactive projection installation titled "Sandbox" by Spanish artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.  Sadly, I did not get any photos of it, but the official description provides a taste of the project:

Visitors are are invited to dip their hands into two sandboxes, which are alive with the small 'ghosts' of the Glow audience projected onto their surfaces.  As visitors play in the sand, real-time images of their hands are transmitted into an 8,000 square feet area of the adjacent beach, radically enlarging human scale to the gigantic. 
- "Sandbox", Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

The result was a fantastic, slightly creepy, but wholly mesmerizing installation that captivated people's imaginations in a unique and compelling way.  Some other interesting projects included an architectural installation titled "Luminous Passage" by Predock & Frane, an interactive project called "La Bella Luna" by Anne Herlihy, a video piece titled "coast lines" by Steve Roden, and "shapednoise" by Celeste Boursier-Mougenot.  As the pictures and videos show below, "La Bella Luna" featured a floating orb with the projected faces of volunteer karoke singers, creating a disembodied, YouTube-esque display and icon on the beach.  "shapednoise" had perhaps the best, wonderously bizarre aspect to it of the evening, as a lifeguard tower was slowly consumed by foam.  All in all, an impressive group of projects that not only provided some interesting art, but also energized Santa Monica Beach as a mass public space for a night.  More descriptions of all of the projects at available on the Glow website. 

"La Bella Luna" by Anne Herlihy

"La Bella Luna" by Anne Herlihy

"Luminous Passage" by Predock-Frane Architects.

"shapednoise" by Celeste Boursier-Mougenot

M&A Extraterritorial Build Opening - Sun. Jan 31st

The Extraterritorial Build in place a week before the opening.
(images from M&A. all rights reserved)

LA Landscape favorites M & A's most recent project "Extraterritorial Build" is opening this weekend at the Barnsdall Art Park Municipal Gallery from 2-5pm. The piece is part of a group show titled "Actions, Conversation, and Intersections," showcasing participatory projects. The show runs from Jan. 28th - Apr. 18th in case you miss tomorrow's opening. 

Urban Sketchers

(image from Virginia Hein.  All Rights Reserved)

The good people at land8lounge tipped me off to Urban Sketchers, a great blog dedicated to sharing user-generated sketches from around the world.  As their website explains,

Urban Sketchers is a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising the artistic, storytelling and educational value of location drawing, promoting its practice and connecting people around the world who draw on location where they live and travel.

The site features an impressive stylistic diversity, and its content is updated daily for a regular dose of inspiration.  For LA residents, check out the work of Virginia Hein, one of the site's featured correspondents.  Virginia is a Pasadena-based toy designer, illustrator, and drawing and design instructor with a great collection of watercolors and sketches from around Los Angeles.  Her inspiration?  She is "drawn to places that feel like the “old” Los Angeles (which is relative of course!). I never tire of the effects of atmosphere (what some unkindly call smog!), the verticals of the palm trees and horizontals of freeways… and the many brush-covered hills."

Richard Neutra, Architect: Sketches and Drawings

The Los Angeles Central Library is also hosting a great exhibit of drawings in their Getty Gallery by the famed architect Richard Neutra until March 28th, 2010.

“Richard Neutra, Architect: Sketches and Drawings”

May 3, 2009 – March 28, 2010
Central Library – Getty Gallery

The pieces range from early pencil sketches as a student to later pastel renderings of his Los Angeles houses from the 1950s. I had the chance to view the exhibit today, and was impressed by the range and quality of the drawings presented.  The exhibit showcases watercolors, ink drawings, pencil sketches, and pastels, and features both finished and study drawings.  I was particularly drawn to the significant number of landscape studies on display, and the joyfulness Neutra took in exploring various representation modes in architectural drawings.  It was also warming to see trace paper lovingly preserved by the curators despite torn edges and the effects of time on such a fragile, but vital, communication medium in the design fields.  Definitely worth the visit.

Postcard LA

The Los Angeles Central Library is a treasure in the heart of LA.  Not only is it a beautiful building flanked by the charming Maguire Gardens, it also puts on great programs and exhibits.  While in downtown this morning, I stopped by the Annenberg Gallery, and found a "Hollywood" themed exhibit of pieces from their special collections.  Among the maps,movie posters, and citrus labels, was a grouping of old postcards depicting the homes of celebrities in LA.  Seeing them got me thinking about how much postcards and media images craft our expectations of LA's landscape as a paradise on earth.  For non-residents and residents alike, these images of glamorous LA spoke of economic empowerment and a verdant paradise, leading people to move west and craft an LA much in this image.  And, looking at them today, they still feel quintessentially LA.  They still remain an image of something people aspire to in the land of dreams.  But, as we face serious water supply issues and the realities of sustainability in Southern California's Megapolis, isn't it time for a new image of LA?

Wayne Thiebaud + Frances Gearhart at PMCA

Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) is hosting a retrospective of Wayne Theibaud's paintings and a selection of Frances Gearhart's block prints of the California and Pacific Coast landscapes.  Although the shows have been up since October, I finally visited today, and all I can say is wow!  I have always been a fan of Thiebaud's work, but was blown away by how vibrant, graphic, and textural the paintings are in person.  And, I continue to appreciate his rich, quirky paintings of the California landscape even more since moving into the field of landscape architecture.  There is something about the bright palette, skewed perspective, and joyful presentation that rekindles a deep appreciation for the beauty of California's natural and urban landscapes.  In contrast, the skillful block prints by Gearhart showcase an Arts and Crafts sensibility that celebrates a naturalistic vision of California.  Gearhart's attention to detail and compositional ability also shine through in the exhibit.  While both artists provide unique representations, a common appreciation for California permeates with equal measures of compositional and graphic inspiration for all designers and artists to draw upon.  Hurry, as the exhibitions close on Jan. 31st.

"Empty LA"

(images from http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a7b36a73970b-pi. All rights reserved by Matt Logue)

The LA Times showcased the most recent project by photographer Matt Logue the other day.  Titled "Empty LA", the four-year project depicts an uninhabited Los Angeles.  Logue used a method he describes as a digital mosaic to piece together hundreds of pictures of recognizable locations shot during low-traffic times to produce images without a trace of people or cars.  The work is both lonely and peaceful at the same time, and generates a quiet appreciation for the city.  You can order copies of his book or see more of the work here.

M&A

Wanted to share M&A (or Materials and Applications), an interesting architecture and design collective in los angeles exploring temporary spaces, community involvement, and sustainable design through ephemeral art projects.  They have a permanent display space in Silverlake, and work on a variety of projects throughout LA.  Their summer 2009 installation, Back to Basics, was a "rainwater-fed aquaoponic fish taco farm".  Their current project is in production right now and will open at Barnsdall Park on Jan. 31st.  The LA Times provided a great profile of the group a few weeks back, and more info can be found at their website.