Bettina Korek Archive

[bkorekarchive]

Cultural Capital 

An investment program aims to shake up traditional funding models in the arts.

By Bettina Korek 

Photos by Matthew Scott

Los Angeles artist Mark Bradford, who will represent the United States at this year’s Venice Biennale, recently addressed a group of museum supporters, saying, “We should push the boundaries of what it means to be an artist.” He is following through on that credo with his organization Art + Practice, which brings museum programming to the underserved L.A. neighborhood of Leimert Park while supporting local foster youth.

To keep up with the evolving nature of art-production enterprises like Bradford’s, several institutions and sponsors devoted to art are likewise changing their strategies. A standout is the L.A.-based Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI), a nonprofit that supports projects linking philanthropic institutions with individual artists. For CCI president and CEO Angie Kim, the program ultimately attempts to erase the delineation between the “high art” of the traditional art world and the “low art” of commerce. CCI is potentially the beginning of an expanding ecosystem that will incorporate art into local economies and vice versa.

Since its founding, in 2001, CCI’s primary intent has been to unfetter artists’ productivity and impact through its support network. The organization’s collaborators include forward-thinking supporters who share an exceptionally broad understanding of art, such as L.A.’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the Surdna Foundation, and the Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation. These groups are finding ways to provide the building blocks for a new breed of independent creative entities, allowing more artists such as Bradford to step out of standard artistic channels.

This year, through a pilot program called the Creative Industries Incentive Network (CIIN)—which operates in L.A., Richmond, San Francisco, San Jose, and Santa Ana—and its Los Angeles Creative Economic Development Fund, CCI will give $100,000 in grants, each up to $12,500, to a wide range of culturally minded start-ups and various five-person-and-under ventures. Kim describes the fund, which aims to spur economic impact in L.A. through art, this way: “These are grants for artists who are pursuing an artistic practice in order to have a positive social impact, using a commercial business strategy.”

CIIN’s decision to call its efforts an “investment program” no doubt creates the shadow of capitalism (and the question of whether it allows for an exploration of prosperity without growth). It also brings to mind the values of venture funding—driven by the constraints of scale, margin, and exit—which are generally at odds with the creative process. The program’s desire, though, is a worthy one: to promote experimentation at the intersection of art and economic development, and to bridge the two.

Most notably, CIIN addresses a gap not just in the current arts-funding system, but also in the financing of small commercial businesses. It’s difficult, if not impossible, for most artists (Christo aside) to secure financing based on artistic product, or to qualify for micro financing or credit lines. Most nonprofit giving still focuses on more traditional studio and gallery practices, ignoring social or commercial outcomes. But with tastes and tides changing, CCI is positioned to provide something different: funding for a broad range of cultural entities. “[CCI] doesn’t privilege artists who are studio practitioners or who have an MFA,” Kim says. “The pool is intentionally diverse.”

Kim highlights previous grantee Mi Vida, a boutique that promotes artists of its East L.A. community who are making objects that reflect their cultural identity. Another grantee, Public Matters, trains younger generations of the city’s Historic Filipino town to conduct local tours by jeepney. Other CCI-supported groups include Project Q, a retail business that provides free haircuts and styling for homeless queer and trans youth out of an Airstream trailer, and the organization LURN (Leadership for Urban Renewal Network), which assists entrepreneurs and artists, and works to legalize street vending to help low-income immigrants.

From the looks of it, and if Kim has her way, approaches to art practice’s like Bradford’s could become a lot more common very soon.

[bkorekarchive]

Tight Knit

Annie Lee Larson approaches her clothing label with an artist’s attention to craft.

By Bettina Korek 

Photos by Katie Thompson 

At a time when mass-market brands tout the “handmade” quality of their products in food and fashion alike, it’s clear that the public has an increasing hunger for everything artisanal. This development can be traced to the late aughts, when the indie-craft movement took off on the internet, producing an explosion of DIY and design blogs—and, of course, Etsy.

Annie Lee Larson, founder of the knitwear line ALL, notes that this shift toward the “micro” was indeed a collective reaction to the very online technology that empowered it, helping millions to develop their craft and promote their work. “It leveled the playing field,” she says.

Larson, 33, was raised in Wisconsin, and launched ALL in a Minneapolis storefront in 2010, partly in response to three years of working as a designer for Target. While many independent designers dream of producing on such a large scale, the corporate context wasn’t a good fit for her. “I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do in the long term,” she says. ALL—which takes its name from her initials—speaks both to Larson’s inclusive ethos and to the democratic qualities of knitting—something that can be personalized and is available to anyone.

In 2011, Larson moved the company to New York. Today ALL is known for its bold colors, bright patterns, and inventive shapes, each piece coming directly out of her Brooklyn studio. 

On the surface, it may seem that founding ALL was Larson’s lifelong dream. But when she was first starting out, she had no experience making knitwear. In 2009, on a whim, she bought her first sewing machine. Shortly after attending a knitting-machine demonstration, she bought one of those, too: “I practiced a lot over the next eight to 10 months before starting the label.” Larson has since purchased several of these Brother double-bed machines—popular with hand knitters until they were taken out of production, in the 1990s. Similar to the fate of Polaroid, these early technologies built to enhance human creativity became evermore rare due to the difficulty in finding parts and materials. Ironically, Larson has had to downgrade her computer in order to install the knitwear technology she uses to translate her designs into patterns.

Now, with a successful company and a devoted following—her brand is sold by retailers around the world, from Shanghai toSydney—Larson has come a long way from her early corporate career in the Midwest.She teaches two courses at The New School in New York, and continues to push the boundaries of her craft. Fashion trends are of little concern to her. Because knitwear,according to Larson, has never entered theNew York fashion world “in a way that feels committed,” she has avoided working in the mold of traditional seasons. Instead, she has built a body of work composed of about 60 vibrant designs.

Which brings up another key component of Larson’s practice: She looks to the work of artists—particularly the colorful, linear aesthetic of Jim Drain—for inspiration. And she engages with them directly. For example,she recently made a trade with Los Angeles artist Ry Rocklen: in exchange for his bootleg Clinton-Sanders 2016 sweatshirt,she offered him a shirt with an allover grid pattern formed by two versions of “Made in the USA” tags that she created. (Knitting,in this case, was not involved.) Personal and hands-on, Larson’s efforts embrace those of many of her artist counterparts. In large part thanks to the internet, she’s gotten her work out there.

[bkorekarchive]

Straight Shooter

For this rising L.A. photographer, capturing art doesn’t have to be complicated.

By Bettina Korek

Portrait By Yuri Hasegawa

In today’s hashtag-driven age, artists have many ways to present context for their work. For her part, artist Star Montana—born to a Mexican-American family in Los Angeles—asks a pressing question: “What does it mean in 2016 that you can label yourself many things, among them #Latino or #Chicano?”

Montana’s photographs are mostly portraits, shot in the homes and streets of Los Angeles’s Eastside. “I connect with subjects that are often forgotten, or photographed looking down on them,” she says. “I don’t see myself above anybody in that way. I like to make eye contact.” This approach produces an intimate yet forceful point of view. 

Growing up in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, Montana was a self-described “wild child.” But she always understood herself as an observer. “When I was partying, I never liked to be a part of a group; I liked to be slightly outside. Taking pictures was my way of dealing with the world.” Her grandmother provided her with an endless supply of disposable cameras, and a friend introduced her to classes at East L.A. College, where she acquired technical training before transferring to New York’s School of Visual Arts. 

In May, an exhibition of Montana’s photographs will open at Beta Main, the preliminary iteration of The Main Museum (the primary location is slated to open in Downtown L.A. in 2020). Its director, Allison Agsten, was drawn to the honest, open manner in which the photographer portrays herself and her surroundings, even online. “She’s willing to express herself where others won’t. Her Instagram isn’t populated with photos crafted for social media likes.” Montana’s vulnerability has even encouraged an active dialogue with followers, who often message her to share their own experiences. 

Montana has been in residence at Beta Main since last November, and her project responds to the immediate context of the museum, which is situated near historic Skid Row. It’s an area she knows well: In the late ’90s, when Montana’s grandmother worked at the VA down the street, she volunteered there every summer and witnessed the epidemic of homeless veterans. At the time, many Angelenos avoided going Downtown, but Montana was moved by these marginalized, disenfranchised people. “It influenced how I interpret Downtown and the role it plays in L.A.,” she says.

This isn’t the first time Montana’s work has been recognized: One of her series was on view in an L.A. Metro station for three years, and in 2016 she had a solo exhibition at the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) where she installed a photographic collage that depicted the life of a Latino family in Boyle Heights. 

This is part of how Montana bridges a gap she perceives in the art world between high and low cultures, popular and niche audiences. “I think a lot of art is inaccessible to regular people,” she says. “They don’t feel worthy of it. I experienced that a lot.” Montana hadn’t visited a museum until she was 20. For her show at VPAM, “friends asked, ‘Do I have to pay? Do I have to dress up?’ I’m like, ‘No, you don’t have to do anything. Just come.’” To Montana, appreciation is simple.

[bkorekarchive]

Patron Saint

Dakis Joannou believes supporting the arts is about much more than simply buying work. 

By Bettina Korek 

Patronage, which ideally means supporting creative energies, takes many forms. The myriad of opportunities range from institutional, like joining museum boards or chairing a gala, to the more democratic, such as online platforms like Kickstarter. For Dakis Joannou, founder of the Greecebased Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art, patronage takes on a whole new scope. “Whether it involves collecting, contributing to exhibitions, or simply organizing gatherings, patronage is a question of relationships, of building up networks of friendships through which you contribute to culture,” he says. “By that I mean something different from patronage in the traditional sense of the word.” Like Deste’s exhibition program, driven entirely by Joannou, the foundation’s publications are known for their idiosyncrasy and by projects that are not bound by traditional constraints, like 1968, a book of his Italian Radical period design furniture collection shot by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari in the style of Toilet Paper, their irregularly published artist’s book-magazine of surreal staged photographs, or the co-publication with Paul Chan’s Badlands of a radical new translation of Plato’s Hippias Minor. By taking what the book’s editors call an “unscientific approach,” Deste 33 Years: 1983–2015 retraces the development of Joannou’s foundation in a combination of oral history and archival format; 850 pages of photographs, press clippings, critical reviews, correspondence, and unabashed conversations reveal not only the ups and downs of the foundation, but offer an intimate glimpse into the state of contemporary art. The spirit of the book is driven by Jounnou’s desire to empower artists to generate ideas and connect with contemporary culture. Patronage for those with Medici-scaled aspirations and resources start their own museum. Some reflect trends but for Joannou patronage has always meant something personal. As he writes in the introduction to Deste 33 Years, “For some, art is, above all, a luxury. But not for me. We don’t need it to survive, but we do need it. It’s what man needs to remind him that he’s human after all.” Joannou, who studied engineering and architecture in the U.S., initially set out to create a museum of contemporary culture when he established Deste (which means “look” in Greek) more than three decades ago. According to him, by building a collection, you’re saying, “This is what I believe.”

Jeffrey Deitch (left), Massimiliano Gioni (center), and Dakis Joannou (right) with Maurizio Cattelan at “Monument to Now” (2004) at the Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art.

[bkorekarchive]

Agent Provocateur

Literary agent John Brockman flouts the boundaries between art and science. 

By Bettina Korek 

Portrait by Ogata

One day in 1964, John Brockman went on a stroll through Central Park. He was working as a banker at the time, and wore Brooks Brothers suits almost daily, but he had brought his banjo with him on his walk. Avant-garde artist Jonas Mekas happened to be filming there with his 8 mm camera, and turned his lens on Brockman and the incongruous instrument. The two spoke, and the chance encounter helped send Brockman down a winding, lifelong path through the intersections of science and art. Best known as a literary agent, Brockman’s career has spanned art, science, film, theater, and digital media. For more than 50 years, he has served as a steady intermediary between disciplines, working with everyone from Stewart Brand, creator of The Whole Earth Catalog, to curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. He specializes in science literature and represents a roster of authors—including Jared Diamond and Steven Pinker—who are more widely known than he is. But Brockman’s preference has always been for the perimeter. He founded edge.org, a foundation with the mission of connecting people “working at the edge” of a wide range of disciplines. In his own writing, he advocates for a “third culture,” a synthesis of science and the humanities, with no smaller a goal than “rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives and redefining who we are.” Before he met Mekas, Brockman had moved to New York to start an investment banking company. Yet he had always wanted to be involved in the arts, so when he found out that a friend from childhood was involved with the experimental theater and poetry center, Theater Genesis, in the East Village, he saw an opportunity. After all, this was “the dead center of the most interesting culture of New York at that time, where anyone with a hip sensibility was going to poetry readings,” he says. Always clad in a suit, Brockman often broke down chairs and cleaned the floor. “Everyone at Theater Genesis was working at other places to support their aspirations. Many went on to do great things,” including the celebrated playwright, actor, and director Sam Shepard. After a few months, Brockman proposed a film program at the theater. With the greenlight from its founder, Ralph Cook, dozens of filmmakers showed their work at the first screening. It felt more “open-ended and accessible,” says Brockman, than the program at another avant-garde bastion: the FilmMakers’ Cinematheque, run by Mekas. Meanwhile, Mekas had conceived a new film festival, called New Cinema 1, which enlisted dozens of visual artists to present a work somehow involved with film. Impressed by Brockman’s production, Mekas invited him to run both the Cinematheque and the festival while he traveled to Latvia for six months. Brockman closed his Park Avenue office and, armed with Mekas’s artist list and the Cinematheque’s checkbook, left his finance career for good. The result took the creative world by storm. The series, still considered a watershed art-historical moment, culminated in a packed evening with the likes of Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenberg, and others at the crossroads of art and science in attendance. “Everyone was reading [Marshall] McLuhan and [Norbert Weiner’s] Cybernetics at the time,” says Brockman. “There was a sense that something new was happening—nonlinear relationships between input and output, the viewer as part of the piece. New forms were all informed by scientific ideas.” Brockman’s world expanded exponentially from there, including visits to Brand to help edit Brand’s groundbreaking Catalog. He traded book recommendations with Rauschenberg and John Cage (the former was taken with James Jeans’s The Mysterious Universe; the latter gave Brockman his copy of Weiner’s book), and he embarked on his career-long mission to shape the future by continuing to foster similar connections. “I have three friends: confusion, contradiction, and awkwardness,” Brockman says. “That’s how I try to meander through life. Make it strange.” 

John Brockman and his wife, president of Brockman, Inc., and cofounder of edge.org, Katinka Matson, at their office in New York.

[bkorekarchive]

[bkorekarchive]

Print House

For more than three decades, the potential of artist editions has been expanded by L.A. outfit Mixografia. 

BY BETTINA KOREK PHOTOS BY TANVEER BADAL

Artist editions, like those created by printmaking fixture Mixografia, have long held the promise of democratizing access to fine art. Along with artist books, they offer a more economically accessible way of collecting. From hand-printed editions and giclée prints, which are essentially computer printouts, the tradition of multiples is an incredibly innovative and nuanced one, increasingly loved by venture backed art sales businesses. Considering Los Angeles’s democratic and collaborative tendencies—at least when it comes to art—it’s fitting that the city has long housed notable print shops like Gemini G.E.L., which has operated on Melrose Boulevard since 1965 (and was previously featured in this column). Mixografia, one of the most renowned of in this milieu, recently inaugurated a new gallery space with editions by Analia Saban. What sets Mixografia apart is its signature relief process, developed more than 40 years ago by Luis and Lea Remba, and now carried forward by the couple’s son, Shaye. Prints are traditionally thought of as flat, two-dimensional works on paper, but Mixografia’s editions transform paper into what look like three-dimensional sculptures, emerging from flatness into depth. In the case of Saban’s editions, playfully titled “Paper or Plastic?” each work takes the shape of a plastic grocery bag printed with “Thank You For Your Business” and other recognizable phrases. “It needs to look believable,” Shaye says. Though Mixografia’s editions regularly defy expectations as to what constitutes a print, the works still involve trademark aspects of the medium. “We print. We use a plate with ink, and it transfers to the paper,” Luis adds. “It’s not a collage. Everything is integrated into the printing plate.” The story of Mixografia’s distinctive technique dates to the early 1970s, when Luis and Lea invited the celebrated Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo to produce a series of prints at their original workshop in Mexico City. The artist wanted to create unprecedented textural effects, so the Rembas invented their process, eventually producing more than 80 editions with Tamayo over the course of 17 years. Since that influential collaboration, Mixografia has worked with artists as varied as Karel Appel, Louise Bourgeois, Dario Escobar, Ed Ruscha, and Rachel Whiteread out of its multidisciplinary studio in Downtown Los Angeles. “As the process has developed, the more we have pushed it,” Shaye says. Jorge Pardo, for example, designed abstract reliefs that extend a full two-and-a-half inches toward the viewer. Working with Mixografia, artists have expanded printmaking’s potential in other ways: John Baldessari’s “Alphabet” series took as much as one ton of cotton to produce; Ed Ruscha pushed the printmakers to create a substance that would mimic rust; and the British artist Jason Martin led them to devise chemical solutions to recreate the look of Yves Klein’s trademark blue pigment. “When an artist proposes an idea that they want to realize as a print, then we need to solve that problem,” Shaye says. “The challenge makes us come up with a solution.” In response, the younger Remba has continued to evolve Mixografia’s techniques by developing new machines and systems. This includes Mixocast, a precise casting process that allows for lighter sculptures than otherwise possible, first used for a series with sculptor Henry Moore in 1982. Unlike many print studios, Mixografia’s goal is not necessarily to produce a perfectly printed impression, but rather to alter how viewers perceive prints, both physically and intellectually. The Rembas’ singular focus on an artist’s particular vision is one reason why Mixografia continues to attract new generations of contemporary artists, including Saban. “Whatever we do should look like the body of work of the artist,” Lea says. “The artist is the one that decides what looks good.”

[bkorekarchive]

Salon | Digital Talk | Instagram as an Artistic Medium

Salon | Digital Talk | Instagram as an Artistic Medium Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator-at-Large at Museum of Modern Art, New York; S...

[bkorekarchive]

Made to Treasure

Los Angeles jewelry designer Sonia Boyajian stands out for her elevated approach to craftsmanship and detail. 

BY BETTINA KOREK PHOTOS BY G.L. ASKEW II

Sonia Boyajian’s career in jewelry started at a small store in Antwerp run by Pascale Masselis. The place was filled with tiny drawers and known for its vintage jewelry and precious antique buttons. Boyajian de- scribes it as “completely opposite of mass market.” She had moved to Belgium after studying fashion at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, and fell in love with Masselis’s handmade approach.

Now back in L.A., Boyajian has carried this whimsical spirit forward and built a name for herself among celebrities and art world denizens as a singular jewelry de- signer. Her fall/winter collection is inspired by the distinctive 20th century art patron Peggy Guggenheim. (She even posed as

Guggenheim in the line’s look book.) It has drawn much attention, thus introducing her eclectic designs to an even-wider audience.

Though she works primarily in both costume and fine jewelry, the designer also produces custom work, including redoing engagement rings and updating family heirlooms. It signals Boyajian’s belief that jewelry constitutes a deeply personal ex- perience. “It helps the wearer define their identity and becomes a part of that per- son,” she says.

The jeweler’s space in Hollywood— which functions a cross between an artist studio and fantasy dressing room—creates a safe zone for clients to experiment amidst a 15-year archive of her work. “It’s okay to

SURFACE 90

have fun, dress up, and put a tiara on,” she says, “or to just look wild.” Being with cli- ents allows her to get to know their tastes and what they feel comfortable wearing. She involves them closely in the design process. “A lot of creative people come to me naturally because they already have a very strong sense of what they want,” says Boyajian, whose own style mixes vintage finds with friends’ labels, such as Creatures of the Wind and Eatable of Many Orders.

Working against saturated markets and off-the-rack buying experiences, Boyajian understands design as something bespoke or handmade. She makes most of her own parts and assembles each piece in her Holly- wood studio. She pays particular attention to the findings (the bases for gems, and the links for bracelets and necklaces), which she repeats each season. “I realized, in the end, that what makes a piece of jewelry or cloth- ing individual are the tiny details that you keep seeing over and over again,” she says. The result? A language all her own, com- prising surrealist shapes and bold stones.

Considering Boyajian and Guggenheim’s shared love of surrealism—the latter often wore one-of-a-kind pieces by artists such as Alexander Calder—this season’s reference seems natural. But it was Guggenheim’s au- tobiography that fueled an obsession: “She had a thirst for knowledge, and her relation- ship with the artists—she had a way of dis- playing art that we don’t see anymore.”

In Guggenheim’s personalized approach to art and life, the designer sees both her clients and herself: “She had a small gal- lery and a small group of followers. It was never about the money. It was about being able to express something.” The inspiration for Boyajian’s next collection, debuting in Paris this October, is another idiosyncratic style icon: the Oscar-winning costume de- signer Edith Head, who produced her own jewelry. Says Boyajian: “Women who make things inspire me big time.”

[bkorekarchive]

Open House

James Goldstein hopes to bring more awareness to L.A. architecture through an unusual museum gift. 

BY BETTINA KOREK PHOTOS BY SPENCER LOWELL 

One of artist Jenny Holzer’s famous tru- isms is “Money Creates Taste.” Taste can be defined as knowing exactly what you want. Yet the tastes of the wealthy are often not particularly original. Real estate inves- tor James Goldstein, however, has paved his own stylistic path. The source of his wealth is shrouded in mystery, but his presence courtside at Los Angeles Lakers and Clip- pers games and at fashion shows—always in his distinct uniform of a cowboy hat and exotic animal-skin coats—is well-known. And now, his taste in architecture is in the spotlight. Over 40 years ago, he bought an iconic John Lautner house, best known to- day for its appearance as the residence of a pornographer in the Coen brothers film The Big Lebowski (1998). While countless other domestic architectural masterpieces have been torn down across L.A. over the years, Goldstein’s recent decision to gift his home to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), effectively turning it over to the public, may inspire other Angelenos to be- come patrons of architecture.

The love story between Goldstein and his house—originally built in 1963 for architec- tural patrons Helen and Paul Sheats—began the moment Goldstein first set foot inside it in 1972. Lautner was a midcentury modern- ist stalwart whose style quickly became syn- onymous with L.A. The Sheats-Goldstein residence, with its dramatic hillside setting and cantilevered concrete roof, embodies Lautner’s dramatic flourishes, which were loved by Hollywood as both personal resi- dences and settings for films. “Even though it was in horrible shape, I immediately knew this was it,” he says. The decision changed his life, he recalls, speaking from a tennis tournament in Indian Wells: “The house has definitely become an extension of my perso- na. I’ve worked diligently on it for 35 years and am still working on new projects for the property. I’m involved in every little detail and design decision.”

Growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of a clothing retailer, Goldstein’s interest in design emerged early on. As a teenager, he remembers, “I always tried to be ahead of my high school class in terms of wearing the latest styles.” In the absence of any notable fashion figures—his home- town had its limits—Goldstein carefully cultivated a personal look all his own. What Milwaukee did have to offer, however, was a wealth of modern architecture close at hand. One of Goldstein’s best friends’ houses was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and his fa- ther’s business was close to another Wright building, the Johnson Wax headquarters. Years later, he would purchase the home designed by Lautner, who had been one of Wright’s apprentices, and work closely with

James Goldstein at the Sheats- Goldstein residence in Los Angeles. (OPPOSITE) Interior and exterior shots of the John Lautner–designed home.

Lautner to bring the house up-to-date. Goldstein’s gift of the residence to LAC- MA, along with a $17-million endowment, reflects his wish that L.A. be a city that supports great design. “I don’t think there’s enough new architecture in Los Angeles, which is very disappointing,” he says. “For the most part, people in Los Angeles seem to want period-style houses as opposed to something modern and creative that hasn’t been done before.” Goldstein notes that a city like Dubai has no equal in terms of en- couraging forward-thinking designs on a grand scale. While L.A.’s most avant-garde architectural designs have largely been do- mestic spaces, recent projects such as The Broad museum (Diller Scofidio + Renfro) and LACMA’s forthcoming redesign (Peter Zumthor) may well be shifting this empha- sis. Goldstein’s bequest has the potential to play a similar role. “As more architects and students see my house, I’m hoping the awareness of modern architecture in Los

Angeles becomes stronger.” The decision to donate the house was

more than 10 years in the making and in- volved many potential institutions. He built a strong rapport with LACMA’s director, Michael Govan, in whom he found an ally with a similar vision for the home’s future. “Michael demonstrated that he wanted to continue operating the house in the same way [I did],” Goldstein says. “It was a meet- ing of the minds.”

Some of those operations are an abun- dance of parties and photo shoots—events that Goldstein vets himself, and that have given the home an incalculable aura. Since the addition of an entertainment facility, and as the house becomes better known, there are always more requests to use it. Lautner may not have foreseen such an active fu- ture for his original design, but Goldstein’s decades-long commitment to the residence certainly stands as one of the success stories of an architectural gem remaining relevant.

[bkorekarchive]

Self Determined

Artist Martine Syms approaches her practice now only as her own media platform, but as a business. 

BY BETTINA KOREK PORTRAIT BY G.L. ASKEW II

Artist Martine Syms outside her Los Angeles Studio. 

Many have lamented the fact that the startup tech entrepreneur has replaced the forward- thinking artist. Not Los Angeles–based art- ist Martine Syms, who unequivocally states, “My art practice is a business.”

Her work—which explores the relation- ship between identity and American media’s use of language and gestures—doesn’t nec- essarily align with the idea of entrepreneur- ship, though. Instead, her approach is, as

she puts it, “a more hardcore ethos of self- determinacy.” Although, she adds, “A lot of my work is about value and how different values circulate in the world, which seems to be tied to the idea of entrepreneurship.” She continues, “I was thinking about Sol LeWitt. He wanted his art to be machines to make the art.”

This year appears to be a pivotal one for Syms, who has steadily been gaining at- tention through her publishing, video, and performance explorations of how memory and identity are affected by the increasingly fluid boundaries between business and cul- ture. In January, she was part of The Broad museum’s “Tip of Her Tongue” perfor- mance series, and she currently has an exhi- bition, “Com Port Ment,” on view at Karma International Los Angeles (through April 23). Another show, “Fact & Trouble,” will be featured at the Hammer Museum and the ICA in London in the coming months.

After graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007—when, rather than mak- ing art, she decided to invest her energy in an artist-run project space called Golden Age (“There is a big history of alternative spaces in apartments in Chicago. I want- ed to bring some of what I had grown up with”)—Syms began to use the term “con- ceptual entrepreneur” to describe herself. In 2011, following five years of selling books, an occasional artwork, and living modestly, the space closed. But the founders created a book about how they did it. Syms says her intent with the publication was to spur other people to start similar projects.

Her performative lecture at South by Southwest in 2013 was a breakout moment. She used the platform to ask questions such as “What does it mean for a black woman to make minimal, masculine net art? What about this piece is ‘not black’? Can my iden- tity be expressed as an aesthetic quality?” Later that year, “alternately pissed off and bored,” she published The Mundane Afrofu- turist Manifesto through the not-for-profit Rhizome with the aim of asserting “a dif- ferent set of values to begin imagining the future” through a new framework for black cultural production.

From there, things snowballed. In 2015, she was included in the New Museum’s Tri- ennial. Another significant development in Syms’s trajectory was her decision to move back home to L.A. from Chicago. Syms was attracted to many of the things people don’t like about the City of Angels, which she calls “a weird, shitty place.” It is, she says, a city that allows her to simply “do what I want to do.” And though L.A. is home to this coun- try’s entertainment industry—a focal point of Syms’s work—she clarifies, sounding al- most like a journalist, “I want to keep [from it] at a critical and personal distance.”

[bkorekarchive]

Jumping In

An artist and a design professor propose a new way forward for fashion with Rational Dress Society. 

BY BETTINA KOREK

The jumpsuit by Rational Dress Society in white-one of only two colors in which it’s available.

Imagine a reality in which running into a friend at a party—wearing the exact same outfit— is exciting instead of a fashion faux pas.

The Los Angeles–based collective Rational Dress Society (RDS) has created Jumpsuit, an experiment in “counter-fashion” that revo- lutionizes our way of thinking about clothes. Available as a pre-made garment for purchase, as well as a free downloadable open-source pattern, Jumpsuit is a sturdy but attractive

“monogarment” made entirely in the United States, including the zipper and fabric. Color choices are white or black, which contributes to its “ungendered” quality. The RDS differ- entiates this from unisex: “It’s not one-size- fits-all. It’s one garment that can fit everyone.” Jumpsuit’s utopian aim: to become the only item in people’s closets.

The designers—Abigail Glaum-Lathbury, a professor who teaches patternmaking and design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and video artist Maura Brewer—have developed more than 200 sizes using anthro- pometric data from NASA. “Large govern- ment organizations actually have to clothe a range of people, whereas fashion brands don’t,” Brewer says. “So in some ways, choices are very narrow. That’s why some people only buy Prada or Proenza Schouler, or whatever actu- ally fits them. That becomes their go-to.” In an era when fashion is driven by endless personal choice, the RDS motto—“Free yourself from

the tyranny of choice!”—stems from stud- ies showing that too many options can lead paradoxically to feelings of demotivation and dissatisfaction.

Brewer and Glaum-Lathbury, who wear their garment every day, founded RDS two years ago, taking the name from a Victorian reform movement that led to the abolition of the corset. Through Jumpsuit, how-to videos, and organizing workshops and activist parades, they hope to instigate a larger conversation about gender and class issues in the fashion industry. “Art has had institutional critique mechanisms for a long time,” Brewer says.

“There is a tendency towards critiquing the distribution and economics of art that doesn’t exist in fashion.”

RDS reaches back to 20th-century examples of avant-garde experiments in dress—largely overlooked—from the Tuta of the Italian Futurists to the collectivist garments of the early kibbutz movement. Its uniform-oriented efforts also align with those of contemporary artists such as Andrea Zittel (featured in this column in the Feb. 2016 issue), and even figures including Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs, the latter who famously adhered to one daily outfit. Brewer observes: “I think it has some- thing to do with people wanting simplicity, maybe unconsciously, on a broader cultural level.” With jumpsuits gracing many recent runways, RDS may be on to something.

[bkorekarchive]

The Order of Things

Artist Andrea Zittel’s conceptual works explore life’s basic elements. 

BY BETTINA KOREK 

An installation view of Andrea Zittel’s recent “Parallel Planar Panels” series at Spruth Magers gallery in Berlin. 

In Andrea Zittel’s Instagram profile (@andrea- zittel), the artist poses a simple question: “How to live?” It is one of the fundamental queries that Zittel has explored over the last two decades in her artistic practice and personal life, which are deeply entwined. Her investiga- tion addresses the categories, rules, and struc- tures—both intellectual and physical—that we create in an effort to give meaning to our everyday lives and to participate in contem- porary culture.

In 2000, Zittel moved from Brooklyn to A-Z West, a home and studio on 35 acres of California’s high desert, where she has contin- ued her systematic consideration of daily life’s

basic elements: food, clothing, furniture, and shelter. The objects that she creates—from gar- ments each spun from one long strand of wool, to compact “A-Z Homestead Units” that pro- vide for all its inhabitants needs—stem from Zittel’s own sense of ritual and her desire to remove unnecessary possessions from her life- style. Her practice, she says, “plays out through the act of daily living, and examines how psy- chological structures, belief systems, social values, and rules are manifested as physical objects that we create around ourselves.”

Through her recent “Planar” series, which has been exhibited internationally over the last few years and was recently on view at Sprüth

Magers gallery in Berlin, Zittel has produced works that move intriguingly between numer- ous architectural planes and artistic categories. A textile woven in a geometric design might serve as a carpet when placed on the floor, or as an abstract painting hung on the wall, or even as a room divider or wall itself. It therefore functions, the artist notes, as “simultaneously a highly rendered artisan object, a functional object, and conceptual art.” Planes that are flat, with straight edges, are always manmade when they appear in physical space—they constitute the essential blocks of our built environment. Zittel has generated building blocks of her own, with woven, painted, and sculptural surfaces, each with an independent form and meticulous aesthetic.

Zittel’s straddling of art, design, architec- ture, and life recalls such quasi-utopian 20th- century efforts as the Bauhaus and Donald Judd’s domestic installations throughout Marfa, Texas. However, as she puts it, “My intention is not to collapse these categories and value systems, but rather to reveal their overlooked significance and to understand our inherent psychological need to give objects personal and social relevance.” By asking “How to live?” her practice highlights the inherently constructed nature of our shared reality, whether architec- tural, environmental, or societal.

[bkorekarchive]

Open Plan

As LACMA turns 50, museum director Michael Govan helps usher in an ambitious expansion.

INTERVIEW BY BETTINA KOREK PORTRAIT BY JULIA STOTZ

I have always had a special relationship with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I often visited growing up and eventually worked there for several years—before the tenure of its current director and CEO, Michael Govan— when LACMA was a sleepier place. Back then, when I would ask other Angelenos to visit the museum, they had a hard time distinguishing between “the one downtown” (meaning the Museum of Contemporary Art) and “the one near the Tar Pits” (LACMA).

Today it’s a different story. During his decade at the helm, Govan has elevated the muse- um’s profile. He has spear- headed projects such as the hugely popular outdoor plaza

with Chris Burden’s “Urban Light” (2008), a temple-like arrangement of restored street lamps from all over L.A. that has become a nighttime destination for people visiting the city, and Michael Heizer’s “Levitated Mass” (2012), a 340-ton boul- der that was transported by truck to LACMA through three counties. Now Govan has plans to raze much of the museum’s original campus (at a price of more than $750 million) for an ambitious and controversial design by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, which is scheduled for completion in 2023.

When we met, I asked Govan about former Univision chair- man and CEO Jerry Perenchio’s remarkable announcement

on the 50th anniversary of the museum to gift LACMA a mas- sive collection of 19th and 20th century masterpieces. The offer came with a big string attached: the museum must complete Zumthor’s building before it gets the works. He won- dered if I was skeptical about the plan’s scope, which has spurred debate. Govan’s vision for a “non-hierarchical culture space” feels very L.A.—as the home of glitter, the city’s cul- tural ambitions are not snobby. He also acknowledges the rel- evance of the ancient in modern life. We also discussed the city, his approach to patronage, and the role of museums in our accelerating culture.  

How did Jerry Perenchio’s gift come to be tied to the Zumthor plan?

The core of an art museum is its collection. Not only is that what people see, but it’s what you trade with other museums through lending arrangements. The Perenchio gift was the big objective in terms of Modernist painting and sculpture. When I first spoke with Jerry, his first question was: “Where do the works go?” I told him that we were serious about Zumthor’s plan, and that I thought the county would sup- port us. He said, “Okay, then I’m serious.” The building is what made him realize that there would be a proper place to leave the works in Los Angeles.

You called Zumthor’s proposal a worthy risk, when most museums aren’t taking risks.

It’s a very measured, thoughtful risk. The Zumthor project is actually about sublime accessibility. Everyone else wants to say these two ideas are opposed. Not me. What makes the plan sublime is that it’s so accessible. With smaller projects, it’s difficult to shift attitudes and infrastructure in favor of cultural philan- thropy. So the vast scope of the project is in some ways strategic because it will help orient the community toward the museum. It has to be perceived as valuable and exciting, and I think that can happen. I do feel this shift happening now, and maybe I’m a little close to it, but it’s going to happen.

I’m curious how people responded when you told them you were moving to L.A.

There was a lot of skepticism from friends in New York who think that’s the cultural center of the universe. But I came to L.A. with great optimism because it’s a metropolis with genera- tions of artists and creativity. The Hammer was doing really well, and MOCA had an amazing history. But who was the leader to look up to? It seemed like LACMA was in that target zone. I told the board it was imperative to raise the bar, and they’ve created that leadership.

Since you’ve arrived, the museum has added close to 10,000 works to the collection and attendance has almost doubled.

LACMA always seemed to have low attendance relative to the city’s scale. My first week here it was pouring rain. I was at the Grove [shopping mall] and thought, “It’s still full of people outside, spending money; there’s this great mix of people and a sense of community.” That gave me confidence to open things up. Being outdoors, it’s also easier for people to make the decision to go to LACMA. Maybe first they hang outside at one of the museum’s “Latin Sounds” concerts, and then pop inside.

Is the museum’s “Art + Film” initiative an effort to bridge figures from the entertainment world to the arts?

The rap on L.A. is that it lacks cultural philan- thropy. It’s true that it’s harder to raise money for museums in Los Angeles than in other big cities. We’re a young city, and there isn’t multigenerational philanthropy like in New York. But that doesn’t predict what you can do in the future. There was this rift between the art-cultural world and the movie world, but I think we’ve tried to show that they’re ultimately compatible. This is an entertainment town after all. Cinematic art is art, and that’s what makes Los Angeles feel different.

When you google “LACMA 50th anniversary” photos from the star studded gala come up first. Do you wrestle with how best to relate to celebrity culture?

In the world I come from, the huge celebrities are John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger, David Hockney ... But that doesn’t mean you have to discount other peoples’ accomplishments. Movies and television com- municate more broadly. If we didn’t have a balance between the wide communication of movies and television, and the narrower one ofthe visual arts, I think we have a lesser world. They can coexist. The Art + Film gala was all about making it natural and easy for people from these different worlds to talk to each other, learn about art, and learn about film. The further away you are, the more compli- cated celebrity is. In L.A., Leonardo DiCaprio is at the museum all the time. He sits in the café with friends and visits the galleries, and then he shows up at the gala.

Is L.A. more difficult than other cities in terms of patronage?

L.A. has the cult of the individual more strongly than other cities, but what it’s not so good at is the collective. If you get too far into the collective, you miss the experimentation and unruliness of the individual and you can become ossified. But if you’re too focused on individual expression, you can miss the opportunity to create community. There has to be a balance. L.A. is starting to move more in the direction of community.

You’ve timed the Zumthor expansion to the opening of L.A. Metro’s expanded Purple Line. Was this to give everyone somewhere to go?

The subway is a game changer. Frank Gehry always said that L.A. has no city center: It has a line, and that line is Wilshire Boulevard. It connects downtown and the ocean, and we’re in the middle of it. My dream—a sort of secret and not-so-secret plan—is to move LACMA into the communities more physically and permanently through collaborations, and even through physical space. One idea is to run programs wherever you have an off-site storage location. That’s potentially in our future.

You say that Zumthor addresses the idea of the sublime in art.

Sacred and profane has been ingrained into us as a dichotomy, with the museum on one side and pop culture on the other. But L.A. is the place to indulge both. Obsessing about the hierarchies of better and worse is less interest- ing than marveling in the power of creativity. I don’t see any contradiction between having people taking their selfies on the plaza, and then coming in, slowing down, and contemplating a 16th-century Ardabil carpet—the greatest Persian carpet in the world. The great thing about an encyclopedic museum is that all of this coexists.

Do museums offer a counterpoint to accelerating culture?

I believe that Peter Zumthor is one of the few architects who can bring you to this other space of contemplation. A museum should elucidate the idea that there are many ways of seeing things. Any experience of a work of art is depen- dent on so many things: the frame, the lighting, the weather, what state of mind you’re in, how you arrived there. That affects how you read things. Robert Irwin, or any artist involved in perception, can teach you that.

Talk about the pressure of the institution. What keeps you up at night?

Institutions have to answer to a lot of stakeholders: our public, our donors, the county, and a staff that is large and smart. Everybody has an opinion, so there’s pressure to make a lot of people feel that you’re doing a good job serving their needs and those of the community. Big public museums are also starved for money given what they have to accomplish, from serving the public through educational programs to trying to acquire art for future generations. You have all the donors who want their gifts to be maximized, and through the county you’re also accountable for taxpayers’ money. Everybody wants magic. They want attendance and they want poetry.

What advice would you give a prospective museum director?

Think twice. I found myself in this position by accident. It’s very rewarding, but it’s also grueling and all-consuming.

What about advice for collectors who are thinking about building their own museum?

People vastly underestimate how much money it takes to sustain a cultural institution. In the future, we will see a consolidation of art museums and cultural institutions. If you look broadly, statistically there is not enough endowment and capital to keep alive all the cultural facilities that have proliferated in the last 30 years.

Do you think that museums need to do more to investigate other ways they can make revenue?

That was a big trend in the 1990s and early 2000s, but most of it didn’t pan out. We’re just not as good at straight business as we are at creating enormous value through art and education. It’s a lot more efficient for one my trustees to make a large amount of money through movies, video games, farming, or whatever, and then give it to the museum. I rely on the fact that wealth will be created in the communities and will then go to the public through the museum. What we have to do is build the best, most attractive possible vessel so that people will feel like they’re seeing great value in their contributions.

Do you consider yourself a dreamer?

If you’re not dreaming in this business, then you’re not doing your job. Imagination is the key to our survival as a species, and it’s what art is about.

If a patron offered you $1 billion for a dream project, what would it be?

LACMA. The potential here is much greater than I ever imagined. There’s no other place like it: the multicultural audience, the creative community, the weather, being on the Pacific Rim. You’re on the edge. I can’t imagine anything better than investing in what’s going on right here.

This interview is running in Surface’s American Influence issue. Michael Heizer has been enormously influential on your spirit and thinking. Who else?

Chris Burden had a very American way of looking at things—that kind of civic community idea. Robert Irwin is a Californian- American artist in a big way, too. So is James Turrell. And Barbara Kruger, with her interest in pop culture and magazine culture. You never get rid of influence. It’s what makes the future.

[bkorekarchive]

Surface (October 2016)

[bkorekarchive]

Surface (September 2015)

Correction: This project was not produced. 

[bkorekarchive]