Review of LA Art Show 2019, California, United States

The LA Art Show, the most comprehensive international contemporary art show in America, officially kick-off the city’s 2019 art season at the Los Angeles Convention Center on January 23, 2019. LA Art show is the unparalleled international art experience with more than 120 galleries from over 18 countries exhibiting painting, sculpture, works on paper, installation, photography, design, video & performance.

In its 24th year, the fair focus on Latin America and the Pacific Rim. The event feature an array of art from contemporary and modern, to classical, and other specialized art scenes that often command their own dedicated shows. Radiant presentations are brought to life by a variety of galleries molding the Los Angeles artistic sphere as a completely accessible space for expression. The tradition and prestige of LA Art Show are already fully consolidated in the city and its surroundings,makes it one of the main American contemporary art fairs.

This year, DIVERSEartLA feature installations and video by Marta Minujin and Andres Parades (presented by CCK – Buenos Aires, Argentina), performances by Sarah Trouche and Dorian Wood, and additional curated space by Arte Ai Limite (Chile), LACMA, MOLAA, Lanch LA, The los Angeles Art Association, Art Share LA, and more. Drawing from the angle of displaying the culturally-rich composition of Los Angeles, the LA Art Show celebrating the influence of Latin American and Asian art in all of its multifaceted forms.

Los Angeles has emerged as a global epicenter of art & culture, with a distinct, interwoven multi-cultural influence unique to the city. Diversity is our strength and art is most impactful when it includes or transcends all borders. As LA rises as the world-class destination for art, the LA Art Show continues to lead the way with innovative programming and one-of-a-kind experiences for an expanding collecting audience.

The LA Art Show creates one of the largest international art fairs in the United States, providing an exciting, immersive, insider art experience to sponsors, their select guests and VIP clients. The show attracts an elite roster of national and international galleries, acclaimed artists, highly regarded curators, architects, design professionals, along with discerning collectors.

The LA Art Show is also known for a robust schedule of special events during the weekend; in past years topics have ranged from fine art to fashion to film. This year’s programming highlights important themes related to the contemporary art world, including the trending topic, as it pertains to original, collectible digital files in the fine-art sector.

More than 180,000 square feet of exhibition space is committed to today’s prominent galleries. These domestic and international galleries, beyond their booths, curate special exhibits that are at the forefront of the burgeoning contemporary art movement. The fair offers an extraordinary array of works and experiences in specialized sections.

LA Art Show 2019
The LA Art Show 2019 creates one of the largest international art fairs in the United States, providing an exciting, immersive, insider art experience to sponsors, their select guests and VIP clients. The show attracts an elite roster of national and international galleries, acclaimed artists, highly regarded curators, architects, design professionals, along with discerning collectors.

This innovative, exceptional cultural environment attracts executives and board members of Southern California businesses, state, county, and municipal government representatives, as well as leaders of the region’s cultural institutions. Attendees are trendsetters, influencers and alpha consumers, who seek and demand the newest and the best in all areas of their lives—art, design, food, technology and travel being specific passion points.

Galleries from more than 18 countries participated in the 2019 edition. Many galleries from the previous year was returning such as Patrick Painter Gallery, Timothy Yarger Fine Art, and Pigment Gallery in CORE, Rofa Project, K+Y Gallery, Masterworks Fine Art Gallery and Denis Bloch Fine Art, in Modern & Contemporary, MS Rau and Rehs Galleries, Inc. in ROOTS, with Trinity House joining this section for the first time. MS Rau was exhibiting Julius Kronberg’s famous large-scale “Cleopatra” painting from 1883.

Some newer galleries include Mizuma Art Gallery and Kamiya Co., LTD of Japan, Michael Goedhuis of London, Galerie Sabine Knust of Germany, and Richard Beavers Gallery of Brooklyn was joining the LA Art Show’s roster of exhibiting galleries. Mizuma was showcasing new large-scale paintings by Yoshitaka Amano, celebrated for his character art for the Final Fantasy series.

Returning to the LA Art Show for the third year, DIVERSEartLA, this is a special programming space within the fair dedicated to exhibiting diverse, and international institutions from around the Pacific Rim and beyond. The focus was created around civic engagement, 50,000 square feet have been donated to showcase the participating organizations. The work featured was of the few pieces not for sale.

Other participating installations includes “Memorable Mud” drawing viewers into a multi-sensorial experience featuring scents, music – exclusively composed for this art work – and a carefully designed system reflecting light through translucent stones. The piece is the end result of an exploratory process that generates two experiences for attendees. As well as Art Share L.A. has partnered with skid-row based, emerging guerrilla artist S.C. Mero to bring a taste of the streets of Downtown Los Angeles to LA Art Show.

The LA Art Show focus on diversity within art, while featuring modern tools such as Virtual Reality. The art fair was presenting a mix of unique artists such as Adah Glenn, also known as “AfroPuff,” Beloved LA graffiti artist RISK, Scott Hove, as well as comprehensive array of Pan-Asian ink paintings, and Littletopia a showcase of pop art.

Core – Core is a curated space for gallerises recognized around the globe as leading the way in contemporary art. The galleries showcased here continually educate, inspire, and enthrall the world’s avid collectors with the most sought-after voices in the market.

Modern + Contemporary – The largest section of programming at the LA Art Show, Modern + Contemporary exhibits the vast spectrum of contemporary painting, illustration, sculpture and more from galleries in Los Angeles, the Pacific Rim, and countries all around the world.

Roots – Honoring the voices and movements that came before, ROOTS is a dedicated exhibition space for galleries that showcase historical works and contemporary artists following in those traditions.

Works On Paper – Works on Paper is a dedicated exhibition space for showcasing photographs and other works not on traditional canvas.

Project Space – Hailing from around the world, the exhibitors in Project Space showcase a broad array of ideas and talents in the form of solo exhibitions, presented by participating galleries.

Luxury PBSG – Luxury PBSG is a dedicated space for exhibitors who specialize in luxury items, including jewelry and other accesories that surround the world of fine art. It brings the gems from Palm Beach Show Group’s other shows on the eastern seaboard direct to the LA audience.

DIVERSEartLA – Capitalizing on the city’s position on the Pacific Rim, DIVERSEartLA is a special programming section devoted to nurturing the creative energy of international collectors, artists, curators, museums and non-profits by connecting them directly with audiences in Los Angeles. Diversity and inclusion continue to be our key mandates as we reflect and rejoice. Capitalizing on the city’s position on the Pacific Rim, DIVERSEartLA is a special programming section dedicating over 35,000 sqft devoted to nurturing the creative energy of international collectors, artists, curators, museums and non-profits by connectiong them directly with audiences in Los angeles.

Featured Exhibitions – Expanding beyond the confines of booth spaces, Featured Exhibitions create immersive experiences to engage audiences through thought-provoking artworks, performances and other exhibitions offered by participating galleries, highlighting works that was talked about for years to come.

Design LA Art – Design LA Art serves as a curated space to showcase prominent international design galleries. Design LA Art provide an art market for collectible contemporary design and functional art, showcasing the best in objects of design, art, jewelry, architecture and furnishings presented adjacent to today’s leading global modern and contemporary galleries.

Exhibitions

Grandmother’s Country: Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi
Women are the principle gatherers of Bush Tucker and it is an important part of everyday life within the family clan. This particular painting, Grandmother’s Country, depicts women collecting food and also celebrates the fertility of the land. Aboriginal paintings are based on the myths of the Dreamtime. In modern dot representations, the sacred aspect of the painting is not always revealed, but the meaning remains, transmitted through symbols that are easily understood.

Each person has a particular Dreaming to which they belong and they have special ceremonial dances and songs that combine together to form a unique belief that makes up the lives of the Aboriginal people. All things relate to the land and thus the land is of great importance to them. The land is the keeper of the Dreaming and must be kept safe for all time so that the Dreaming stories, which are told in the paintings, can be preserved.

Gabriella Possum Nungarrayi is one of Australia’s premier female Aboriginal artists from the Central Desert who is currently working in Melbourne. At an early age, Gabriella began painting alongside her father the renowned, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, whose works are represented in major galleries and private collections worldwide. He passed on his skills to his daughter, whose paintings reflect his unique style.

Chinese Contemporary Ink Art: Ten Leading Artists
Michael Goedhuis was exhibiting the ten best contemporary ink painters from China. The exhibition describe, through the works of these ten leading artists, how Chinese contemporary culture is being transformed via a profound understanding of Chinese historical civilization. Gu Wenda, Li Huayi, Li Xubai, Liu Dan, Lo Ch’ing, Qin Feng, Qiu Deshu, Tai Xiangzhou, Wang Dongling and Wei Ligang are creating a new pictorial language which expresses the fundamentals of Chinese aesthetics and culture in ways which are relevant to today’s society in China and also to the developments in the West.

Ink paintings emerged 1000 years ago from calligraphy: the sublime and central achievement of China. Calligraphy is executed in ink on silk or paper, with a brush. In order to master this brush on the absorbent paper, which tolerates no error or correction, the artist has to achieve a high degree of concentration, balance and control. Painting is an extension of the art of calligraphy. It is therefore, like calligraphy, linked to the sacred prestige of the written word.

Shark: RISK
Beloved LA graffiti artist RISK makes his LA Art Show debut with two sculptures from his ongoing “Shark” series that has evolved to explore predators in their many forms. One of the most talked about sculptures of 2018 was his bisected cruiser, an actual car dipped in formaldehyde and sliced open “like bacon,” revealing the vehicle’s inner workings.

The project actually began as a sculpture of a shark and metamorphosed into a different kind of predator, complete with its own version of telltale fins, shape and color palette. Across from it was the finished sculpture of the shark he originally intended to create – a predator from a different era that still strikes just as much fear. For the show, this controversial piece was juxtaposed with a similar sculpture of a shark comprised of spare machine parts. “Embrace what you fear” is an idea that stems from Buddhist teachings and RISK’s bisected cop car was the surprise outcome of a meditation on this principle.

Black Landscape: Chuni Park
Featured was Park’s large-scale, multi-panel installation, Black Landscape, which draws the seasons in black ink derived from pine soot. Inspired by natural landscapes, Chuni Park recreates abstract paintings from memory of the places he’s explored and populates them with a cast of symbolic, often recurring characters.

In the months leading up to the LA Art Show, Park is also traveling through California and the American West, visiting national parks like Yosemite for inspiration. He was premiering several new pieces inspired by his exploration of the Southwest, joining iconic landscape artists like Hockney who have tackled similar subject matter. This was Park’s first time depicting American landscapes, opening a whole new world for his work and starting a new chapter in his creative career.

The Best Days of your Life, an Atlas: Scott Hove
Scott Hove returns to LA Art Show this year with this museum-scale wall installation, “The Best Days of Your Life, an Atlas”. Formerly known for the first large scale archway at Littletopia, and then for his widely acclaimed cake-themed mirror infinity chamber, Hove is presenting a more detailed and crafted wall piece that illuminate minds and the immediate space.

For this sculpture, he has used a more painterly approach to composition, and has applied multiple illumination points to provide a sense of radiant heat and fantastical texture to engage viewers in a very active way. The 36 gallons of acrylic “frosting” create a compelling illusion of imminent satisfaction, and a re-imagined and idealized contextualization of personal memory. For much of Hove’s work, artifice serves as a medium to support a fantasy narrative that can seem at once safe and inviting, and then questionable and menacing.

Programs

DIVERSEartLA
DIVERSEartLA is dedicated to bringing together some of the most important local and international art institutions, museums and non-profit organizations for an elevated and thoughtful dialogue. DIVERSEartLA was expanded to embrace and celebrate those art institutions and art collectors who support LA’s newest and largest iteration of art community, as well as to create a strong conversation around a variety of events and programs. Thus serving as a platform and resource for diversity best practices and leadership, including ALL of Los Angeles’s communities.

The communities of Los Angeles reflect an impressive variety of ethnic backgrounds, and it’s iconic natural environs are equally varied and vast. To honor this unique biodiversity we are focusing on the representation of contemporary artists from around the world as a part of each institution. The importance of this year’s curatorial focus should remain committed to fostering and learning about the organizations supporting inclusion and diversity. DIVERSEartLA as an essential part of making museums and cultural institutions models for pluralistic communities. There is nothing more important than inclusion in a moment where social culture is defined by division.

The Parthenon of Books & Rayuelarte: Marta Minujín
Argentinian artist Marta Minujín, who arrives with two of her most emblematic art works: The Parthenon of Books and Rayuelarte. The Parthenon of Books honors the world’s first democracy and the values of that era, which have served as the basis for today’s Western democratic societies. This work also stands as a symbol of the country’s prolonged need and renewed hope to transition back to democracy.

The Parthenon of Books: The return of democracy to Argentina in December 1983 was the inspiration that led Marta Minujín to create a replica of the Greek Parthenon on the “9 de Julio Avenue,” a street located in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Mujín’s Parthenon has a metal structure covered with more than 20,000 books, many of which had been banned during the military dictatorship.

“Memorable Mud” – Installation, 2017: Andrés Paredes
“Memorable Mud” is a participative installation that draws viewers into a multi-sensorial experience featuring scents, music, exclusively composed for this art work – and a carefully designed system reflecting light through translucent stones. The piece is the end result of an exploratory process that generates two experiences for attendees. The first experience begins as the viewer enters the room and comes across giant clay structures, clay domes with pinnacles and other elements, which hang from the ceiling from a height of 1.4 meters. This landscape acts as a bubble of clay, which is retrieved from the production place. The domes have their own inner world, one which can be accessed by the public through holes located in the lower part.

This all acts as a place where the artist’s life and personal memories are stored and materialize in clay. Andrés Paredes’s work ranges from drawings and two-dimensional cutting paper to immersive installations, and make up private collections in Argentina and in several countries abroad. He lives and works in both Misiones and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Virtual Futures: XR Showcase
Virtual Reality is one of the most eagerly discussed topics in contemporary culture, yet many in the art world are only starting to consider its impact – aesthetic, technological, psychological, therapeutic, economic, and so forth. This year, DIVERSEartLA offers four VR experiences that demonstrate the range of practices and possibilities that are defining VR in 2019. Visitors can get a glimpse of the future as seen by four different creative innovators: Wesley Allsbrook, Nancy Baker Cahill, Jorge R. Gutiérrez, and Drue Kataoka.

The tools for VR and AR creation and display – once the purview of engineers, available mainly in academia and the military – are now much more accessible to anyone with a story to tell: game designers, painters, screenwriters, documentarians, journalists, architects, choreographers, and many more. Often working collaboratively across several disciplines, this diverse community of creators is discovering the technology’s potential, involving audiences in the very act of creation.

To Make Water: Guido Yannito
This work is part of a project Hemisphere, created in Antarctica and generating a dialog on the geographical situation (hemispheres north & south) and of the mind. Antarctica is a radical environment and could be considered a geographic displacement. The hemisphere is presented as an undefined state where the body is situated as an idea of territory and landscape but also as a state of mind.

In the beginning this project consisted of researching the use of fresh water on the Antarctica bases, because Antarctica is the largest reservoir of fresh water on the planet, an ongoing interest of the artist. “To Make Water” is a phrase used by the people working on the base to describe the production of consumable water, because although it is the largest reserve of fresh water, it is very difficult to procure. “To Make Water” is a video filmed the day the members of the base attempted the extraction.

White Lies: Gaston Ugalde, Matilde Marin, Sandra Mann, Fernando Arias
Arte Al Límite (AAL) promotes the work of contemporary artists from all over the globe, aiming to Foster art circulation, encouraging art collecting and bringing art closer to the community through worldwide activities. White Lies is an exhibition that emerges from the dialogue of visual arts and politics; the visual arts and the reality around the world, where the politic act looks like a manifestation of power that dominates and control the masses and minds, forgetting the initial idea of common benefit and the social welfare.

27 Peces/27 Fish, Installation, 2018: Cristian Castro
The Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) has selected Argentinian artist, Cristian Castro and his site-specific installation, 27 Peces / 27 Fish, 2018 to highlight the contemporary art of Latin America in the 2019 edition of the Los Angeles Art Show. Very much like the Argentinian collective Center for Art and Communication (CAyC) in the 70s and 80s, the artist conceives his installations as a multidisciplinary space in which to explore the relationship between art, science, environment and society. The deep-sea fish in 27 Fish were created in a retro-futuristic style, incorporating kinetic movement and light.

Cristian Castro, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1971 and currently based in LA, expresses his artistic talent by repurposing discarded vintage household appliances and old mechanical tools with contemporary designs of his own. In the 27 Fish installation, the artist used 1950s Johnson brand outboard motors for the main body, stainless steel cat bowls, kitchen hinges, nails for the teeth, electrical conduits, fiber glass, custom laser cut aluminum parts molded with a hydraulic press for the fins, and automotive paint with chromed and polished parts to create these hybrid creatures that appear to come from a 19th century vision of the future.

A Black Man in the World:
For Bob Holmes who calls himself “a citizen of the world,” his art collection is a reflection of his life and times. The history of both colonial oppression by Europeans in Africa, the Caribbean, and Central and South America, and the history of slavery in the United States have created a warped perception of Black people as they have moved, or been forced to move, throughout the world. That perception has often created a narrow impression of Black people’s and other peoples of colors’ interests, limitations, possibilities and futures.

In his wide collection we can find a diverse offering of cultures through artists such as Dan McCleary, Matsumi Kanemitsu, Derrick Maddox, Charles White, Romare Bearden, Gronk, Deni Ponty, Betty Parsons, Elizabeth Catlett, David Alfaro Siquieros and Aime Mpane, among many others.

Nodrissx/Narcissx: Performance – Dorian Wood
Artist Dorian Wood seeks to glorify both the sanctity and irreverence of intimacy. Through the use of their corpulent body and booming voice, Wood revels in challenging the artist-audience separation, using subject matter informed by their own position in society as a non-binary person of color and an autodidact without a formal college education nor a strong alliance to any particular community. For “Nodrissx/Narcissx,” the artist was in a chair in the center of a darkened room, covered from head to toe in a cloth with a slit . During the performance installation, artist vocalize to a 4-channel soundscape created solely by artist’s voice.

Wood’s work has been showcased in concert halls and performance spaces around the world, including at such institutions as The Broad (Los Angeles), LACMA (Los Angeles), The Stone (NYC), MASS Gallery (Austin), Kulturhuset (Stockholm), and Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin). As a musician, they have released over a dozen recordings, among them two back-to-back albums, Rattle Rattle and Down, The Dirty Roof, showcasing a series of doomsday-themed songs that incorporate over 60 musicians. Their most recent album, XALÁ, marks the first time that Wood has recorded a full-length work in their mother tongue of Spanish.

You should wear your revolution: Performance – Sarah Trouche
Sarah Trouche is a French visual artist who uses performance, photography, video and sculpture in her practice. She uses her body as a social and political tool. Trouche’s work is centered around cultural and political issues such as migration and displacement, and invites us to question the major challenges we face today.

For the “You should wear your revolution” project, Trouche is committed to research on women’s emancipation, inspired by the history of France during the French Revolution and the movement of the “Sans culottes.” Sarah Trouche perform using hundreds of underwear that she has collected, washed and dyed beforehand. Through this action, she imagines a manifesto around the notion of female emancipation, radical and collective.

Boho Highs & Visual Drive-bys: Adah Glenn
Adah Glenn, also known as “AfroPuff,” is a Los Angeles-based artist, designer, and entrepreneur. Graffiti, hip-hop, punk, and rock, as well as Japanese anime, inform her work. Her practice is multidisciplinary, extending broadly from murals, paintings on canvas and shaped board, prints, art quilts, and books, to digital art and animation. Glenn has also ventured into the applied arts, creating wearable art, such as hats and jewelry, and toys, including fabric dolls and resin collectable figurines. Most recently, Glenn has embarked in performance art, that provides her an opportunity to integrate her many creative impulses.

Glenn’s art is vibrant and colorful, multi-layered, and highly textural. As an African American woman, she often interweaves themes of race and gender politics in her work. Adah Glenn: Boho Highs & Visual Drive-bys presents a wide selection of her many talents in many mediums. The exhibit not only celebrates ethnic and cultural pride, music, and the female form, but also features a selection of Glenn’s poignant social commentary works.

Ping Pong
Los Angeles Art Association is pleased to present Ping Pong, an independent exhibition project founded in 2007 to cultivate artistic interaction and exchange between selected cities Basel, Miami and Los Angeles. Ping Pong strives to show both the similarities and differences in the various cultural landscapes represented. While the artists represented in Ping Pong have shifted over the years and venues, the spirit of artist-centered collaboration and ambition remain intact.

This iteration of Ping Pong at the 2019 LA Art Show feature artists Pam Doulas, Jerry Haenggli, Cathy Immordino, Sue Irion, Dan Künzler, Sungjae Lee and Elizabeth Tobias, and mirrors the commonalities and conflicts surging through our culture in 2019. Each artist’s singular vision is maintained while adapting to the aesthetic and cultural aesthetic imposed by their fellow artists.

Sungjae Lee’s expansive piece Her Real Secret and Elizabeth Tobias’ performance Survivor! Share Your 98 Second Story are both timely reflections on the state of gender politics and identity. Pam Douglas and Cathy Immordino share a fascination with historical relevance but differ dramatically in execution and approach. Furthermore, Jerry Haenggli and Dan Künzler share a certain Swiss formality that approaches narrative with opposing emotive centers.

Survivor! Share Your 98 Second Story: Performance – Elizabeth Tobias
Elizabeth Tobias amplify her fusion of social practice, performance and sound to debut Survivor! Share your 98 Second Story at 2019 The Los Angeles Art Show. This immersive project addresses the sexual assault epidemic, one of the most pervasive, yet most underreported crimes. Survivor! addresses the staggering statistic that every 98 seconds, there is a sexual assault in America.

Weaving together spoken word and improvised sound, Elizabeth Tobias perform with an ensemble of artist survivors to collectively promote needed awareness and advocacy for sexual assault survivors in the art community and throughout the public sphere. Those victimized by violence often lack the support and resources needed to come forward. For artists who have been impacted by the trauma of sexualized assault, rarely, if ever, are there adequate opportunities to create work that addresses their stories within and beyond the larger art community.

Dr Jennifer Freyd, expert in the field of interpersonal violence, has identified that the act of speaking out has a measurable impact on decreasing violence. Consequently, the performance has the potential to directly reduce the statistics. Survivor! Share Your 98 Second Story is a ground breaking new performance that addresses trauma, courage and continuance.

Art Lives Here: S. C. Mero
Art Share L.A. has partnered with skid-row based, emerging guerrilla artist S.C. Mero to bring a taste of the streets of Downtown Los Angeles to LA Art Show. Embodying the nature of downtown, the onsite installation pieces are just a teaser to the larger site map of her work – which guides attendees into downtown to explore our community under the guise of a pseudo street art scavenger hunt. Each of her site-specific, clever creations calls attention to issues surrounding homelessness, gentrification, drug use, global warming, and more. The goal of this project is to encourage further exploration of underground art, arts activism, and social justice in the Downtown community in a way that is inviting and accessible for everyone.

Venue
The LA Art Show is strategically situated at the city’s dynamic epicenter, The LA Convention Center is Southern California’s most technologically advanced green venue, featuring soaring ceilings and ample space. Here is home to the Grammy Awards, The Grammy Museum, and an impressive entertainment complex that includes the Nokia Theatre, the Staples Center Arena, top restaurants, and The Ritz Carlton Hotel and Residences. Patrons of the arts gladly drive to Downtown L.A. for the best in Classical Music (Disney Hall), Theater (Mark Taper and Ahmanson), and Contemporary Art (MOCA, Art District).