Nam June Paik is considered to be the godfather of Video Art, the first artist to have access to the Sony Portapak. He was a fluxus artist and worked primarily in performance and video. He died this past January and tonight LACMA and LA Film Fourum will be honoring him tonight with a TRIBUTE TO THE LIFE AND ART OF NAM JUNE PAIK – “An evening of remembrances, performances, projected video works, and rarely seen clips.” If you are in LA this is not to be missed.
Nam June Paik is considered to be the godfather of Video Art, the first artist to have access to the Sony Portapak. He was a fluxus artist and worked primarily in performance and video. He died this past January and tonight LACMA and LA Film Fourum will be honoring him tonight with a TRIBUTE TO THE LIFE AND ART OF NAM JUNE PAIK – “An evening of remembrances, performances, projected video works, and rarely seen clips.” If you are in LA this is not to be missed.
Welcome to the first installment of Artful Wednesdays. (as coined by Jeremy.)
Yes I realize on the west coast it is not quite Wednesday yet (47 more minutes), but I couldn’t wait…
Tonight I enjoyed a lecture at UCLA’s Hammer Museum by Alfredo Jaar. Originally from Chile, he lives and works in NY but produces projects all over the world. Most notable is the Rwanda Project, a series of 20 projects in response to the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the western world’s racist choice to ignore it. The talk was part of an ongoing symposium at UCLA On the Subject of Violence, and Jaar commented that he realized in preparing for this talk that most of his work is about violence, while also recognizing several art historical references in his work. His website has a very nice intro worth watching – an homage to Yves Klein’s Leap Into the Void.
Jaar began as an architect, then switched to filmmaking because architecture depended too much on capital. Then after hearing several filmmakers’ answers to what profession they would have if they were not filmmakers, and 9 out of 10 of them said “architecture” he decided to go back and finish his degree. Eventually he was told that he was an installation artist because he was trying to combine film and architecture.
Like an architect, he approaches every project with a “program” part of which is to create a “powerful balance between information and spectacle.” When asked if he saw a kinship between the failure of both art and journalism to make change he responded that perhaps he was a “frustrated journalist.” Ultimately, he sees himself as both an activist and an artist and said that while growing up in Chile during dictatorship there was no difference between the two practices. “We have no choice but to try and change things.”
Perhaps art reaches too small an audience to truly change things, however Alfredo Jaar’s work is quite extraordinary in its ability to both inform and at least move viewers towards compassion, if not action.
In college May Day meant we built a half pipe in the sculpture studio and played in the grass between the 2D and 3D buildings on a clay slip and slide. Today, May Day 2006, I participated in the march through downtown LA in support of immigration rights.
Today I marched with Holly Tempo in honor of my great-grandmother, Pauline Kahn. Holly carried an American flag while I carried an enlarged Photo of Bubbie Pauline with text announcing “MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER CAME HERE FROM RUSSIA ON A FAKE PASSPORT.” I felt so much pride in supporting the immigrants today. Many people after reading my sign took my picture, put their arms around me, shook my hand, and gave me high fives, thanking me for my solidarity and support of them. My feeling is that I am just raising the point that not all illegal immigrants are Latinos. There are a lot of racist ideologies in the immigration debate now. I am also trying to honor the fact that if she had not come here, more of our family could’ve perished in the Holocaust.
I do not know the best solution, but I do think that the current policy needs to be re-evaluated. Yes immigrants should learn English. However I do find it problematic that we are really the only developed country that does not require/encourage its citizens to be multilingual (I’ve been told that Bubbie spoke Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish and English.) The founding Americans (read Colonialists) came here illegally and stole land from the Natives. The people arriving here from Latin America are coming here to start a better life, just as my Eastern European ancestors did. Many of the children who were brought by their parents illegally are now in high school or college. They now suffer because of their parent’s actions. Culturally they are just as much American as anyone, because they were raised here. Should they be deported to a country they do not know?
I do understand that times have changed since the late 1800’s and that our country cannot take care of everyone. Yet we invade other countries to “liberate” the people, which is a whole other issue. Don’t get me started…
One last note…I was offended this weekend by the altered flyer advertising the march and boycott that was posted in the mailroom in my building. It appropriated the flyers made by ANSWER LA and added racist statements against Mexicans in the small print. When I took it down and replaced it with the actual ANSWER LA flyer, the racist tenant replaced it again. Finally I tore up their flyer and left the bulletin board empty. Holly suggested I report the illegal hate speech to the building management.
* Pictures from the march will be posted soon.
In college May Day meant we built a half pipe in the sculpture studio and played in the grass between the 2D and 3D buildings on a clay slip and slide. Today, May Day 2006, I participated in the march through downtown LA in support of immigration rights.
Today I marched with Holly Tempo in honor of my great-grandmother, Pauline Kahn. Holly carried an American flag while I carried an enlarged Photo of Bubbie Pauline with text announcing “MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER CAME HERE FROM RUSSIA ON A FAKE PASSPORT.” I felt so much pride in supporting the immigrants today. Many people after reading my sign took my picture, put their arms around me, shook my hand, and gave me high fives, thanking me for my solidarity and support of them. My feeling is that I am just raising the point that not all illegal immigrants are Latinos. There are a lot of racist ideologies in the immigration debate now. I am also trying to honor the fact that if she had not come here, more of our family could’ve perished in the Holocaust.
I do not know the best solution, but I do think that the current policy needs to be re-evaluated. Yes immigrants should learn English. However I do find it problematic that we are really the only developed country that does not require/encourage its citizens to be multilingual (I’ve been told that Bubbie spoke Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish and English.) The founding Americans (read Colonialists) came here illegally and stole land from the Natives. The people arriving here from Latin America are coming here to start a better life, just as my Eastern European ancestors did. Many of the children who were brought by their parents illegally are now in high school or college. They now suffer because of their parent’s actions. Culturally they are just as much American as anyone, because they were raised here. Should they be deported to a country they do not know?
I do understand that times have changed since the late 1800’s and that our country cannot take care of everyone. Yet we invade other countries to “liberate” the people, which is a whole other issue. Don’t get me started…
One last note…I was offended this weekend by the altered flyer advertising the march and boycott that was posted in the mailroom in my building. It appropriated the flyers made by ANSWER LA and added racist statements against Mexicans in the small print. When I took it down and replaced it with the actual ANSWER LA flyer, the racist tenant replaced it again. Finally I tore up their flyer and left the bulletin board empty. Holly suggested I report the illegal hate speech to the building management.
* Pictures from the march will be posted soon.
May 1 Boycott & LA Marches for Immigrant Rights
No Work! No School! Take To the Streets!
Who’s coming with me?
We can meet at my place downtown and either walk or bike to Olympic and Broadway.
This is important to me because my great-grandmother, Pauline Kahn, immigrated to the US illegally from Russia on a fake passport belonging to someone who had died. This was the only way she could get to New York, as anti-Semitism grew in Eastern Europe in the decades before World War II.
Please join me in support of immigrant rights!
On a more uplifting note… David Horvitz, my studio assistant and former UCR student, dipped his balls in snow, then busted his camera. ???.
I know it is no longer Musical tuesdays…but here is some musical (sad) news. Saxophonist Jackie McLean died last Friday. He founded the African American Music department (now called the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz) at the Hartt School, part of Univeristy of Harford, where Jeremy, J, Ethan and I all met. (In fact Ethan went to Hartt.) McLean was burried in the Bronx.
There are two great events this Friday:
First come to the Hands On Pre-Closing Event at the Armory Northwest/965 from 6-8 p.m. (965 N. Fair Oaks Avenue, Pasadena.) This exhibition closes on Dec. 11 and is only open on the weekends so there is not much time left to participate in the interactive art installations by 15 So Cal artists (including me.)
Afterwards join us at the opening reception of Otis Grrls at Crazy Space from 6-9 p.m.
Women faculty from Otis College of Art and Design Fine Arts Program present an invitational exhibition of former and current students whose work spoke to them about the condition of being female in Los Angeles at the beginning of the 21st century. Artists include: Kelly Akashi, Donna Angers, Brienne Arrington, Christine Carrea, Irena Contreras, Sophia Dawood-Shauk, Victoria Hunt, Elizabeth Lopez, Suzanne Oshinsky, and Yanina Spizzirri. Faculty selecting include: Jerri Allyn, Susan Barnet, Carole Caroompas, Meg Cranston, Dana Duff, Michele Jaquis, Suzanne Lacy, Soo Kim, Laura Kuo, and Holly Tempo
If you can’t make the opening there will be a round table conversation on Saturday Dec. 10 from 3-5 p.m.
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