Celebrating its fifth year, Pacific Design Center’s national arts program designLAb, founded and overseen by art curator Helen Varola, is pleased to announce its winter arts season with a public reception on Friday, January 22 from 5:00 - 9:30 p.m. With the aim of supporting Los Angeles’ dynamic artist community, designLAb’s seasonal presentations span a variety of artistic disciplines.
designLAb’s opening event will showcase 16 cutting-edge art, architecture & design, sound and taste exhibitions on view in the Pacific Design Center’s Blue Building Lobby and Second Floor Galleries. MOCA PDC opens the same night with a trailblazing contemporary photography exhibition, Catherine Opie: 700 Nimes Road (for MOCA Members at 7 p.m.).
SEKINE
The evening’s highlights include several one-night-only performances: Industry Gallery, (recently named in Art + Auction’s Power 100) presents Steve Boyer’s Tasting Bar with samplings of exotic, highly-concentrated bitters in the context of his ongoing digital exhibit, Drawing Agents. LA-based artist Steve Roden, who hopscotches between paintings, installations and sound works will create a one-hour live performance beginning at 8 p.m. at Young Projects Gallery. For this special occasion, Roden will perform an improvised sound piece to Stas Orlovski’s animation, Skazka, using a modular synthesizer that incorporates “found” audio materials.
designLAb’s winter exhibition series includes Christopher W. Mount Gallery’s early photographs by Bernd and Hilla Becher, acclaimed German photographers who influenced a new generation of artists as well as Drawings Lie, the first commercial debut of work by architectural visionary, Bryan Cantley. Cantor Fine Art presents 3D portraits by contemporary artists Andrew Myers, Michael Mapes and Kerry Miller. CMay Gallery exhibits works by mixed media artists Bahk Seon Ghi, Shana Mabari and a video piece from the gallery’s collection by Connie Samaras. Anthony James Studio presents his own evocative, new large-scale sculpture. Thomas Paul Fine Art will show new works by Parisian abstract figurative painter, Nushka. Mary Younakof showcases videos from her recent live performance entitled “RGB.”
JOHNSON
Due to popular demand, several galleries have extended their fall shows including Varola Gallery’s presentation “Trophy Modern: The Legacy Collection,” which presents Ry Rocklen’s chic new designer furniture line made up of re-purposed prize trophies. 4 A.M. Gallery’s provocative exhibition titled, “Sonder” features paintings by Brandon Bernath. Boîte Noire Gallery’s presents Spanish sculptor Heras Castan’s work as well as his new collaborative series with Japanese artist, Miki Yokoyama.
Through July 29, Pacific Design Center’s Blue Lobby features three alluring solo sculpture exhibits that pair natural materials with industrial ones: Proposal for New Landscapes by Nobuo Sekine, one of the key founders of Japan’s Mono-ha (“School of Things”) movement and that nods to an overdue exploration of Japanese postwar culture; a retrospective by Italian architect/designer Antonio Pio Saracino and Lautner Beams by LA-based Matt Johnson, featuring metaphysical visualizations of string theory as re-purposed steel cast-offs from John Lautner’s demolished Shusett House.
