FEDERAL ART PROJECT

COAGULA ART JOURNAL, NOVEMBER 28, 2009

admin — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:30:16 +0000

John Miner’s Print Factory a Black Friday Antidote

By coagula | November 28, 2009

John MIner’s Print Factory was an affordable fine art antidote to the Black Friday mayhem, as master screenprinter John MIner organized a group of artists to screenprint as an event – allowing people to watch the art be made, and make requests of the artists based on the available screenprints and color choices. It was a great party and a great time with some great art.

Artist John Miner and a two-tone screenprint of a fishnet stocking advertisement.

Artist Jesse V and the godfather of Los Angeles screenprinting, Richard Duardo doing the digital camera squint.

John Miner at work. You cannot hear it, but the Germs were playing in the background when this picture was taken.

Artist Karen Fiorito is quite popular, behind her is an outline of a 5-color screenprint she pulled Friday Night – the image turned out to be Condoleeza Rice in dominatrix gear.

Artist Alex Scramble takes his turn at the pull.

Richard Duardo kisses a Jesse V screenprint of a Warhol-ized nun.

Artist Leigh Salgado had John Miner screenprint a Pabst Beer Label on a shirt, winning the critical approval of a very impassioned Jesse V.

The exterior shot of Federal Art Project, 316 W 2nd Street – John Miner’s Print Factory is open Saturday at 8 PM and Sunday afternoon at 1 PM – a screenprint on a shirt you bring is only 10 bucks and there is a ton of affordable art ranging form Warholian riffs on culture to punk concert posters to political and activist work to decorative stuff for above mom’s couch to good old all American fine art. The work of many artists will be available.

JOHN MINER’S PRINT FACTORY

admin — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:41:00 +0000

JOHN MINER’S PRINT FACTORY NOVEMBER 27TH-28TH

Come to Federal Art Project this weekend for live screen printing by John Miner and guest artists Karen Fiorito, Jesse V., Tony Clough and Andrew Sifuentes. Purchase affordable limited edition and one of a kind prints and t-shirts.

THE SEARCH FOR THE VISCERAL REALIST-CURATED BY YORK CHANG

admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:53:10 +0000

THE SEARCH FOR

THE VISCERAL REALISTS

OCTOBER 3-NOVEMBER 14.2009

GUILLERMO CARNEVAL
DE SOTO “PLASTICO” MADERO
EUGENIA PAZ
GUSTAVO RAYNAL
EL VAQUERO

Independent artist/curator York Chang produces a new genre work of experimental fiction, investigating catastrophe & economic crisis in the first U.S. exhibition of the Latin American artist collective known as The Visceral Realists. Accompanied by a 96 page limited edition publication The Journal of Implied Violence.

ARTIST TALK with GUSTAVO E. RAYNAL Interview by Curator York Chang

admin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:13:56 +0000

ARTIST TALK with GUSTAVO E. RAYNAL

Interview by Curator York Chang

Saturday, November 7, 2009 4:00- 5:00pm

Please join us for the first public discussion in the U.S. with one of the founding members of the visceral realist movement, Argentine artist/provocateur Gustavo E. Raynal. We will be discussing the problematics of non-violence in art, his ideas around “confrontational aesthetics,” and the potential for radical political change through cultural production.

Raynal Biography:

In 1998, Gustavo E. Raynal first presented the influential seminal text Towards a Theory of Institutional Rupture (link to the text) at a workshop in Buenos Aires on contemporary art and politics, laying out an argument for confrontation and disaster as a both a creative strategy and artistic goal. At the end of the workshop, he and four other artists founded a group known as the visceral realists, taking their name from a controversial 1970’s poetry movement in Mexico City, which later became the basis of the acclaimed novel Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño. From 1998-2002, the visceral realists undertook a series of anarchistic activities which sought to disrupt the Latin American commercial art market, and eventually grew to include thirty-two artist members from four different countries. The economic crisis of 2000 further radicalized the work and activities of the Visceral Realists, resulting in the cancellation of a major retrospective planned by the Fundación Telefónicas and leading to the dissolution of the group itself in 2002.

Raynal’s diverse body of work includes “uprisings,” a form of confrontational performance art that systematically targeted museum boards of directors and curators, in an effort to turn the very institution of the museum itself into a visceral realist sculpture. In 2000, he was arrested when he flew to São Paolo and got into an altercation with the President of the São Paulo Biennale Board, returning home to both critical acclaim and controversy. He moved his studio to Mexico City in 2004, where he continues to work, and where he says confrontation and creativity is everywhere.

About the Exhibition:

“Burn” (Excerpt)

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:13:51 +0000

Burn is the first video piece by artist Vincent Valdez. Produced by Federal Art Project with cinematography and editing by Luis Guizar, the work consists of an LA cityscape and portraits of 50 Los Angeles residents from various backgrounds. It was produced for a new solo show by Valdez now on exhibit at Federal Art Project entitled Burn. The work is available for sale in a limited edition run on Blu Ray DVD. It is enclosed in a handmade box and includes an original portrait of selected participants. For more information contact Pete Galindo at pgalindo@federalartproject.net.

VINCENT VALDEZ-BURN

admin — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 00:48:57 +0000

VINCENT VALDEZ BURN September 5 – September 26 2009

FEDERAL ART PROJECT is pleased to present a solo exhibition by artist Vincent Valdez entitled “Burn”. Monumental cityscapes, intimate drawings and new video work (a first for Valdez) provide striking images of the city and people in a process of destruction and regeneration. The show will feature new video work by Valdez.

Link to information about new video work by Valdez

1440 FRAMES

admin — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:47:31 +0000

1 min. 35mm films Curated and Produced by Luis Guizar

Harry Gamboa

Raquel Gutierrez

Michele Jaquis

Austin Meredith

Maria Murillo

Suzanne Oshinsky

Jeremy Quinn

Mike Sakamoto

Kasia Skrynkiewicz

Vincent Valdez

MIXTAPE VOL. 1

admin — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:17:47 +0000

MIXTAPE VOL. 1

A mixtape, composed of songs that are conceptually linked by the compiler, allow the listener to enter a highly personal narrative. By meticulously selecting the theme, songs, order, and duration, a multilayered story is woven. The usage of such a popular form, music, thus creates a highly subjective experience for each individual listener. Each artist in this exhibition uses a song, a lyric, or musical subculture as the conceptual model or point of departure.

JUAN CAPISTRAN
IRINA CONTRERAS
MARCO DIMAS SANCHEZ
SANDRA DE LA LOZA
HAZAL MANDUJANO
JACOB RHODES
SHIZU SALDAMANDO
RICH SHELTON

REVIEW BY ADOLFO GUZMAN-LOPEZ

1440 Frames- An invitation to artists from diverse disciplines to shoot 100 feet of 35mm motion picture film.

admin — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 22:53:37 +0000

Federal Art Project invites artists from diverse disciplines to shoot 100 feet of 35mm motion picture film.
Films will be screened on August 13, 2009 at Federal Art Project. [link to PDF of Artist call]

GUIDELINES:

-To be shot on August 7-8, 2009 at gallery, by appointment.
-100′ of 35mm film, limited variety stock available or artist may supply stock on a Kodak core.
-No sound track.
-Must be shot on available camera: Konvas 2M, 24fps sync, 8-12-24-25-32 fps- 16mm -200mm Primes,
25-250mm zoom.
-Academy Aperture (full 35mm frame) otherwise one matte crop will be allowed to a standard frame size.
-To be shot within gallery space, no modification of the gallery space (no painting, no adding walls, etc.),
backdrops, props and cast allowed.
-Camera is not allowed to see outside of gallery space, e.g., through doors or windows.
-Should be executed within 30 minutes.
-In camera editing/start-stop shooting allowed.
-Special lighting needs to be specified by artist. Lighting is available.
-Artist may choose to operate or be cinematographer, no outside cinematographer.
(Default operator/cinematographer will be the Curator.)
-Only the tail or the head of the film will be cut to accommodate the mandatory 1,440 final frames (1 min.)
for presentation. (10′ of 100′ are intended for technical purposes; un/loading flashes, color chart,
frame chart, etc.)

PRESENTATION:
Films will be screened continuously on opening day, August 13, 2009, 6p. Each 1440 set will have a
digital title card with artist name. Films will be projected onto an 8′x6′ screen with black border from
a high-resolution digital projector at standard playback.

SUBMISSION (Deadline July 29 ):

- Artist Biography or Statement.
- Proposed use of 100′ of 35mm film
- 1 page combined maximum.
- Please place this information in upper right corner: Name, Phone and Email
- Print submission to .pdf (.doc,.rtf,.txt files ok) and email to above address, or hand deliver to gallery drop box.

If you would like to visit the space please make an appointment or to see a daily schedule go to
federalartproject.net. [link to layout of space.] Multiple submissions permitted, but artist will only
be allowed one 1440 frame set.

Selected submissions will be announced on Federalartproject.net on Friday evening, July 31.
If accepted, a materials fee of $50 will be applied; covers processing, transfer and film stock (200T &
500T color negative) unless otherwise specified by artist. Limited selection on hand.
Artist will receive a DVD copy of all films shot and an HD file of their project.
Individual film will be under license of artist.

Federal Art Project will not have individual rights, but will hold license over the “1440 Frames” as a collection (for details contact Pete Galindo at pgalindo@federalartproject.net).

For more information or to make an appointment to visit the gallery contact: Luis Guizar, curator, lguizar@federalartproject.net

PDF of Announcement [link]

Gallery Map [link]

MOVIE MEINTO, ADOLFO GUZMAN-LOPEZ

admin — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:48:42 +0000

MOVIE MIENTO

Follow

By Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
July 10, 2009 11:42 AM

These artists made music drip, cut its head off, sewed it into quilts and laser cut it into sheets of metal. Music’s the main inspiration behind most of the art on view at the Mixedtape Vol. 1 show at downtown L.A.’s Federal Art Project gallery.

Unless you were one of about a hundred people who stopped by the opening last night you missed Juan Capistran’s richly layered piece. It melted down the sidewalk on 2nd Street, east toward Broadway. The piece is titled “Colors (I’m so Bored with the U.S.A. DUB).” Its jumping off point is the 20 year-old song “Colors” by Ice-T. Juan created a pile of ice that on closer inspection includes the phrase “SOBRE TIERRA DE LIBRES” (pulled from the super-controversial Spanish translation of the “Star Spangled Banner” three years ago) spelled with molded ice letters, some clear, some dyed blue, others red.

The piece is imbued with Juan’s memories of growing up in the 98th Street and Figueroa neighborhood of South Central 25 years ago. His was one of only two Mexican families on his block. He remembers being beat up, jumped, in the second grade by African American kids. His memories are largely nostalgic. The ice cube colors reference the Bloods and Crips gangs. The cubes also denounce the new oppressive force in that neighborhood. When Ice-T sang about South Central, the LAPD sowed fear among many residents. Now, Capistran says, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officers have dutifully assumed that role in the now mostly immigrant Mexican and Central American neighborhoods of South Central.

Seven other artists in the show also layer musical memories into the artwork on display. Hazel Mandujano covers a wall with lyrics from a Joan Jett song. Singer Neil Young inspired artist Rich Shelton to create a laser-cut steel piece titled “Burn Out, Fade Away.” Jacob Rhodes documents the Oxnard skinhead scene of the 1980s in quilts sowed with outlines of skinhead guys hanging, drinking beers. He pushes the “do it yourself” aesthetic of the punk movement to its logical conclusion. If you can create your own punk fashion, why not create your own skinhead quilt? One of the three quilts is made of skinheads’ green bomber jacket material, lined with gingham and decorated with tassels (a reference to the tasseled shoes skinheads used to wear before they started wearing boots). Jacob tells me the homo-erotic undertones are not in my imagination.

Cal Arts graduate Shizu Saldamando depicts a recent concert scene in Azusa in hyperrealist style in her graphite on wood piece titled “Maria Daniela y su Sonido Lazer Concert, Azusa, CA.” There’s a lot going on in the piece. Mexico City pop-alternative singer Maria Daniela is depicted only through the butt of her microphone. She’s not important. It’s the crowd, all dark haired, some Spanish speakers, some 2nd generation immigrants, like Shizu, she says. In Azusa, a majority Latino suburb in the San Gabriel Valley (the Long Island of L.A. County, where immigrants assimilate into the middle class) you don’t have to defend your Latino identity, Shizu says, like she had to do growing up in San Francisco. It’s a new mainstream setting unlike the under-siege state most Latino immigrants inhabit elsewhere in the United States.

What kind of art is this? Chicano art, of course. But not really. Several of these artists were in last year’s big, LACMA-organized Phantom Sightings show. It was a seminal Chicano art exhibit embraced by many artists as an institutional door-opening and rejected by others as an attempt to say the Chicano art of the 1960s is no longer relevant. The show’s subtitle “Art After the Chicano Movement” fed the controversy.

Shizu Saldamando and Juan Capistran curated the Mixedtape Vol. 1 show. She explains that the show was partly inspired by Phantom Sighting’s “Post-Chicano” debate. The label doesn’t honor the art and artists who came before, she says. She backtracks soon after though, saying she’d rather frame this show as something born out of love, not hate or paranoia. Next to the melting ice cubes, curator Pilar Tompkins defends the “Post-Chicano” terminology as she hands me a flyer for her upcoming show, “Post-American L.A.”

Words and how they’re used to frame art are important to these artists. They’re not only creating art, they’re engaged in how their art drips, is cut, and is sewn into a larger cultural tapestry, which may be far from finished.