Concatenation at LACDA

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"Concatenation"

October 14-Nov 6, 2010
Reception, October 14, 7-9pm
In conjunction with Downtown Art Walk

Martin Gantman
Melissa Ann Lambert
Kathryn Jacobi
Yolanda Klappert
Michael Tyson Murphy
Leslie Tucker
Ela Boyd
Jun-Jun Sta.Ana
Jennifer Kuo
Heather Lowe-Kailey Fry
Mary Neubauer
Johnathan Bagby
Michael Wood
Dan Shepherd
Ron Janowich
Ashley West Leonard
Nancy Baron
Eric Bickford
Pete Jackson
Johnny Nicoloro
Wally Gilbert
Peter Hassen

Kathryn Jacobi

Concatenation
n
1. a series of interconnected events, concepts, etc.
2. the act of linking together or the state of being joined
3. (Philosophy / Logic) Logic a function that forms a single string of symbols from two given strings by placing the second after the first

L.A. is a cacophonous shimmering silicon wafer, a vast crust of technologically generated business, transportation and imagistic exchange. It rushes at high velocity through an endless grid of infrastructure that has become a hub for the global. This is a seemingly infinite source of material that runs by the senses--garish and uncontrolled. Most of it I rather like, but of course, so much is toxic and destructive. We need changes. Art that concatenates itself in an oblique complicity with the momentum of technologically produced chatter can be like a hammer that breaks the wafer or makes a crack. Such a breach constitutes a humorous and pleasurable possibility of "re-routing" for change without dictating to others what that change should be.

Something is only "original" and propulsive in that it strings together two or more disparate elements and generates an unexpected meaning from the combination. So from my perspective I live in a high energy (and hilarious) landscape because in California and L.A. most everything I see or experience is a wildly disparate combination. Many concatenations are propelled by the requirement for newness and growth in types of products, media programming, fashion, technology, communications, art and professions compulsory to generate the economic activity that is the lifeblood of our world. The gargantuan collision of multiple cultures that flow into our surroundings mix and mingle. They separate off to "rediscover" themselves and recombine again to create Kosher Burritos and Thai Pizza, or Picture Phones and Net Art (as more obvious examples of very deep reverberations echoing to create the flavorful surface of our existence).

The lack of any cultural purity indicates an inherent propensity for change. I see little primary source or elemental structure in cultures, knowledge, eras, communication, technology or meaning but rather a rootless dynamic of combinations and random mutations. Purity in form is problematic (and also was the goal of Nazis). Existence is almost predicated by the capability to recombine. Sperm, eggs and DNA. Whipped up things (L. A. being the ultimate in all things fabricated). The success of a moment can be measured by its sheer variety, quantity and "inter-marriage" of cultural material. The simultaneous representation of differing cultures is concurrent with the crossing or interconnection of their borders.

So it is natural and vital for many artists to reify artifacts from his or her surroundings containing a vision peculiar to that persons unique recombinant constitution from their proximate culture--as well as a culture at large--that denotes a personal narrative or "self." In my case the immense mosh-pit named Los Angeles electrifies life into me as its own Frankenstein's Monster constituted by parts of what were perceived as discontiguous bodies: its vehicles, architecture, population, products, and landscape. There is the century long history of worldwide distribution, broadcast and promotion of culture and the Westside/Hollywood schmooze—now a world wide current of mobile and social connectivity.

I produce and exhibit objects that are the dissonant cross dressers of a city and its electronic relation the international. This is not just an expression of identity (or as it turns out the absence thereof) it is also about the technological momentum inherent in cultural activity and the power that gives an artist or curator to create flux in the energy field that vivifies the necrotic and partially frozen body parts at the core of a large society (in my case a once dilapidated downtown Los Angeles and the newly enlivened scene there). It is a meltdown, or shock treatment. "Demystification." "De-putrification." It is a cultural laxative. Everyone knows that there is an incredible quantity of things-that-are-wrong-in-the-world, but most everyone has the feeling of being stuck, or overpowered by the colossal claim on control made by obese economic and political interests.

My agency revolves around the instinct I apparently have to lubricate the thought processes of an incredibly multitudinous culture by adding more "mish" to the "mosh" through the products of artful concatenation. This could be in the form of a single work, a schedule of exhibits, or a group show. The interpretation of cultural material is always variable and dubious. The final upshot of my activities is like lighting an aesthetic backfire by presenting images, sounds, data, words, and whatever else summing up into a hefty quantity of weightless "possibles" or "uncertainties" and injecting it to the best of my ability into my surroundings.

In our era our surroundings have spread into the electronic space of contemporary digital networks, mobile communication, interdisciplinary computer media and their reproduction and dissemination. The "white box" of a traditional gallery can be subsumed as a peripheral component to these technologies. It is here that art can be a self replicating virus to crash systems of closed mindedness. My goal is to open minds or keep them open. An open minded culture is a viable situation. It is a paradox that a lack of focus (or an ideology that is not closed) becomes a focal point for cultural ignition.

This large group show of exemplary artists is the actual product of this dynamic activity. The concatenation occurring within each work and within this particular grouping of artists (and the endless string of LACDA exhibits) are the instigators as well as the documents of social transcendence and conscious interconnection within the culture at large, including its history and future.

—Rex Bruce, September 2010

Melissa Ann Lambert

Ela Boyd