Sunshine Quoi?
Temporary Contemporaries

12 noon to 4pm

Panelists:

ART2102 is proud to announce the first in a series of panel discussions amongst contemporary non-commercial art venues in Los Angeles. The series, Sunshine Quoi?, reflects on the history of artists' spaces and projects, bringing together the people behind some of today's generation rethinking the character of the art institution. Following in the footsteps of The Museum of Jurasic Technology, The Center for Land Use Interpretation, Deep River, Three-Day-Weekends and Six Months, these contemporary venues operate outside of the commercial sphere and art institutional realm, redefining the model of the artists-run space time and again. Sunshine Quoi? aims to develop a social and intellectual mapping of these projects to begin to formulate a deeper awareness of the myriad of experimental practices in art production occurring in Los Angeles, but not always evidenced in its more conventional spaces. The series of panel discussions will culminate in a collective newspaper publication project containing contributions from participants.

The first installment of the Sunshine Quoi? series presents three projects that specifically address notions of the temporary and the elusive within their programs: Another Year in LA, Champion Fine Art and ESL, Esthetics as a Second Language. These three organizations share characteristics with the existing structures of art galleries, educational institutions and museums, yet created spaces with finite durations, and transitory locations, reflecting the elusive, and multiplicitous character of the Los Angeles art world. Each employs strategies that reconsider and deconstruct the existing models of art presentation, and collapse the notions of institutional concreteness, opting instead to focus on the temporary communing of the public around specific events and exhibitions. David and Cathy Stone of Another Year in LA, Flora Wiegmann of Champion Fine Art, and Nate Harrison and Mario Garcia Torres of ESL will present their projects and discuss the contrasting ways they defined and operated their spaces, while speaking to their individual motivations for re-imagining the sites of reception of art, and the functioning of the art institution.

ANOTHER YEAR IN LA is housed in the former location of ONE YEAR IN LA which was a yearlong art exhibition project conceived by David E. Stone. During 2004, David staged twelve monthly exhibitions of his conceptually-based work, which formed an episodic cradle-to-grave experience. ANOTHER YEAR IN LA is the result of a metamorphosis from an allegorical solo endeavor to a seemingly more traditional gallery experience continuing a conceptual mindset. The program of one- or two-month exhibitions has focused exclusively on contemporary work as the gallery hosted a forty-year survey of pioneer conceptual artist Stephen J. Kaltenbach. In addition to shows selected by Cathy & David Stone, the gallery invites an outside arts professional every year to curate an exhibition that complicates and expands the program.

CHAMPION FINE ART:is a two-year exhibition series of artist-curated group shows. Developing out of a defining moment for many artists-run galleries, CHAMPION aimed to preserve the independent nature of such spaces and resist the growing influence of curatorial professional practice, the bureaucracy that often results from non-profit organizations, and the market forces that drive commercial galleries. The twenty-one exhibitions were titled numerically in descending order. The first ten shows took place in New York City, September, 2003 - August, 2004. The remaining shows took place in Los Angeles, October, 2004 through November, 2005. Each exhibition is accompanied by a hand bound, self-produced catalog in an edition of one hundred. The series will culminate with the publication of Zero, a book documenting the entire project.

ESL | ESTHETICS AS A SECOND LANGUAGE is a debate interval between academia, art institutions and individuals, coordinated by artists Nate Harrison, Hugo Hopping and Mario Garcia Torres. ESL is an outfit that aims to provide the stage to publicly discuss social matter in the art arena, envisioning art and thinking as potential agents for social intervention. It is a movable concept that migrates from physical to virtual space and hopes to encounter other significant areas of interaction. Rather than adopting a democratic or an authoritarian organizational model, ESL exists as a flexible structure where everyone that participates becomes part of its development and expansion. Publicly, it is mostly known for a one-night event series hosted in East Los Angeles.

Part 2: Sunshine Quoi? Common Sense
Part 3: Skylar Haskard's Mapping Sunshine Quoi?

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