This Week @ Farmlab
September 27-October 3, 2007

Farmlab Public Salons

Friday, September 28, 2007 @ Noon
Food Access in South and Central Los Angeles: Mapping Injustice, Agenda for Action
Join Andrea Azuma and Elizabeth Medrano as they discuss the obesity epidemic in the United States and the quest to find healthy and affordable foods in every neighborhood of Los Angeles ......
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Friday, October 5, 2007 @ Noon
Wasted
Join Cara Baldwin for "a belligerent celebration of the ways artists and activists endlessly consume and reclaim ourselves, one another and our environment." .....
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News + Projects

Ag Bins on Skid Row Participant Profiled in L.A. Daily News
Sunday, September 23, 2007 Edition Highlights "Elvis"
Roland Burris, a leading participant in Farmlab's Ag Bins on Skid Row project, was the subject of a profile in the Los Angeles Daily News by reporter Tony Castro .....
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Piece Commissioned by Farmlab; Depicts Iconic Walnut Trees
On Alameda Ave. #1 (SCF) A Painting by Lucas Reiner, Now Being Exhibited
Lucas Reiner's oil-on-canvas painting, On Alameda Ave. #1 (SCF), part of the group show, Portraits, now on exhibition in Los Angeles at the Carl Berg Gallery, depicts the California black walnut trees that graced the site of the former South Central Farm ......
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Under Spring

Saturday, September 29 & October 13, 2007 @ 10am-12noon
Tongva Cultural Workshops
Farmlab will be offering a series of workshops to honor November as Native American Heritage month. These workshops will be led by the descendants of the Tongva people, of the Los Angeles .....
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'Crystal Ship' Exhibition -- Extended Through January 31, 2008*



farmlab presents

CRYSTAL SHIP

Felicity Powell, Ansel Krut, and Saskia and Hannah Krut-Powell

A family of artists looking for Arcadia


Opening Reception: November 9, 2007, 7:30-10pm

Exhibition: November 10-December 28, 2007


"One midnight we were woken by the sound of thunder. A distant storm was coming in across the sea and the lightning stood out in prolonged relief against the moonless sky. Suddenly a ship, lit up like a crystal chandelier, detached itself from the storm and sailed serenely across the horizon. It seemed to have come out of the heart of the storm, a jeweled vessel of light, like the carriage for some mythological goddess and part of the storm itself." -- Felicity Powell

While visiting a remote Italian island at the invitation of Chora, an initiative of the Annenberg Foundation,* the Krut-Powell family experienced a moment of delighted awe. Sharing their sensibilities and insights, this family of artists, who range in age from ten- to forty-eight-years-old, then set out to make work as full of wonder, surprise and magic as that moment. The richly diverse results of their enterprise are on exhibition at Farmlab from November 9 through December 28, 2007.

Taking its name from Plato’s concept of "empty space" – a receptacle where thought interacts with matter to become form – the Chora Initiative provides settings in which cultural practitioners can work together. In August 2007 the Initiative invited four families of artists to the Mediterranean island of Pantelleria to explore 'journey' as a generator of creative work.

Working alongside their children for this multi-generational art experiment, the adults found that the usual constraints of making "grown-up" art were suspended. In keeping with the intuitive nature of Choral thought, which is aligned with imagination, memory and feeling, the adults were absorbed into the child’s eye view of an endlessly mutable, strange and compelling world where judgments were determined according to imaginative possibility rather than reality. As Ansel Krut noted: "Once we had crossed that threshold there was no way back."

Speaking to the fertility of this liminal space, Crystal Ship presents a wide range of works that run a gamut of scales and mediums and manifest a spectrum of characteristics. Felicity Powell exhibits film, animation and drawings alongside sculptural works that include a series of infinitely delicate white wax reliefs on black glass. Ansel Krut's projects include robust drawings, paintings in oil-on-canvas and an installation of eighteen small works on glass titled The Ghost of a Flea. Saskia and Hannah Krut-Powell's projected photographs flank their drawings and a number of their small-scale sculptures, which are realized in fabric and needlecraft as well as more traditional modeling materials.

Related Programming

On Friday November 9, at noon, in advance of Crystal Ship's evening opening, the weekly Farmlab Public Salon will feature the Krut-Powell family speaking about their work and the Chora experience. Further information about this and other Farmlab Public Salons is available online @ www.farmlab.org.

About the Artists

Felicity Powell, Ansel Krut and Saskia and Hannah Krut-Powell live and work in London. This is the first time they have exhibited together. The Chora Initiative is a project of the Annenberg Foundation.

ANSEL KRUT: A recipient of the Abbey Major scholarship, the Fellow in drawing at Wimbledon School of Art from 2005 to 2007, and lecturer in painting at London's Royal College of Art, Ansel Krut ascribes much of the unsettling imagery in his paintings to growing up in Apartheid era South Africa. His provocative inventions have been exhibited regularly over the last twenty years in solo and group shows in the UK and internationally; and his work is included in the collections of, among others, the British Council, the Arts Council of England, the Government Collection, the Wellcome Trust, the Johannesburg Art Gallery, The Mercer Art Gallery Harrogate, LAC Narbonne, and the Ben Uri Collection.

FELICITY POWELL: Felicity Powell's work in various media has been exhibited internationally and is represented in the collections of major museums, including both the Department of Prints and Drawings and the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum. She is the recipient of the V&A Department of Sculpture's first contemporary art commission and of an Arts and Humanities Research Board award, which resulted in "Drawn from the Well", a site-specific installation at the V&A, 2002-4. An acclaimed medalist, Ms. Powell won the 1998 Millennium Medal competition organized by the Royal Mint and the British Art Medal society and she is the co-curator of a forthcoming exhibition, 'Medals of Dishonour', to be held at the British Museum, 2009.

Crystal Ship, Felicity Powell, film still, 2007
(Image courtesy Felicity Powell
)


*This subject heading has been changed from the original

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Ag Bins on Skid Row Participant Profiled in L.A. Daily News

Roland Burris, a leading participant in Farmlab's Ag Bins on Skid Row project, was the subject of a profile in the Sunday, September 23, 2007 edition of the Los Angeles Daily News.

Burris -- a.k.a. "Elvis" -- resides at Lamp Lodge, one of the agencies that partnered with Farmlab for the Ag Bin project. Burris is becoming a media darling -- his gardening work has also recently been cited, and him quoted, in the Los Angeles Downtown News.

Burris' nickname, naturally, comes from his spot-on vocal impersonations of a certain Mr. Presley.

As reporter Tony Castro put it in the Daily News:

"The gardening has also spread Burris' reputation as an Elvis impersonator beyond Skid Row, with tales of how he has crooned 'Don't Be Cruel' and other classics of `The King' to struggling plants.

"'I talk to them, and sometimes I sing Elvis songs to them,' he said. 'Does it work? You don't see them wilting even in the heat, do you?'"

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This Week @ Farmlab
September 19-25, 2007


Exhibitions
Garden of Brokenness Closes
Exhibition Taken Down and Is Being Packed Away For Future Viewing Elsewhere
G of B was the Farmlab Team's work celebrating Los Angeles as a broken paradise. The piece served as a large-scale conceptual model for a proposed public space at nearby Confluence Park ..... full text

News + Projects
Farmlab to Participate in Park(ing) Day LA
Friday, September 21 from 8:00am - 4:00pm
Join Farmlab as we participate in Park(ing) Day LA. You will find us on N. Broadway at College St. in Chinatown. (in front of a parking lot and Little Joe's restaurant on the east side of the street) Our park will include a junker car and beverages ..... full text

Another Busy Past Weekend @ Farmlab and Under Spring
Salon of Found (and stolen) Dance,Tongva Cultural Workshop, Puppets After Hours...
Six hundred people. Thirty-four hours. Four programs. One exhibition That's the numerical shorthand from the past few jam-packed days at Farmlab and Under Spring, as the following ..... full text

Farmlab Public Salons
Friday, September 28, 2007 @ Noon
"Food Access in South and Central Los Angeles: Mapping Injustice, Agenda for Action"
Join Andrea Azuma and Elizabeth Medrano as they discuss the obesity epidemic in the United States and the quest to find healthy and affordable foods in every neighborhood of Los Angeles ...... full text

Friday, October 5, 2007 @ Noon
"Wasted"
Join Cara Baldwin for what she describes as a celebration of the ways artists and activists endlessly consume and reclaim ourselves, one another and our environment. ..... full text

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Garden of Brokenness Exhibition
Closing This Week**

Garden of Brokenness is being taken down from view this week, and being packed away for future exhibition elsewhere.

G of B was the Farmlab Team's work celebrating Los Angeles as a broken paradise. The piece served as a large-scale conceptual model for a proposed public space at nearby Confluence Park

Internal estimates vary on the exact time and date this week when the show will be completely removed.

Any visitors who would like to see G of B here and in-person one final time are encouraged to call ahead and confirm that the show is both standing and that the gallery is safe to accept visitors.

For more photos of the exhibition as it stood, please click here.

**UPDATE: THE EXHIBITION HAS NOW CLOSED. A NEW EXHIBITION IS BEING PLANNED, WITH A TENTATIVE OPENING RECEPTION DATE SCHEDULED FOR 11/9/07. PLEASE CONTINUE TO VISIT FARMLAB.ORG FOR MORE DETAILS.

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Another Busy Past Weekend @ Farmlab and Under Spring


Six hundred people.

Thirty-four hours.

Four programs.

One exhibition.

That's the numerical shorthand from the past few jam-packed days at Farmlab and Under Spring, as the following happenings took place:

  • Friday, September 14 @ Noon: This week's Farmlab Public Salon featured Farmlab Executive Director and President of the City of L.A.'s Cultural Affairs Commission giving a keynote address about the past and present state of the arts in the city, and presenting ideas for the future.

    One hundred and fifty or so attendees sat in folding chairs Under Spring during the presentation; many first grabbing a home-cooked lunch put together by Farmlab's Cathy Ortega.

    Nodal's remarks included an intriguing call for artists as disaster relief "second responders," using culture as a healing tool. He also called for more city funding for the Cultural Affairs Department, and noted that just keeping other Department heads -- from Parks & Recreation to LAPD to LAFD -- informed about culture in the city was a particularly inexpensive way to invigorate citywide awareness in the arts.

    Following the speech, various academic, cultural and political leaders, professionals, and fans in attendance asked questions, chatted and caught up with longtime friends in the crowd, and re- or acquainted themselves with Farmlab and the artwork's various team members.



  • Friday, September 15 @ Noon: New York choreographer Melinda Ring came to Under Spring to curate the "Salon of Found (and stolen) Dance." The 50 or so assembled dance fans witnessed live demonstrations of what Ring had, prior to the show, explained "found dance" to be: "An episode of movement not choreographed by you, that someone else consciously or unconsciously created, or that just happens to exist in the urban or natural environment, and that you find curious, intriguing, amusing, or inspiring."


  • Saturday, September 15 @ 10am: A handful of folks joined Farmlab's Olivia Chumacero for a Tongva Cultural Workshop. This week, those who participated wove baskets; the craftwork was in preparation for the coming (in early November) La Ofrenda (Day of the Dead) ceremonies.


  • Saturday, September 15 @ 7:30pm: The busy day-and-a-half at Farmlab and Under Spring concluded with a wildly popular and wildly populist program -- "Puppets After Hours." This 150-minute extravaganza of the wide range of puppetry arts drew a crowd of some 400 enthusiastic visitors, including many who indicated it was their debut trip to Farmlab.

    The first hour of the program consisted of the puppeteers wandering around, or setting up small stage areas, throughout the Farmlab offices and Under Spring venue. A Victorian-looking duo did a show out of of a box, like street buskers, next to a garage door. A five-foot-tall praying mantis puppet hung out amidst the Ag Bin Ramblas. Fish "swam" throughout the venue, roaming from near the pond that is part of the Garden of Brokenness exhibition, through Farmlab's administrative office area, and back outdoors, where an "aquarium" was projected on a wall.

    Next up, an hour-long stage show took place. Starring puppet characters included an animatronic "Ah-nuld The Govenator," a pair of gruff space aliens in their ship; a trio of singing family members, a dancing, ready-to-roast fowl (trust us --- you had to be there), the Huell Howser-meets-Joan Rivers ad-libbed antics of The Countess, and various other oddities.

    The evening concluded with a concert from Glank. Weren't there? Well, just think: old, converted ambulance; lots of Haz-Mat suits; drumming; makeshift instruments and crowd interaction...That help any?


  • More photos from the various programs will be posted in this space in the coming days.

    All of these Farmlab and Under Spring programs are presented free-of-charge.

    The puppets were part of Farmlab's now-concluded "Accidentally on Purpose" series celebrating summer and serendipity.

    Please continue to check Farmlab.org for weekly Farmlab Public Salon listings, as well as other special programs like those noted above.


  • Note about this photo: Our apologies -- we're slow posting our shots from the weekend. This image was taken prior to all the happenings; it shows off Ag Bin Ramblas, with puppets and puppeteers who would then appear during Puppets After Hours. Farmlab Photo by James Goodnight

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    This Week @ Farmlab
    September 12-18, 2007



    Farmlab Public Salons
    Friday, September 14, 2007 @ Noon
    Adolfo V. Nodal | "L.A. City Arts: Notes on Cultural Planning..."
    Join Adolfo V. Nodal as he discusses ideas and proposals for cultural planning for Los Angeles during the past few decades. Opening Remarks by Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick. ..... full text

    Under Spring
    The Salon of Found (and Stolen) Dance
    Friday, September 14 @ 8:00pm | Free of Charge
    Join Farmlab and choreographer Melinda Ring for an evening of live movement demonstrations, video footage, and performance on and around the topics of the appropriation of dance ..... full text

    Puppets After Hours
    Leading L.A. Puppeteers To Perform Free at Under Spring | September 15 @ 7:30pm
    This fully immersive evening of adult-themed cabaret theater, interactive performance art, and live music will feature the best and brightest in puppetry arts. This free-of-charge program is ..... full text

    News + Projects
    Piece Commissioned by Farmlab; Depicts Iconic Walnut Trees
    On Alameda Ave. #1 (SCF) A Painting by Lucas Reiner, Now Being Exhibited
    Lucas Reiner's oil-on-canvas painting, On Alameda Ave. #1 (SCF), part of the group show, Portraits, now on exhibition in Los Angeles at the Carl Berg Gallery, depicts the California black walnut trees that graced the site of the former South Central Farm ...... full text

    Farmlab to Participate in Park(ing) Day LA
    Friday, September 21 from 8:00am - 4:00pm
    Join Farmlab as we participate in Park(ing) Day LA. You will find us on N. Broadway at College St. in Chinatown (in front of a parking lot and Little Joe's restaurant), on the east side of the street. Our park will include a junker car and beverages ..... full text

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    "On Alameda Ave. #1 (SCF)," A Painting by Lucas Reiner, Now Being Exhibited
    Piece Commissioned by Farmlab; Depicts Iconic Walnut Trees



    Lucas Reiner's oil-on-canvas painting, "On Alameda Ave. #1 (SCF)" -- reproduced above -- is part of the group show, "Portraits," now on exhibition in Los Angeles at the Carl Berg Gallery.

    The portrait, commissioned and owned by Farmlab and not available for sale at the gallery, depicts the venerated, intertwined, California black walnut trees that graced the site of the former South Central Farm.

    Following the bulldozing of the SCF, Farmlab rescued and moved the two walnut trees -- as well as 110 or so smaller fruit trees -- to the grounds of the Huntington Gardens. The walnuts were recently replanted at the Huntington.

    The exhibition at Carl Berg continues through October 6, 2007.

    During the past six years, Reiner has made various paintings of trees that have undergone, as he puts it, "radical trimmings."

    After receiving his "On Alameda" commission from Farmlab Creative Director Lauren Bon, Reiner took a helicopter ride over the former SCF site. His research would also soon incorporate Google Earth aerial maps, plus the still photos and videos he took of the trees that became icons of the struggle to preserve the once-flourishing agricultural acreage.

    Typically, Reiner's tree paintings feature trunks that continue downward off the bottom of the canvas.

    But this time, knowing that his subject was soon to be boxed up, and moved from South L.A. to San Marino, Reiner broke from his usual form. In "On Alameda," the Walnuts don't come close to hitting the lower edge of the frame.

    In fact, Reiner says, he imagined the trees as flying, ascending.

    "That's why it's portrayed floating in pictorial space, uprooted," he says. "So this would be like the tree in transit -- if you were going to make a literal interpretation."

    The act of uprooting, boxing, trimming, and transporting something arboreal can be dangerous and violent. Reiner notes that whenver trees are moved, there's always the chance they won't survive. The artist says his painting also aims to convey that element of suspense.

    Suspense, Reiner says, but hope, as well. That's why there's a fair amount of green visible in the painting.

    "I'm optistimic," Reiner says, "that it will grow back."

    ***

    Click here for more information about and images from the Carl Berg Gallery group show featuring Lucas Reiner, as well as Dan McCleary, and George Stoll.

    Click here for links to more information about and images of Farmlab's 'Monument to the Trees as Unsung Heroes of the South Central Farm'

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    This Week @ Farmlab
    September 5-11, 2007


    Farmlab Public Salons

    Friday, Spetember 7, 2007 @ Noon
    Mike Blockstein & Reanne Estrada W/ Special Guest Aurora Flores
    Join Mike Blockstein & Reanne Estrada of Public Matters, with special guest Aurora Flores, as they speak about the complex relationships between artists and community-based organizations ..... full text

    Friday, Spetember 14, 2007 @ Noon
    Adolfo V. Nodal | "L.A. City Arts: Notes on Cultural Planning..."
    Join Adolfo V. Nodal as he discusses ideas and proposals for cultural planning for Los Angeles during the past few decades. Opening Remarks by Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick. ..... full text

    Change in Food Service Policy
    Complimentary Lunch Tickets Will Be Available To All Who Request Them
    Effective Friday, September 7, 2007, Farmlab will begin charging a $5 fee to purchase a lunch plate at our weekly Farmlab Public Salons. Please see any of the Farmlab team members prior to taking your meal. ..... full text

    Under Spring

    September 14, 2007 @ 8PM
    Salon of Found (and stolen) Dance
    Curated by Melinda Ring, this evening of live movement demonstrations, video footage, performance and conversation of, on and around the topics of appropriation, inspiration, transformation, and stealing. And, of course, refreshments will be served... full text

    September 15 @ 7:30pm: Puppets After Hours
    Leading L.A. Puppeteers To Perform Free at Under Spring
    This fully immersive evening of adult-themed cabaret theater, interactive performance art, and live music will feature the best and brightest in puppetry arts. This free-of-charge program is..... full text

    Tongva Cultural Workshops Begin This Saturday
    Sept. 8th, 15th, 29th & Oct. 13 2007 10am-12noon
    Farmlab will be offering a series of workshops to honor November as Native American Heritage month. These workshops will be led by the descendants of the Tongva people, of the Los Angeles ..... full text

    News + Projects

    Just Posted: 360-Degree QuickTime Virtual Tours
    Browse Recent Exhibitions, Projects, and Facilities
    Visit this web page to see and navigate through 360-degree QuickTime Virtual Tours of "AMAZE" by Farmlab Team from August, 2007, The Ag Bins on Skid Row project delivery day on June, 2007, and ...... full text

    Farmlab Featured in Los Angeles Downtown News Editorial
    Ag Bins on Skid Row Are A 'Gifted, Brilliant Idea'
    "Bringing gardens into Skid Row could have seemed an odd undertaking. But Farmlab, and the new urban gardeners, have proved that it works. We think it is"..... full text

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    Farmlab to Participate in Park(ing) Day


    This just in from Farmlab team member Autumn Rooney:

    "Farmlab will have a park on Broadway at College in Chinatown (in front of a parking lot and Little Joe's restaurant), on the east side of the street. We will have a junker car & beverages. We will have 2 meters. Park hours will be from 8AM-4PM."

    Related:

    See the complete citywide Park(ing) Day map here

    For those of you who missed the recent Farmlab Public Salon about Park(ing) Day, and want to know more, see here.


    Farmlab photo illustration by Autumn Rooney

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