is a recent UCLA graduate with a BA in English and Art History, making her a perfect candidate for an unrelated job as an administrative assistant. Still waiting for a job that requires her skills to read, write, paint, cook, talk, analyze, theorize, and hypothesize.
The Beverly Hills Farmers Market
Sundays, 9am - 1pm
Civic Center Drive, Beverly Hills
The Beverly Hills Sunday farmers market is not bad, it is actually quite typical of an LA farmers market. But in a part of town where everything has to be special in order to justify its real and supposed exclusivity, I was hoping for a bit more than just the same.
Not even a celebrity sighting was to be had at this market, which is literally across the street from the Beverly Hills neighborhood proper, though there were plenty of women there trying really hard to look like they had money. Even on a beautiful day, there was not much foot traffic at all, which usually means the market will not be customized to the community, and therefore not really be worth the drive unless you are in the vicinity. [Read more →]
Tags: Food and Drink · Local Happenings
Gordon Chandler, The “Game” Show
The Lois Lambert Gallery of Functional Art
Bergamot Station, Santa Monica
September 13 - November 9
Many of the galleries at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica are going through a mid-year change of exhibitions. One notable new show opening this Saturday at the Lois Lambert Gallery at the station is The “Game” Show by Gordon Chandler, named for Chandler’s oversized game boards made of society’s cast-off goods. The gallery hosts functional art, perfect for Chandler’s work, which is function in form as well as message.
Chandler has been challenging the value of objects and materials via sculpture for over three decades. By exaggerating size and abandoning orthodox materials for, say, scrap metal and auto parts, his works become critical of the use-value paradigm. Chandler achieves a similar effect when he makes a giant crossword puzzle out of steel, elevating the mundane not only by increasing its size, but also by considering it as an art subject.
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Tags: Arts and Lit · art · bands
The Mar Vista Farmers Market
Sundays, 9am - 2pm
12224 Venice Blvd, Mar Vista
One basic principle of farmers markets is that the good ones are crowded. There has to be something about them to make the community want to attend on top of their usual grocery shopping at regular markets and Trader Joes. The organizers of the Mar Vista farmers market clearly know all this too, and they have put their knowledge to good use.
This was one of the most crowded markets in LA, and it is not even located in an area benefiting from pre-existing foot traffic like markets on 3rd Street Promenade or Downtown. This, plus the presence of families and groups of young people just hanging out is a testament to the fact that people just plain like this market. The produce was not even that out of the ordinary; most of the vendors sell at various other markets as well, making this spot quality, but not necessarily unique, yet the crowds prove that something is being done right.
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Tags: Food and Drink · Lifestyle · Local Happenings · Local LA
This Side of Paradise: Body and Landscape in L.A. Photographs
The Huntington Library
Ends September 15
The Huntington Library’s photography exhibit, This Side of Paradise: Body and Landscape in L.A. Photographs, ends this week, timed perfectly with the close of another L.A. summer. In the show’s last week, you can go to the secluded botanical paradise of the many gardens at the Huntington before getting all thoughtful about the depiction of your complicated hometown in film over the last hundred and forty odd years.
Since 1860, both the physical landscape of the region, as well as the physical nature and awareness of the people living there, has been captured in celluloid. This photography attends to the complexities of the South Land, a place that any Los Angelino must feel bittersweet about. One must learn quickly in LA the difference between appearances and reality, an aphorism that the show’s photography points to. True, L.A. is the nation’s capital for fame, success, leisure, and glamour, but is also home to racial tensions, merciless traffic, and unfulfilled dreams. The photographs in the show represent the physicality of this binary that makes Los Angeles so alluring, yet somehow treacherous.
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Tags: Arts and Lit · Local Happenings · art
The Westchester Farmers Market
Wednesdays, 8:30am - 1:00pm
Westchester Park, Lincoln and La Tijera
I was expecting the Westchester market on Lincoln to be generic and visit-worthy only for the surrounding community. While its modest size and weekday hours might gear it more toward proud Westchster-ers, I was very pleasantly surprised to see that this market was actually a quite the little gem worth checking out. Not only did they have the usual produce and the like, the Westchester farmers market upped the ante with a few unique offerings, with a fraction of the crowds of more popular markets.
This market had every base covered as far as produce goes, and even boasted some specialization that you don’t usually find at these smaller markets. Mark Boujikian Farms focused on grapes of every sort, all of which were beautiful and well priced. He even had seedless Zante currants, a fruit I had never heard of in my life, nor seen at any other market. In fact, there has been a noticeable lack of grapes at farmers markets, even though we are smack in the middle of their late summer season.
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Tags: Local Happenings · Reviews
“Fridays Off the 405″ featuring Monsters Are Waiting
and Justin Warfield & DJ Adam 12
The Getty Center
6 - 9pm
Start your weekend on top of the world, or at least atop LA, at the Getty’s “Fridays Off the 405” series. This weekly installment of FREE music at Los Angeles’s most monolithic museum couples twilight views of everything south of Mullholand as an alternative to the grinding gridlock of the 405. Tonight is the last Friday performance at the Getty, as the end of summer will end the program until the spring when it will be moved to Saturdays, the day when everyone is free to crowd up the galleries and gardens and ruin the vibes.
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Tags: Upcoming events · art
The 3rd Street Promenade Farmers Market
Wednesdays 8:30 - 1:00
Arizona and 2nd Street
Being a general skeptic of hype, I approached the uber-hyped and all-popular farmers market at Santa Monica’s 3rd Street Promenade with a critical eye. In many ways, the hype is well earned, evidenced by the throngs (no exaggeration) which attend this farmers market every Wednesday and Saturday morning.
The Wednesday market was huge; it takes up the intersection of 3rd Street and Arizona, as well as a block over at 2nd Street. If you have issues with crowds or are not impressed by booth after booth of family-owned, totally organic farm produce, then just go to the Pico or Westside markets and save yourself the grief.
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Tags: Food and Drink · Local Happenings
Ed Ruscha: A Selection of Prints
The Greenfield Sacks Gallery
Bergmot Station, 2525 Michigan Avenue, Santa Monica
Hey cool post-modern art kids, you have just one week left to enjoy the Pop Art prints of Ed Ruscha at the Greenfield Sacks Gallery in Santa Monica’s haven for contemporary art, Bergamot Station. Ruscha’s textual “word paintings” are credited for the birth of the Pop Art movement, along with Warhol’s silk screened multiples and Lichtenstein’s comic reproductions.
Ruscha’s stark prints gain much of their notorious and sardonic satire from their simplicity. His works span multiple mediums, from photography and painting to print making as in the show, frequently featuring single words, phrases, or repetitions. This plurality of mediums and influences, however, ironically echoes the banality of LA life and the onslaught of text created by mass media, instead of the city’s rumored energy and potential. If his works seem at all dull or familiar, that is sort of the point.
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Tags: Arts and Lit · Uncategorized · art
The Huntington Beach Farmers Market
Fridays, noon - 5pm
The Huntington Beach Pier Plaza
Parking Lot, off PCH and Main Street
Yes, I know, Huntington Beach is not technically in LA but in Orange County. But, its only a touch south of the Orange Curtain, not a far jaunt off of the 405, and is home to one of the few farmers markets where you will be socially accepted even with no clothes on.
Huntington Beach’s farmers market and adjoining craft fair is not near the beach, it is on it, giving it a lot of Friday afternoon foot traffic from beach-goers and tourists. It sits at the end of Main Street, a crowded thoroughfare of pedestrians, loiterers and shoppers. Main Street is known for its surf shops, restaurants, and bars, and you could do worse on a day off than to hit the beach, buy some tomatoes, then gawk at the locals from the patio of some relaxed eatery.\ [Read more →]
Tags: Food and Drink · Local Happenings
Circle In The Square
The Brand Library Art Galleries
1601 West Mountain St, Glendale
August 2 - September 5, 2008
Opening Reception August 2, 5 - 8pm
This show brought to you by circles and squares. Actually, the theme of this group exhibit at the Brand Library Art Galleries in Glendale is Circle In The Square. Believe it or not, not more than one artist has works that speak to this spatial subject matter; the group show includes works by Yesung Kim, Barbara Kolo, Susan Sironi, Luke Van Hook, and Cheryl Walker, with a special dance performance by Liz Curtis and Martha Carrascosa.
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Tags: Arts and Lit · art
Westwood Village Farmers Market
Sundays, 10am - 3pm
1083 Broxton, Los Angeles
Westwood Village is a neighborhood with a lot of pros and cons. On one hand, it is a busy walking community with plenty of restaurants and shopping, and of course the famous Mann Village Theater. On the other hand, it is impossible to navigate by car, and even more impossible to find parking, let alone free parking. Unfortunately, the Westwood Village Farmers Market is suffering from this same mixture of good and bad.
Westwood used to have a hopping farmers market on Thursday evenings on the corner of Weyburn and Westwood Boulevard. Some discrepancy with permits or certification closed it down, and for a few years the village was market-less. Now the market on Sunday mornings on the quiet Broxton Avenue is smaller in both offerings and attendance, perhaps suffering from the soiled reputation of its predecessor, perhaps from the demographic of the neighborhood (all students, none of which will wake up on Sunday and walk to the Village because of hang-overs or a lack of caring).
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Tags: Local Happenings · Reviews
July 25th, 2008 Written by: Shelby Chambers · Comments Off
La Tinta Grita/The Ink Shouts:
The Art of Social Resistance in Oaxaca, Mexico
The Fowler Museum’s Goldenberg Galleria
July 20 - December 7, 2008
In an act of political expression during duress, artists from Oaxaca made city walls their voice during social conflict in Mexico in 2006. The result is the new exhibit at the Fowler Museum, over thirty wood block prints and stencils created by a group who call themselves the Assembly of Revolutionary Artists of Oaxaca.
La Tinta Grita/The Ink Shouts: The Art of Social Resistance in Oaxaca, Mexico is a deeply rooted in the politics of Mexico, especially since its art was created under the confines of a state that restricted public demonstrations. Mexico has a long history of politically motivated artistry. Diego Rivera is given credit for the “Mexican Mural Renaissance,” along with Jose David Alfaro Siqueiros and Francisco Toledo. One thing that separates these wood cuts from a Rivera mural is that the presence of the master artist is intentionally absent, as Assembly artists remain anonymous. Obviously, this is a safety precaution to avoid persecution, but also because Assembly artists wanted the works to fully speak for themselves, and for the voiceless people of Oaxaca, and not have the message complicated by concerns of what a particular artist “intended.”
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Tags: Upcoming events · art
