
KRAFTWERK: DANCE FOREVER EXHIBITION + DANCE PARTY
"In Western Japan, a bottle of champagne is smashed against the hull of a massive bulk cargo vessel, its path charted along the arch of the northern hemisphere: We follow its gentle glide through the lilac calm of the Japanese outer islands; a waive at the lights of Busan, the South Korean city along its charted path; the frigidity of the Aleutian Islands; a circular motion to avoid a mid-ocean monster; and lastly a cruise into Portland past the forests and factories on the Columbia River. On this maiden voyage across the Pacific, the vessel’s holds sit empty. One is in ballast to strengthen against heavy storms. A crew of twenty, plus four creative wanderers—including artist Cole Sternberg, who wrangled the quartet especially for this journey—anxiously steady themselves for weeks under swaying ground. It is within the context of this floating island that the work comprised of “The Nature of Breathing in Salt” emerges.
We find rainbows confronted by fluorescent hallways, black clouds fighting the setting sun, Sternberg’s paintings dragged in the sea, the glory of the unknown and unwelcoming greeting of the land. The imagery shifts in a bell curve of pleasant anxiety, mirrored by a narrative of Melville, Sternberg’s poetry and the dialogue of the crew. It is an experience that leaves one yearning for and sick of the sea. It is an art object more than just a book.
Sternberg’s practice of using the environment to tell its own story is apparent here. His practice ultimately results in the paintings and photography featured throughout this book. Works from this body of imagery have been exhibited extensively, and are in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Pérez Art Museum Miami, and the El Segundo Museum of Art, among others".
"Cole Sternberg was born in Richmond, Virginia. He lives and works in Los Angeles and practices in a range of formats, including painting, installation, video, and writing. Series of his work have focused on a variety of social issues, from current human rights activism and its relationship to the law, to the environment, to the media, and concepts of content overload. The works tend to be subtle or subversive in nature, driven by elegant visual concepts and poetry.
Sternberg has exhibited nationally and internationally, including in exhibitions at the American University Museum (Washington, DC), El Segundo Museum of Art (El Segundo, CA), Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND, Los Angeles), Paris Photo (Los Angeles), Zona Maco (Mexico City), LA><ART (Los Angeles), MAMA (Los Angeles & Berlin) and Praz Delavallade (Los Angeles). His works are held by major collections throughout the world, such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), the El Segundo Museum of Art (ESMoA), the American University Museum (AUM), Cedars-Sinai, and Deutsche Telekom".
So come join us along with our pals from esteemed local publishing concern Hat & Beard on Saturday, February 9th between 4:00 and 6:00 PM to celebrate the launch of Cole Sternberg's striking The Nature Of Breathing In Salt. If you are unable to attend but would like to purchase a signed or deluxe "Collector's Edition" copy, please do so via our website here, or by phone at 310-458-1499.
PLEASE JOIN US THIS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15th,
4:00 - 6:00 PM FOR A BOOK SIGNING
TODD HIDO:
BRIGHT BLACK WORLD
"For over two decades, Todd Hido has crafted narratives through loose and mysterious suburban scenes, desolate landscapes, and stylized portraits. He has traversed North America capturing places that feel at once familiar and unknown; welcoming and unsettling. Underscoring the influences of Nordic mythology and specifically the idea of Fimbulwinter, which translates into the ‘endless winter’, Hido’s new monograph, Bright Black World alludes to and provides form for this notion of an apocalyptic, never-ending winter. Exploring the dark terrain of the Northern European landscape and regions as far as the North Sea of Japan enchanted Hido, calling him back on several occasions. This presents the artist’s first significant foray extensively photographing territory outside of the United States, chronicling a decidedly new psychological geography.
Opening with a text by Alexander Nemerov, Bright Black World contains forty-eight plates printed in an oversized format, featuring two vertical gatefolds and a fold-out poster measuring some 25 by 40 inches. This first printing is limited to 3,000 clothbound copies.
Join us this Saturday, December 15th from 4:00 - 6:00 PM to celebrate the publication of our longtime pal Todd's magnificent new book from Nazraeli Press, quaff refreshments, socialize, and engage in some festive last-minute holiday shopping. If you are unable to attend but would like to purchase a copy of Bright Black World - or one of his many earlier titles we'll have on hand - signed by Mr. Hido, please do so on our website here, or by phone at 310-458-1499.
PLEASE JOIN US THIS SUNDAY
DECEMBER 16th, 4:00 - 6:00 PM FOR
EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW
ABOUT COLLECTING FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY
PETER FETTERMAN REVEALS ALL!
IN CONVERSATION WITH ARCANA'S OWN LEE KAPLAN
This Sunday we welcome our longtime friend Peter Fetterman for a very special afternoon presentation entitled "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Collecting Fine Art Photography" during which he will take center stage to recount his many eventful years in Los Angeles as a photography collector, then dealer extraordinaire with Arcana proprietor Lee Kaplan. Afterwards we will open up the floor to the audience for all of your arcane questions. For the event, Peter has also curated a lovely show of framed photographic prints for sale by Gallery favorite Pentti Sammallahti.
Born in London, Peter Fetterman has been deeply involved in the medium of photography for over thirty years. Initially a filmmaker and collector, he set up his first gallery over twenty years ago, and was one of the pioneer tenants of Bergamot Station, the Santa Monica Center of the Arts when it first opened in 1994. The gallery has one of the largest inventories of classic 20th Century photography in the country - particularly in humanist imagery - and in-depth holdings of work by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sebastião Salgado, Steve McCurry, Ansel Adams, Paul Caponigro, Willy Ronis, André Kertesz, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Lillian Bassman, Pentti Sammallahti, and dozens more.
So stop by to hang with books and friends, quaff refreshments, attend to all of that last-minute Holiday shopping, and hear virtually all of Peter Fetterman's secrets of collecting photography revealed! If you are unable to attend but would like to purchase a copy of the brand new, hot-off-the-press, strictly-limited-English-language edition of Pentti Sammallahti: Birds, please do so on our website here, or by phone at 310-458-1499.
PLEASE JOIN US THIS SUNDAY
DECEMBER 9th FROM 4:00 - 6:00 PM
FOR A PERFORMANCE, DISCUSSION, AND SIGNING
ANTHONY WILSON: SONGS AND PHOTOGRAPHS
In the new album and photobook Songs and Photographs - beautifully produced in collaboration with German artbook publisher Little Steidl - Anthony Wilson brings together a collection of his songs and 35mm photographs that opens a new chapter in his broadening quest for personal and musical authenticity.
"Most mornings I wake up and go out wandering with my camera, sometimes in my hometown of Los Angeles, often in places around the world where I am traveling on tour. I look, watch, and take in the space around me. I’m conscious of my attentive state, totally absorbed in noticing things. My path determines itself, each picture leads me to the next. It’s a meandering journey through a landscape or cityscape, but also through my own personal experience. Often the smallest things are what stop me in my tracks and compel me to point the camera and snap the shutter.
In Songs and Photographs, the visual and musical paths of my process converge into a single work in which the songs and the photographs speak back and forth to each other."
Born in Los Angeles in 1968, guitarist and composer Anthony Wilson is known for a body of work that moves fluidly across genres. The son of legendary jazz trumpeter and bandleader Gerald Wilson, his musical lineage has deeply influenced his creative trajectory, compositional choices, instrumental groupings, and the wide-ranging twelve album discography that blooms out of them.
An inventive soloist and sensitive accompanist, Over the past two decades Wilson has joined a diverse roster of jazz masters on their recordings and performances, including Ron Carter, Mose Allison, Bobby Hutcherson, Madeleine Peyroux, Joe Sample, Al Jarreau, Harold Land and Diana Krall. And while his footing is firmly rooted in the jazz idiom, Wilson pivots with ease into other genres, having contributed his instrumental texture and improvisational authority to albums by pop music legends Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson, Leon Russell, Aaron Neville, and Barbra Streisand.
Join us this Saturday between 4:00 and 6:00 PM as Anthony Wilson will be performing an intimate set from Songs and Photographs with Jay Bellerose, Patrick Warren, and Garret Lang followed by a discussion with producer Joe Harley and publisher Nina Holland of Little Steidl.
If you are unable to attend but would like to purchase a signed copy of the exquisite book and 12" vinyl LP that comprise Songs and Photographs, please order from our website here, or by phone at 310-458-1499.
MONA KUHN: BUSHES & SUCCULENTS
PLEASE JOIN US
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8th, 4:00 - 6:00 PM FOR A
BOOK SIGNING AND DISCUSSION WITH
MONA KUHN AND DEANNA TEMPLETON
PRESENTED IN COLLABORATION WITH
PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTS COUNCIL - LOS ANGELES
Born in Brazil, photographer Mona Kuhn currently resides in Los Angeles. Through intimacy with her subjects, knowledge of traditional iconography, and technical mastery, Kuhn portrays the complexities of human nature, both tempting and provoking our imagination. Newly published by Stanley / Barker in the UK, Bushes & Succulents is Mona Kuhn’s celebration of the female essence - confident, raw and elegant, yet confrontational and unapologetic.
Reminiscent of Georgia O'Keeffe's floral paintings, your eyes wander around the graceful lines, not knowing exactly what you are looking at. Kuhn's use of the solarization process reveals human imperfections in the metallic brilliance of the skin, and brings to the surface a woman’s struggles, strengths, and power. The photographer states “The frame reminded me of early childhood, at age eight or so, when I would jump in the shower with my mother. It resonates an adoration and child-like curiosity for what it is to be a woman. My intention is not to objectify the body, but to celebrate the female body and its essence.”
Join us Saturday, December 8th from 4:00 - 6:00 PM for a conversation between photographic powerhouses Mona Kuhn and Deanna Templeton, refreshments, and some festive Holiday shopping. If you are unable to attend but would like to purchase a copy of Bushes and Succulents signed by Ms. Kuhn, or Swimming Pools signed by Ms. Templeton, please order from our website here, or by phone at 310-458-1499.
PLEASE JOIN US THIS SUNDAY, DECEMBER 2nd,
4:00 - 6:00 PM FOR A BOOK SIGNING
ED TEMPLETON: TANGETICALLY PARENTHETICAL
Tangentially Parenthetical is a selection of photographs from Ed Templeton's vast street photography archive - curated, arranged, and then rearranged by the man himself. The follow up to his 2014 Um Yeah Arts survey Wayward Cognitions, Tangentially Parenthetical picks up where the latter collection ended. By combining intimate, accidental, and unconnected moments into one linear piece of work, he tells hundreds of new stories through the thoughtful arrangement of semi-related-yet-completely-unfastened imagery. "I'm out there shooting photos all the time that don't necessarily fall under any theme other than general life," says Templeton, "which is a lame title for a book." With a wink to the absurd, sandwiched between a cover of patterned parentheses and with an afterword built from his own stream-of-consciousness storytelling, Templeton delivers a visual mountain from an archive of stunning molehills in which the images are carefully chosen, shuffled by hand, and laid out with the dueling impulses of wonder and wit.
Join us Sunday, December 2nd from 4:00 - 6:00 PM as we again host our longtime pal, the enduring and endearing Ed Templeton for what promises to be a stellar afternoon of good vibes, delicious libations, and holiday gift shopping! If you are unable to attend but would like to purchase a copy of Tangentially Parenthetical signed by Mr. Templeton, please order from our website here, or by phone at 310-458-1499.
PLEASE JOIN US THIS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1st, 4:00 - 6:00
TO CELEBRATE THE PUBLICATION OF BILL BERKSON'S
SINCE WHEN: A MEMOIR IN PIECES
WITH A PRESENTATION BY FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND COLLEAGUES HONORING HIS LIFE AND WORK
Bill Berkson was a poet, art critic, and joyful participant in the best of postwar and bohemian American culture. He collaborated with many artists and writers, including Alex Katz, Philip Guston, and Frank O’Hara. He was the author of several collections of poetry and criticism, and appeared in ARTnews, Art in America, and many more. Formerly a professor of liberal arts at the San Francisco Art Institute, he was born in New York in 1939, and died in June 2016. Since When: A Memoir in Pieces gathers the ephemera of a life well lived, a collage of bold-face names such as John Cage, Allen Ginsburg, and Marilyn Monroe, parties, exhibitions, and literary history from a man who could write “of [Truman Capote's Black and White] ball, which I attended as my mother’s escort, I have little recollection” and reminisce about imagining himself as a character from Tolstoy while tripping on acid at Woodstock. Gentle, witty, and eternally generous, this is Bill, and a particular moment in American history, at its best.
We are honored to celebrate its launch with a very special tribute to Bill Berkson featuring readings from his works by Moses Berkson, Constance Lewallen, DeeDee Gordon, Karen Moss, Joan Simon, Mitch Temple, Dorit Cypis, Aram Saroyan, Michael Smoler, and Lisa Johns.
If you are unable to attend but would like to purchase a copy of Bill Berkson's Since When: A Memoir in Pieces from Coffee House Press signed by some of the participants, please order from our website or by phone at 310-458-1499.