Actions, Conversations, and Intersections

Sunday, February 13, 4:00 – 6:00 pm

Materials & Applications’ Lunar Sunset Reading with Matthew Bakkom.

From M&A:

In a special Valentine’s Day celebration of the central role that communication plays in all healthy relationships, please join us for a reading and book signing with Matthew Bakkom of the New York City Museum of Complaint.

We hope that before you wine and dine your par amor, you will come spend an hour or so with us (and catch the phenomenal sunset from the great lawn of Barnsdall park) as Bakkom reads letters from the Museum of Complaint, signs copies of this soon-to-be-hard-to-find hardcover in the Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, and discusses how sometimes the love of one’s city is best expressed by raising our voices to engage and question the public authorities regarding flaws we find in our beloved.

New York City Museum of Complaint is a collection of 132 letters written to the Mayor of New York between 1751 and 1969. Selected from the municipal archives and presented chronologically, the letters address a range of issues from capitalism to corruption, civil rights, adventuresses and broken hearts. These are communiques of dissatisfaction over the course of a city’s evolution. The core strength of this collection lies in its peculiar ability to capture the spirit of the city as defined by its critics and crusaders.
Matthew Bakkom was born in Minneapolis in 1968. Starting in the early 1990s, working as a visual artist in North America and Europe, he has participated in exhibitions at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia and the Queens Museum of Art, New York. Bakkom has received awards of support from the Jerome Foundation, The Rema Hort Mann Foundation, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs of the City of Paris. The investigation of civic archives often serves as the basis for his work.

The New York City Museum of Complaint is a beautiful full-color full-scale hardbound book that had a limited edition run. Editions will be for sale at the event for $60 – please bring cash.

And it’s Lunar New Year, a great excuse to party!
Looking forward,
Materials & Applications

All events free and open to the public unless noted.

February 11 – 14
February 13 at 6:00 pm Performance

Ballerina Kelly Valignota

Jocelyn Foye’s project, Ballet Abstracted resides in the Actions space this week. Incorporating photographs and casts from her prior performance based pieces with a new performance by ballerina, Kelly Valignota on a bed of sand, Foye continues her investigation of mark making and movement. Partial support provided by Angels Gate Cultural Center.

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February 11 at 1pm

Can Design Stop a War?
Slide lecture by Carol A. Wells

Art inspires and empowers the disenfranchised. There has never been a viable movement for social change throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, without the arts—theater, poetry, music, posters—being central to that movement. Political posters in particular are powerful living reminders of struggles worldwide for peace and justice. Communication, exhortation, persuasion, instruction, celebration, warning: graphic art broadcasts its messages through bold images and striking designs.

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February 13, 1:00 – 5:00 pm

The Municipal Art Gallery staff brings you a Valentine Paper Cutting Festival. Spend the afternoon making super sweet valentine’s by using various paper cutting techniques from around the world. Materials and equipment on site but if you have a favorite pair of scissors or extra paper you would like to share please bring it.

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February 13, 1:00 – 5:00 pm

Nadfly Shoes One Day Print Event

NADFLY FIKA SHOP & HOMESITE CLOTHING EXCHANGE goes into Barnsdall Park to do silk screening while you wait. Nicola Atkinson Does Fly, Lauren M. Kasmer and Joyce Dallal alter your wardrobe . Bring your t-shirts, dresses, tea towels, tablecloth, pillows etc…to be printed on and or exchanged.
Fee: $15 per print

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February 13 & 14 , 2:00 – 4:00 pm

Nadfly Fika Shop, the first coffee shop since Barnsdall’s founding in 1927 will be open for coffee and Nadfly Cardamom Cake. Drink from paper cups with a drawing of Nicola’s temporary residence in Los Angeles.
Fee: $3

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February 14 at 2:00 pm

Kill Kitty Kill perform their special Valentine’s Day set.

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February 14 at 3:00 pm

The Public School host the second class on Ambivalence.
Here are the reading assignments:
Mourning and Melancholia
Taboo and the Ambivalence of Emotions (from Totem and Taboo)

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February 14, 4:00 – 6:00 pm

M&A Presents: Lunar Valentine’s Sunset with the Museum of Complaints

In a special Valentines Day celebration of the central role that communication plays in all healthy relationships, please join us for a reading and book signing with Matthew Bakkom of the New York City Museum of Complaint.

Champagne Reception for the author and all the lovers in attendance.

2:00 pm
Smart Gals celebrates their 10 year anniversary with a Winter Picnic Performance featuring freshly baked bread from the Bicycle Bread Company, hot coffee from Cafécito Organico, savory music, and sweet bits of surprising theater unwittingly triggered by our guests.

3:00 pm
The Public School begins their class on the topic of Ambivalence.

This course will (maybe) explore different concepts and theories of ambivalence, typically defined as “simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (as attraction and repulsion) toward an object, person, or action;” “continual fluctuation (as between one thing and its opposite);” and “uncertainty as to which approach to follow.”

In addition to researching and reading what various contemporary thinkers have to say about ambivalence, we will also attempt to debate the relative pros and cons of ambivalence as a state/position/strategy. What is dangerous, or, alternately, enchanting, about ambivalence? How might we theorize an ethics of uncertainty?
Readings will include excerpts from USC professor Karen Pinkus’ new book on alchemy and ambivalence, as well as selections from psychoanalytic, queer, trans and other works relevant to the topic. Suggestions encouraged!

On Saturday, February 6 at 11 am make/shift magazine hosts:
Feminist Media, Feminist Process: Collaborative Editing with Make/shift Magazine

Coeditor/Copublisher Jessica Hoffmann will talk about make/shift magazine’s collaborative, feminist editorial process, followed by an interactive workshop in which participants will collaboratively edit each other’s work. Feel free to bring a piece of writing of your own, or simply plan to read and respond to others’ work.

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Smart Gals Author Reading Series Continues

Saturday, February 6
12:00 pm: Janet Fitch
1:00 pm: Rita Williams
2:00 pm: David Francis
3:00 pm: John Albert
4:00 pm: David Wollock

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Join Irina Contreras and Kelly Besser on Saturday, February 6 at 2:30 pm as they bring The Miracle Bookmobile Project to the Municipal Art Gallery.

The Miracle is a Los Angeles/Oakland based bookmobile project which activates redistribution using the books that people do not want anymore! Please feel free to bring, take or read a book.

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Photo by Marshall Astor

Nicola Atkinson Does Fly’s 101 Cup Thoughts project, is an invitation-only coffee and cake event starting at 7pm. Informed by the Swedish Fika, she connects Los Angeles residents to Swedish coffee drinkers through her handmade ceramic cups and saucers, cardamon cake and song.

More authors will be reading in the Smart Gals Reading Preserve today:

Friday, February 5

12:00 pm: Cecil Castellucci
1:00 pm: Nevin Schreiner
2:00 pm: Joseph F Mattson
3:00 pm: Chris Davidson
4:00 pm: Aimee Bender

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Artists’ Roundtable Discussion Moderated by Sandra de la Loza
Friday, February 5 at 7:00 pm

Join Steven L. Anderson, Michael Arata, Christine Louise Berry, Vlad Bliffett, Dara Brady, Joyce Dallal & Lauren Kasmer, Jenna Didier & Oliver Hess, Nicola Atkinson Does Fly, Betsy Lohrer Hall, Cindy Marie Jenkins, Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Editorial Collective, Ara Oshagan, Laurel Paley, Faith Purvey & Hataya Tubtim, and Mary Sutton as they discuss the role of participatory based practice in Los Angeles.

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Both events free and open to the public at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, 4800 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90027 (323) 644-6269