This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

The EU LIFE programme includes the ‘Nature’ strand and for a number of years the best ten projects have been highlighted in a publication.  The 2010 publication (download pdf) includes projects to promote suitable conditions for the Iberian lynx as well as restoring critically rare natural woodlands.  LIFE co-funded a total of 1,256 projects between 1992 and 2010, with a total budget of more than €2 billion.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.
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New York, New York: Gustavo Dudamel will conduct the Simon Bolivar Symphony at Carnegie Hall next season. (New York Times)

Summer tradition: The Public Theater in New York said its two Central Park productions this year will be Shakespeare's "As You Like It," starring Lily Rabe, and a revival of the musical "Into the Woods." (Playbill)

Movie legend: The new musical "Becoming Chaplin" is expected to open on Broadway during the 2012-2013 season. (Theatermania)

Accused: A New York art dealer has been charged in a $4-million fraud for selling works by Picasso, Matisse and others without informing the owner or giving him the proceeds. (Associated Press)

Departure: The executive director of the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation will step down in 2013. (Wall Street Journal)

Taking action: The music director of the China Philharmonic recently fought back against a mugger while in New York. (New York Times)

Eastern flavor: The Houston Grand Opera has announced the lineup for its 2012-13 season. (Houston Chronicle)

Par avion: Camille Pissarro's painting "Le Marché aux Poissons" is finally heading home more than 30 years after it was stolen from a French museum. (CNN)

In no hurry: The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, has reported the theft of a painting by British artist Richard Parkes Bonington, 12 years after it went missing. (Telegraph)

Hanging in there: Museums in Chicago saw a slight increase in visitors in 2011, despite the sluggish economy. (Chicago Tribune)

Resignation: The chief executive of the Sydney Opera House is stepping down. (Australian)

Taste of evil: An upcoming exhibition at the New York Historical Society, featuring four centuries of sterling silver, will include two pieces of flatware that belonged to Adolf Hitler. (Associated Press)

Are you ready for some opera?: The Dallas Opera's production of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" will be simulcast on giant screens at Cowboys Stadium this spring. (Houston Chronicle)

Libelous?: The owner of a Chicago violin shop is suing an online critic who is calling him a "rip-off artist." (Associated Press)

Passing: Eiko Ishioka, the celebrated Japanese graphic artist and designer for stage and film, has died at 73. (Los Angeles Times)

Also in the L.A. Times: Theater critic Charles McNulty reviews the Broadway-bound "Clybourne Park" at the Mark Taper Forum.

– David Ng

Photo: Gustavo Dudamel conducting the L.A. Philharmonic this month at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

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Frank Gehry’s first project for a stage company –- the new home of Manhattan’s Signature Theatre –- will be named the Pershing Square Signature Center, thanks to a $25-million gift announced Thursday during the run-up to the venue’s opening on Tuesday.

The $66-million facility on 42nd Street takes its name from its benefactor, Pershing Square Capital Management, a New York-based hedge fund whose contribution will primarily subsidize low ticket prices to encourage attendance by new and diverse audiences.

It houses three stages, with seating capacities of 199, 244 and 294. The complex is at the foot of a 63-story, mixed-use glass tower developed by the Related Companies. Gehry designed only the theater center, which will debut with a production of Athol Fugard’s “Blood Knot,” directed by the playwright.

Responding to a Times inquiry, Gehry Partners noted that three of his previous projects have involved theaters for stage productions: the CalArts-run REDCAT,  at the back of Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown L.A., houses a black box theater seating up to 270 people, plus an art gallery;  at the multipurpose Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College in Annondale-on-Hudson, N.Y., the smaller of two auditoriums is primarily for stage productions; and the American Center in Paris, a multipurpose arts development, included a 400-seat theater but closed because of financial problems less than two years after its 1994 opening. The film institute, Cinematheque Francais, took over the building in 2005 after renovations.

In 2007, the Pasadena Playhouse announced that Gehry had donated his services for a renovation and redesign of its campus, including a new 300- to 400-seat theater. The sinking economy derailed the plan.

In keeping with Signature Theatre’s tradition of putting a spotlight on a single playwright’s body of work during each season, a revival of Fugard’s “My Children! My Africa!” will open in May, and “The Train Driver,” again directed by Fugard, will have its New York premiere in August. Other plays in the 2012 season are Edward Albee’s “The Lady From Dubuque,” the U.S. premiere of Will Eno’s “Title and Deed” and world premieres of Katori Hall’s “Hurt Village” and an as-yet untitled work by Kenneth Lonergan.

Since 2005, Signature has set a price ceiling -– currently $25 -– for every seat in the house during a show’s initially scheduled run (about five weeks for most productions in the coming season). Prices go up if a run is extended.

According to the theater company’s website, surveys since the price caps went into effect show that 37% of the audience buying restricted-price tickets had not been to the Signature before, and more than 20%  said their household income was under $50,000 a year.

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Frank Gehry designs official poster for Grammy Awards

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– Mike Boehm

Photo: Artist's rendering of the exterior of Frank Gehry's Pershing Square Signature Center in New York City. Credit: Daniel Black

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So I’m in Chicago for a few days and tonight I went and saw a play put on by a company called Collaboraction. It was called Dark Play, or Stories For Boys, by Carlos Murillo, and it was very good. Throughout the play, the production used a very effective bit of sound design in order to represent conversations happening online in which the dialogue was given a little amplification and echo. And I found myself wondering how they did that. I’m sure a lot of people shared my curiosity and, to be honest, the answer probably isn’t particularly elaborate. I’m not an especially technical dude and it doesn’t take much in that department to totally mystify me. But the point is that while I imagine most people quickly moved past that moment of curiosity and returned to the story at hand, it distracted me for awhile. And this is nothing against the production. As I said, it was very good. Quite the contrary, the distraction was completely a result of who I am, and more specifically, what I do.

As one of the few staff members at needtheater, a small company not unlike Collaboraction, I must play a part in every aspect of the planning and implementation of one of our shows. This means that when we do a show, my mind is necessarily, constantly filled with all manner of questions and concerns surrounding the intricate choreography that comes with putting on a play. This runs the gamut from the number of backstage crew members we will need to the durability of a table that an actor plans to jump on to the amount of noise that a set piece will make as we slide it into position during the blackout. A huge part of the fun of making theater is orchestrating all this action and movement and work so that when put together and presented in front of an audience, it flows in a way that seems both cohesive and magical. But it’s hard to turn that kind of thinking off.

This turns out to be a real bummer when I go to see a show that I’m not involved in. In these instances, I want to just give myself over to the experience. I want to just surrender to that magic that we all aspire to and let it touch me in whatever way it can. Because it’s only when you surrender yourself that way, surrender your control of your own thinking and let the play take you where it may, that you can feel that magic. Instead I’m thinking about how they pulled off that quick-change and whether they’re using iced tea or apple juice to stand in for the whiskey. It makes me think that working in theater ultimately makes you the worst kind of audience member.

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In his exhibition at Redling Fine Art, Brian O’Connell creates mysterious objects and images that hark back to the Process art of the 1960s, a movement that encompassed the work of Robert Morris, Eva Hesse and Richard Serra. What united these disparate artists was their emphasis on process, not in terms of skilled artistic techniques, but in exploring the fundamental nature and behavior of materials.

In this vein, O’Connell uses concrete, cyanotypes (otherwise known as blueprints), and non-carbon transfer paper to convey a fascination with the basic forces of weight, pressure, light and sequence. To create a series of small wall pieces — reliefs, really — O’Connell poured concrete onto thin strips of wood laid side by side. The strips bowed under the weight of the concrete to different degrees, creating a variegated surface composed of arcs of various heights. Turned up sideways on the walls, some with bits of wood still attached, the pieces are mysterious protrusions but are literally a concrete record of gravity at work.

The works in another series look like large gestural abstractions in various shades of blue. Their angular shapes suggest deep shadows falling across stairs, or the horizon of the ocean. But they’re actually rather like sun prints of a particular architectural space: a James Turrell installation at the Museum of Modern Art’s PS1. Known for such “skyspaces” — serene rooms with part of the ceiling left open — Turrell’s work becomes a kind of camera in which O’Connell exposed the paper, brushed with photosensitive chemicals. In this sense, blueprint technology that is traditionally used to plan the structure of a building is used to make an impression of its skin instead.

The third body of work in the exhibition comprises piles of drawings on non-carbon transfer paper, a substance that deposits pigment from one layer to the next when pressure is applied, much like the triplicate forms used for handwritten purchase orders and receipts. O’Connell uses it by the stack, drawing on the top layer with a stylus that leaves no mark but whose impression creates a drawing on the next layer. He then turns the page and augments that drawing, the result of which appears on the third page, and so on.

As the drawings progress down the stack — they’re displayed as loose leaves to flip through in linen boxes — the uppermost images gradually fade from view as new ones emerge and disappear. This is a neat process, and O’Connell has even designed a fancy, custom table with spring-loaded compartments that keep the top sheet of each stack level with the tabletop. But the drawings themselves — abstract shapes, architectural drawings, and writings — are nothing much. The piece is more about the process of thought: how one thing leads to another and another, until the initial idea that started it all is unrecognizable, or simply gone. O’Connell’s emphasis on process may be retro, but it's a timely reminder to pay closer attention to the elemental forces that surround us.

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More art reviews from the Los Angeles Times

– Sharon Mizota

Redling Fine Art, 6757 Santa Monica Blvd., (323) 230-7415, through March 3. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.redlingfineart.com

Photos, from top: Brian O’Connell, "Concrete Painting no.14," "Concrete Painting no.15" and "Concrete Painting no.16." All works 2011.  

"Details: Meeting, PS1 July 2010," 2010. Credit: Brica Wilcox / from Redling Fine Art.

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University College Falmouth inc. Dartington College of Arts invites you to

“ENVIRONMENTAL UTTERANCE”

 1st-2nd September 2012 

Deadline for applications: 31st March 2012

Across disciplines academics and artists are researching and creating practices that are highly contextual (determined by the environment in which they are located), exploring ways of articulating specific environments, spaces or places.  This conference examines a specific problematic that attends the dissemination of this work: how to engage with ’being there’ when ‘there’ is not here?

We understand environment (social, built, natural, technological) as that which surrounds and informs us. Through our practice we influence our environment.  What we create is shaped by our surroundings. We exist in a relation of mutual exchange; making ourselves other and incorporating that which is other in turn.  This conference offers a forum for academics and creative practitioners to come together and engage with articulations of mutual formation: to discuss work as environment.

Such work often relies on direct, personal experience of a particular environment.  Transfer and abstraction, necessary for the communication of this work beyond the specifics of this original environment, challenge the work.  Negotiating publication or conference environment, for example, necessitates reformulation of the work, engendering changes in texture and experience, in adapting to alternative structures.  What do such alterations, translations or transformations, mean for this work?

This conference aims to examine these questions on a very practical level. When it comes to considering environment, what is the relationship between the structures of dissemination and the environment our work seeks to convey?  What is the relationship between our academic environment and the work we (aim to) produce?  How do we utter our environment?

We invite poets and writers, artists, academics, social and environmental scientists, performers and musicians, among others, to discuss ways of uttering environment. We seek work that explores the phenomenological sense of speaking with environment. We encourage the use of a diverse range of media as part of this dialogue. Participants are invited to find new ways of expressing their research and/or artistic practice in a conference setting that reflects upon this process of adaptation as a process of practical enquiry.

Instead of presenting what they already know, participants are invited to experiment with their ‘potential’ environment, using the space of the conference as an opportunity to learn from and with each other. The structure of the conference is specifically designed to support such an exchange.  Over the course of two days we seek to create a plastic community of practice. There will be both indoor (seminar rooms, lecture theatres, studios) and outdoor (gardens, orchard, parkland) spaces available to present your work. Your proposal will have to comply with the health and safety norms of Tremough Campus. Please refer to the health and safety guidance before you start planning your presentation/performance.

The (types of) environments we invite participants to explore in their presentations include (but are not limited to):

• natural
• social
• technological
• digital
• ideological
• logical
• intuitive
• empathetic
• linguistic
• imagined
• the body
• the archive
• the laboratory
• the book
• the recording studio
• the gallery
• the library
• the seminar room
• the lecture theatre
• the conference
• professional
• domestic
• specialist
• private
• public
• visual
• auditory
• oral
• tactile
• olfactory

Those interested in participating are invited to send a paper/performance summary (250 words max) along with an indication of how they wish to present this work (250 words), to Camilla Nelson, Natalia Eernstman and Jeanie Sinclair at environmental.utterance@gmail.com , describing:

1. How or what will you present
2. The main questions & ideas you aim to explore through your presentation
3. The media you will use
4. What space and/or additional equipment you require

Special Call to Develop Live Exchange

This is a call for proposals to design a method of documentation to function as an integral part of this ‘conference-as-community-of-practice’: a method of exchange whereby ideas, insights, lessons learned, questions and connections are cross-referenced between the different times and spaces of the conference. We invite applicants to submit proposals to environmental.utterance@gmail.com detailing a process that will (effectively & inspiringly) collect, record and disseminate participants’ experiences. Media and methods might include (but are not limited to) technology, social media, interactive installations, mobile performance, poetic or artistic representations, etc. Selected participants will run their activity for one morning or afternoon of the conference. The material costs required to realize the activity will be reimbursed in consultation with the conference organizers.

Deadline for applications: 31st March

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Last week, venerable New York gallery Matthew Marks opened its first Los Angeles outpost in a sleek, brand-new building designed by local architect Peter Zellner. In creating the space, Zellner collaborated with painter Ellsworth Kelly, the subject of the gallery’s inaugural exhibition. Kelly came up with a sculpture for the building’s façade: a single black bar spanning the top of the pure white, nearly square structure. It’s part of the show but will remain a permanent feature of the building.

Inside are six recent “relief” paintings, Kelly’s trademark clean geometries and snappy colors executed as two-panel pieces, with a “foreground” solid-color canvas actually layered on top of the “background.” This technique works especially well in the piece “Black Relief With White,” in which an insouciant white curve is layered over a black triangle. As the piece on top, the white casts a shadow that throws the usual black-on-white relationship into doubt.

It’s not the most exciting exhibition, but Kelly is nothing if not consistent. The show also features a small collection of collages from the 1950s as well as the 1966 painting “Black Over White,” which inspired the building’s façade. Executed with the same proportions — a black bar on top of a white rectangle — its presence turns the building into something of a painting itself.

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Ellsworth Kelly makes a 'shop sign' for Matthew Marks Gallery

More art reviews from the Los Angeles Times

– Sharon Mizota

Matthew Marks Gallery, 1062 N. Orange Grove, L.A., through April 7. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.matthewmarks.com

Photos, from top: Installation view from "Ellsworth Kelly: Los Angeles" at Matthew Marks Gallery, Los Angeles. Credit: © Ellsworth Kelly. Photographed by Joshua White, from Matthew Marks Gallery. Matthew Marks Gallery, Los Angeles. Sculpture by Ellsworth Kelly. Credit: Architecture by Peter
Zellner, photographed by Joshua White. Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery.

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German artist Jonas Lipps’ watercolors at Thomas Solomon Gallery are small but far from precious. Executed on found paper — leaflets, hole-punched notebook pages, yellowed paper with typewritten text — they are amorphous, apparently stream-of-consciousness musings that sometimes coalesce into something interesting and sometimes not. Still, despite their apparent randomness, there’s a sincerity about them: a playful blend of surreal imagery, expressionist gestures, cartoons and art historical references.

In one, a round-headed man sits with hands clasped serenely at a desk while a demon holding a key and an elf holding a broom appear to emerge from a nearby electrical outlet. In another, a man in a large black hat sits on a bench in front a ship on a roiling sea while a banana floats incongruously nearby. In still another image, a cartoony figure walks through a desert landscape carrying a small podium marked with spots for first, second and third place. Is he on his way to the hamster Olympics? Who knows?

Perhaps the images are dreams or allegories — the examples above are just the ones that spoke to me. In this sense they are a bit like Rorschach tests: You see only what you bring with you. This open-endedness is appealing, but the work is perhaps too diffuse to sustain prolonged attention.

RELATED:

More art reviews from the Los Angeles Times

–Sharon Mizota

Thomas Solomon Gallery, 427 Bernard St., L.A., (323) 275-1687, through March 3. Closed Sundays through Tuesdays. www.thomassolomongallery.com

Photos, from top: Jonas Lipps, Untitled, 2010. Watercolor on paper, 8 1/4 x 11 5/8 inches. Credit: Nick Ash, from Thomas Solomon Gallery, Los Angeles.  Jonas Lipps, Untitled, 2011. Watercolor on paper, 5 3/4 x 8 1/4 inches. Credit: Nick Ash, from Thomas Solomon Gallery, Los Angeles. 

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Celeste Bedford Walker

NEWS… Considerable rhetoric and conjecture followed the Jan 17 announcement that the LA City Council is booting Latino Theater Company (LTC) out of LA Theatre Center (LATC) within 45 days. But no formal eviction notice had been received by Wednesday, and LTC, under the leadership of Jose Luis Valenzuela, has announced its spring 2012 production schedule in the four-theater complex it has occupied and co-managed since 2006. The projected lineup and hoped-for opening dates:  The Vault Ensemble’s collage of downtown LA stories, Bankrupt, co-helmed by co-ADs Eric Garcia and Fidel Gomez (Mar 29); Playwrights’ Arena’s The Girl Most Likely To by Filipino-American scripter Michael Premsrirat (Apr 19); LTC’S Charity: Part III of A Mexican Trilogy, scripted by Evelina Fernandez, a follow-up to LTC’s fall 2011 staging of Hope (Apr 19); Robey Theatre Company’s West Coast premiere of Celeste Bedford Walker‘s African-American military drama, Camp Logan, helmed by Alex Morris (Apr 28); Cornerstone Theater’s and LTC’s staging of Café Vida, chronicling the Homegirl Café, scripted by Lisa Loomer (May 2); Refugee Nation, scripted by Leilani Chan and Ova Saopeng, presented by TeAda productions, focusing on Laotian refugees and their descendants (May 31); and Language Rooms by Yussef el Guindi, a co-production with San Francisco-based Golden Thread Productions (May 31)…In no danger of losing its home, Actors Co-op, located on the campus of First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, is formally re-naming the Crossley Terrace Theatre. It’s now the David Schall Theatre, in honor of a co-founder of the company. Schall, who had been one of main motivating forces in the development of Actors Co-op, passed away on Apr 11, 2003, hours before he was to appear onstage in the opening night performance of Uncle Vanya. The dedication is being presented in conjunction with the Feb 3 American premiere of the two-hander Yours, Isabel, scripted by Christy Hall, helmed by Marianne Savell, chronicling the relationship-of-letters between a young wife (Heather Chesley) and her soldier husband (Rick Marcus), who is overseas during WWII…

CTG UNLEASHES TWITTER MANIA… In an embrace of social media, Center Theatre Group (CTG) is holding a landmark Tweet Seat Event tonight, at both parts of the interconnected CTG productions of A Raisin in the Sun at Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City and Pulitzer Prize-winning Clybourne Park at downtown’s Mark Taper Forum. The event offers a limited number of selected Twitter users – made up of theater patrons and social media fans with a combined reach of 90,000 followers – to live tweet throughout performances this evening. Of course, these dedicated finger poppers will be seated in special sections of the theaters, isolated from the non-tweeting patrons. Tweets will be unified under the hash tag #WhereWeLive  and will stream on monitors in the lobbies of the Taper and the Douglas…

Davy Jones

AROUND TOWN… Often, LA theater folk are wary of taking a locally premiered play to New York in fear of being sneered upon. In a fitting reversal, Jason Mitchell’s 2009 NY Fringe Festival hit, The Boy Upstairs, helmed by Jeremy O’Keefe, tiptoed into Celebration Theatre, Jan 24, as part of CT: Tuesdays Workshop series to find out if this Big Apple-centric comedy will connect with a West Hollywood audience. The workshop concludes next Tuesday and Wednesday.…To launch its 38^th season, Group Rep in North Hollywood is offering two plays in rep. Opening Feb 10 at Lonny Chapman Theatre is If We Are Women, Joanna McClelland Glass’s 1993 all-female dramedy, helmed by Sherry Netherland, focusing on three generations of family members who “weigh the choices each of them have made as women.” Opening a week later, Feb 17, a revival of Lee Blessing’s 1989 baseball bio drama Cobb chronicles the unapologetic life of Hall of Famer Ty Cobb, who had been called “the most despised man in baseball,” helmed by Gregg T. Daniel. The season continues with:  Moon Over Buffalo, scripted by Ken Ludwig, helmed by Larry Eisenberg (May 11 to June 25);  Charles Marowitz’s Sherlock’s Last Case, helmed by Shira Dubrovner (July 20 to Sep 2);  The Paris Letter by Jon Robin Baitz, helmed by Jules Aaron (Sep 28 to Nov 12);  and Stepping Out, scripted by Richard Harris, helmed by Stan Mazin (Dec 7 to Jan 20, 2013)…Hoping to attract audience folk who are not into NCAA basketball, La Mirada Theatre is offering its own version of March Madness with a full court press of eight productions.  The bill o fare includes:  2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Leon Russell (Mar 3); those geriatric bad boys of doo-wop, Sha Na Na (Mar 4); Laser Spectacular’s Michael Jackson tribute The Spirit of Michael (Mar 10); In The Mood: A 1940s Musical Revue (Mar 11); Chubby Checker & The Wildcats, celebrating the 50^th anniversary of  “The Twist” (Mar 17);  Classic Albums Live concert recreation, Eagles’ Hotel California, based on the iconic 1976 album (Mar 23);  Dionne Warwick in Concert (Mar 24); and Davy Jones Sings The Monkees & More (Mar 31)…

ISN’T IT ROMANTIC… Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza-based Cabrillo Music Theatre (CMT) and Two Roads Theatre in Studio City are offering variant takes on the celebration of Valentine’s Day. In conjunction  with its ongoing fundraising efforts, CMT is cooing A Musical Valentine, love ballads warbled by a roundup of Cabrillo stars, including Shannon Warne, Michael G. Hawkins, Stuart Ambrose and Alet Taylor, Feb 13 in the Founders Room of the Kavli Theatre…Meanwhile, Two Roads is declaring, It’s Just Sex, Jeff Gould’s comedic view of contemporary morals and wife-swapping, opening Feb 10, helmed by Rick Shaw...

Rachel Noll

THE THING IS… “My character’s name is Girleen, a booze-peddling 17-year-old. She’s very tough. She can rumble with the boys. She has to, to survive. But she’s also in love with the town priest. The play has a similar feel to the work of Sam Shepard. It’s technically a comedy but the humor is very dark. It hits your heart but it also makes you laugh. My character is very different from who I am but I can really identify with her. She has very deep thoughts and deep emotions; but because of the nature of her life, she is afraid to share them with anyone but the one person she feels safe with, the priest. He treats her like an adult and like a human being. Even though she comes off as very bold, brash and sexual, her love for the priest is so pure and innocent. She is actually just a young girl with her heart on her sleeve for this man.  The reason she is out peddling the booze around the countryside is because she is trying to save up enough money to buy him this expensive gold heart necklace. There is so much anger and confrontation in the play, it needs this relationship to provide some emotional balance.” – Rachel Noll is appearing in the Santa Monica-based Ruskin Group Theatre production of Lonesome West, scripted by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, helmed by Mike Reilly, opening Jan 27…

Taylor Gilbert

I WAS REALLY ACTING WHEN… “We were at our old warehouse space in Van Nuys in 1994 doing Mark Lee’s Pirates. I was playing Anne Bonny and Michael Dempsey was playing Capt. Jack. The costume I was wearing was one of those corset types, with some lacy bustier stuff across the bosom and long puffy, florally sleeves that fell off the shoulders. There was a lot of physical action involved,and I noticed that Michael, for the first time, was doing the whole scene staring straight into my face. When I made my exit, I found out one of my breasts had been sticking out the whole time.” – Taylor Gilbert, founding artistic director of NoHo-based Road Theatre Company, is co-executive producing the LA premiere of Ty DeMartino’s Finding Fossils, helmed by Suzanne Hunt, opening Jan 29…

Ed Pearl

INSIDE LA STAGE HISTORY… The building at 8162 Melrose Avenue is destined to provide a home for a diverse assemblage of artists, beginning with the July 1958 debut of The Ash Grove folk club (named after the Welsh folk song of the same name), founded by 22-year-old guitar teacher Ed Pearl. For the next 15 years, the club serves as the intersection for folk legends like Mississippi John Hurt and Brownie McGee, intermingling with the surge of young 1960s anti-establishment folkies such as Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez. It is also a nurturing ground for the social dissent that engulfs the nation during the decade, providing a platform for satirists and commentators, such as poets Charles Bukowski and Kenneth Patchen, the satirical Credibility Gap (Michael McKean, David L. Lander, Harry Shearer, Richard Beebe), El Teatro Campesino, Firesign Theater, the Groundlings, Rowan & Martin, Mort Sahl, San Francisco Mime Troupe, Wavy Gravy and others. In the early 70s, the Ash Grove also welcomes political activists returning from Cuba who – through poetry, song, film and rant – provide a view of the Castro regime that foments protests and threats of violence from decidedly anti-Castro Cuban exiles. A series of fires, including what patrons believe to be an arson attack, lead to the club’s closing on Nov 11, 1973. Soon after, young entrepreneur, Joe Roth (the future film industry power broker), leases the Ash Grove for the San Francisco-based improv ensemble, the Pitchell Players, led by Ann Bowen (wife of thesp Roger Bowen). Despite achieving laudable artistic success, the Pitchell residency fails to maintain financial viability. Meanwhile, in New York, Budd Friedman, who in 1963, establishes the successful Hell’s Kitchen-based late-night music and comedy club, The Improvisation, asks visiting guitarist Julio Martinez whether he feels the Improvisation concept could take hold in Hollywood. Martinez’s response, “Nah, this would never work in LA.”  Undeterred by this bit of wisdom, Friedman opens the West Coast branch of the Improvisation (nicknamed the Improv) at the former Ash Grove site in 1974, serving as the launching pad for a plethora of stand-up comics and comedy writers who emerge during the next three decades, as well as spawning Improvisation Comedy Club franchises around the nation. Today, it is still doing quite well…

…The Julio Martinez-hosted ARTS IN REVIEW, moves to Thursdays (2:30 to 3 pm) on KPFK (90.7FM), spotlighting the best in live theater and cabaret in the Greater LA area. Upcoming on Feb 2, a spotlight on Upright Cabaret’s American Icon series, featuring Jake Simpson and Jackie Tohn…

Go to LA Stage Blog

To say that Antonio Vega Macotela’s first solo exhibition in the U.S. speaks softly is to miss the point. The Mexican artist’s spare installation at Steve Turner Contemporary highlights acts of communication that occur just below the surface of everyday life, in particular a distorted writing system used by Mexican drug traffickers, and the secret dreams of soldiers. The results are intriguing, but in the end, perhaps a little too quiet.

Macotela placed ads in Mexican newspapers using an anamorphic writing system: the letters in the ads can only be read from an extreme angle. In the exhibition, the papers are pinned to the wall, so reading the ads involves kneeling (cushions are provided), and pressing your body uncomfortably against the vertical surface. Macotela succeeds in manipulating the viewer into a penitent posture, but the reward for our submission is slight. The messages, still rather difficult to read, are all versions of the same sentence in Spanish, translated: “Here, this way even, I murmur.” There is no secret to be learned, only the recognition that another level of communication exists beneath the public babble of the news.

The show’s sole video work is similarly frustrating: a series of closeups of lips mouthing inaudible words. We’re told the speakers are soldiers in the Mexican military recounting their dreams, but why can’t the dreams be spoken aloud? Are they too horrific? Too personal? Like the newspapers, the video draws us in, only to shut us out. On a certain level, this makes sense: exposing the underground means that it’s no longer underground. But is it enough simply to know it’s there?

RELATED:

More art reviews from the Los Angeles Times

– Sharon Mizota

Steve Turner Contemporary, 6026 Wilshire Blvd., (323) 931-3721, through Feb. 4. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.steveturnercontemporary.com

Photos, from top: Antonio Vega Macotela, installation view.

"Murmurs" detail. Credit: Steve Turner Contemporary.

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