Upcoming Events for Calendar

May. 7, 2011 - Jun 10, 2012 : Yann Novak: 3 Surfaces

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:57:59 -0700

3 Surfaces is a site specific sound and light installation for the main stairwell of the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena. The piece incorporates the unique sounds, natural light, and architectural details of the space as primary materials. The sound piece is formed using field recordings of the space itself, captured during peak activity hours. Using digital filtering and processing, the recordings are transformed into a subtle environmental "tint" to alter how the audience perceives the space. The space will be physically altered using scrims to create 3 new surfaces above the stairwell, which will allow for the natural light to be filtered through while suggesting a more private, intimate experience.

Through Spring 2012

Related resources:

YANN NOVAK : 3 SURFACES (3”) (CD release)
Modisti, January 2012
3 Surfaces Excerpt (audio excerpt)
Soundcloud, January 2012
Yann Novak | 3 Surfaces (video excerpt)
Vimeo, May 2011

Feb. 11 - Jun. 17, 2012 : Richard Jackson: Accidents in Abstract Painting, the Armory

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:46:31 -0800

Armory Center for the Arts is pleased to announce a two-part program by Richard Jackson consisting first of a public spectacle entitled Accidents in Abstract Painting followed by a subsequent exhibition entitled Accidents in Abstract Painting, the Armory.

In the outdoor spectacle entitled Accidents in Abstract Painting Richard Jackson will fly and crash a radio-controlled, model military plane with a fifteen-foot wingspan, filled with paint, into a twenty-foot wall that reads “accidents in abstract painting.” The spectacle, free and open to the public, will take place on Sunday January 22, 2012 at 4pm at Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco, southeast of the Rose Bowl in Area H. This monumental spectacle is part of the Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival.

The subsequent solo exhibition, entitled Accidents in Abstract Painting, the Armory, will be on view at the Armory Center for the Arts from February 12 – June 10, 2012 and will feature detritus and video documentation of the event, along with other work. The spectacle and subsequent exhibition are being organized by Armory Gallery Director Irene Tsatsos and Armory Gallery Manager/Curator Sinéad Finnerty-Pyne.

In the exhibition entitled Accidents in Abstract Painting, the Armory, Jackson will create an installation from the detritus of the crash of the model military plane. In addition, Armory will exhibit Jackson’s installation The War Room (2006-‘07), until now exhibited only once, and never in the Los Angeles area. The War Room is Jackson’s ode to the second Iraq War and the George W. Bush regime; but in this scenario ducks dressed as generals are running the show, dramatizing the absurdity of combat as well as the problems of climate change and depletion of natural resources — relevant issues in Jackson’s work. Gushing paint — used as a stand-in for oil — flows out of derricks placed atop Jackson’s polyhedral-shaped representation of the world, á la Buckminster Fuller. By exhibiting the two installations side by side, Jackson reflects upon the Pasadena Armory's history as a repository for military accoutrements, confronting its current function as a contemporary arts centre.

A publication documenting the event and the exhibition, with video documentation of the spectacle, will be published in Spring 2012 with generous support from the Pasadena Art Alliance.

Feb. 12 - Jun. 10, 2012 : Dawn Kasper: Music for Hoarders

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:43:52 -0800

Armory Center for the Arts is pleased to present an exhibition entitled Music for Hoarders, a video projection and installation by Los Angeles-based artist Dawn Kasper that documents a live "visual poem performance action" of the same name. Music for Hoarders, organized by Armory curator Irene Tsatsos, will be on display from February 12 – May 13, 2012 in the Armory’s Pasadena Art Alliance Gallery. A public opening reception will take place on Saturday, February 11 from 7-9pm in conjunction with Armory’s opening of simultaneous solo exhibitions by Richard Jackson, Nicolas Grider, and Jocelyn Foye. The exhibitions by Kasper, Grider, and Foye coincide with the Armory’s lead exhibition, Richard Jackson’s Accidents in Abstract Painting, the Armory, creating an opportunity for visitors to reflect on the shared conceptual and/or formal considerations between and among the works.

Originally performed in 2010 at Honor Fraser Gallery in Culver City, California, the performance Music for Hoarders featured a unique musical score designed specifically for the gallery environment. The structure of their composition was determined according to a performer’s spontaneous interactions with a large and unwieldy set of found everyday objects that had been stacked in the middle of the space. Musicians employed an aleatoric technique; they played whenever an object was touched, each musician assigned a sound to that object, each sound was performed during the duration of the object's use, and the sound assisted in informing the performer’s movements during the duration of the performance. The improvised musical interpretations of everyday objects compounded throughout the performance; the resulting full, layered sound, “hoarded” in the gallery, was meant to invoke the idea and physical sense of the hoarding of human emotions. The Armory will present documentation of this performance in a single-channel video installation with chairs and a new painting directly on the wall.

About the Artist

The work of Los Angeles-based performance artist Dawn Kasper addresses a deep fascination with the subjects of vulnerability, desire, process, and the construction and location of meaning. She critiques the corporate aspects of our culture by examining emotions – such as fear, panic, hate, envy, lust – through which advertisers, news media, and other commercial entities, manipulate us, and in doing so strives to create a place of shared camaraderie. Kasper often performs in a premeditated yet spontaneous manner, generally using props, slapstick comedy, and monologue to ask fundamental questions such as What is existence? or What is a physical object?. She then attempts to answer these life questions, and more, while inhabiting different characters and personas, each differentiated through costume and costume changes, with all shifts taking place before the audience.

The environments in which Kasper performs, created through the use of props, musical instruments, and diverse personae, provide what she calls an “open-air laboratory (of thought),” creating a theatrical space while also doubling as a platform for living sculpture. “Everything is in play,” she says, “and everything is mobile.” Kasper often repeats actions and gestures in her performances, invoking a feeling of ritual or ritualistic behavior. Kasper’s performances are often extremely physical – her various characters often construct a sculpture or installation, marking her study into being and process, and serving as an illustration of her findings.

Dawn Kasper has performed and exhibited internationally at galleries and institutions including the Migros Museum Für Genenwartskunst in Zurich and LISTE Basel, both in Switzerland; Art Basel Art Positions and David Castillo Gallery, both in Miami; Newman Popiashvili Gallery, Leo Koenig Inc., Projekte, and Art in General, all in New York; Copy Gallery, Philadelphia; and Anna Helwing Gallery, Circus Gallery, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Hammer Museum, and Museum of Contemporary Art, all in Los Angeles. Kasper is one of the acting co-directors of the performance and experimental art venue Human Resources in Los Angeles.

Dawn Kasper: Music for Hoarders is on view in the Pasadena Art Alliance Gallery at the Armory at 145 North Raymond Avenue, Pasadena. Gallery hours are Tuesday – Sunday, noon-5pm. $5 suggested donation. Armory members, students, and seniors are free. The Armory is easily accessible from the Gold Line Memorial Park Station in Pasadena. For information about Armory exhibitions and events, the public may call 626.792.5101 x122. or visit the Armory website at www.armoryarts.org.

Mar. 9 - Jun. 09, 2012 : Eve Fowler @ The Artist Studio at One Colorado

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:12:03 -0800

The Artist Studio at One Colorado

presents Eve Fowler, Artist-in-Residence.

Residency launches on ArtNight Pasadena.

Armory Center for the Arts and One Colorado present Los Angeles-based artist Eve Fowler as the Artist-in-Residence for The Artist Studio at One Colorado. The residency starts on March 9, coinciding with Pasadena’s ArtNight, a city wide arts festival, and runs through June 10. The Artist Studio, located at 24 Smith Alley in Pasadena’s One Colorado complex, is an interactive artist space in which visitors are invited to engage with artists as they work. While in residence, Eve Fowler will maintain open studio hours on Saturdays 12p – 5p, Thursdays 12p – 6p, and Tuesdays 11a – 8p. Studio visits are free and open to the public. Armory and One Colorado are pleased to continue their over ten year collaboration presenting innovative programs that introduce the arts and artists into daily life.

Throughout her three-month residency, Fowler will focus on creating a new series of text-based works inspired from Gertrude Stein's radically experimental novel Tender Buttons. By departing from conventional meaning, grammar, and syntax, Stein captured and revealed moments of consciousness independent of conventional understanding of time and memory. In the spirit of Stein’s decisive ambiguity, Fowler creates artworks that quote from the novel in alternative forms and contexts, broadening the typical method of delivery – the bound book, read in private – of Stein’s text. Fowler has developed a prosaic approach to exhibiting the work by printing quotes from the novel – such as "Very different but much more" or "A difference of very little difference" – on common silkscreen posters, the type that typically advertise concerts, boxing matches, and other events. These familiar posters – "A narrative of like and like it,” as Stein once said – can be seen on city street corners, light poles, and hurricane fencing surrounding empty lots. Now, nearly 100 years after the publication of Tender Buttons shocked Victorian sensibilities, Fowler takes Stein’s invitation to play with language further, like what Stein called “A spectacle and nothing strange.”

In conjunction with her residency, Fowler will install a reading room at the entrance of the studio where visitors are welcome to browse through a selection of works from her library as well as the libraries of friends, artists, writers, and librarians. Live readings by a selection of local writers will be scheduled throughout the residency. A schedule is available on the Armory website www.armoryarts.org.

Eve Fowler lives and works in Los Angeles. A graduate of Temple University (BA, 1986) and Yale University (MFA, 1992), Fowler is co-founder of Artist Curated Projects (ACP) in Los Angeles, which was the subject of a dynamic group exhibition she organized (with ACP co-founder Lucas Michael) at Armory last autumn. Fowler has had solo shows at Horton Gallery and Julie Saul Gallery, both in New York, and Thomas Solomon Gallery in Los Angeles. She has participated in group exhibitions at Tulane University Art Gallery in New Orleans and New Langton Arts and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, both in San Francisco. Her work is in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the New Museum, New York; and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Fowler’s work was included in the California Biennial at Orange County Museum in 2010 and will be included in a group show at Lora Reynolds Gallery in Austin, Texas in April 2012.

About One Colorado: One Colorado is an outdoor shopping and dining destination on one city block in the heart of Old Pasadena. The property unites 17 individual historical buildings; in addition to its retailers and restaurants One Colorado offers public art programs, cultural events, and entertainment. For more information please visit www.onecolorado.com.

image of posters from Eve Fowler's A spectacle and nothing strange project via Fritz Haeg's website http://www.fritzhaeg.com/

May. 19, 2012 : Second Annual Passport to Charities Event

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:01:47 -0700

Second Annual Passport to Charities Event
May 19, 2012
Maranatha High School

Students and Parents Only 9:00am – 11:00am
Open to the public 11:30am – 2:30pm

Good work is usually done in the background. But at PISF's Second Annual Passport to Charities Event, the quiet heroes in our community are the ones whoa are front and center.

Please join us for the Second Annual Passport to Charities Event. It’s a great opportunity to learn about 50 local charities, including the Armory, many PISF past grantees, and the work they are doing for our community. In addition to the over 50 charity booths, there will be entertainment and food and drinks available from local restaurants, for purchase.

If you would like to support PISF and our next generation of philanthropists please click here to donate to Passport to Charities.

You may also click here to visit the Passport to Charities website.

May. 23, 2012 - May 31, 2013 : Steven Bankhead: Eighteenth Brumaire

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:52:30 -0700

Armory Center for the Arts is pleased to present Eighteenth Brumaire, a large-scale sculpture by Los Angeles-based artist Steven Bankhead. The temporary public work will be on display through May, 2013. Bankhead’s monumental sculpture, which utilizes the materials of billboard construction, will stand prominently in the garden of the Madison Neighborhood Casita, 805 N. Madison Ave. Pasadena, California.

In 1801, Napoleon commissioned Jacques Louis David to create a painting depicting him crossing the Alps in order to propagandize his successful 1799 coup d'état (also known as the 18 Brumaire, regarded by some scholars as the beginnings of 20^th century fascism). The piece entitled, Napoleon Crossing the Saint-Bernard Pass (1801), shows a strongly idealized view of Napoleon astride a white stallion rearing back in victory. Fifty years later, Karl Marx would make reference to Napoleon and his successor, Louis Napoleon in his essay The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. This essay best states Marx’s view of the capitalist state, and includes the frequently quoted passage that history repeats itself, "first as tragedy, then as farce.”

Apropos, Steven Bankhead attempts to depict the parallels that exist in contemporary society in his piece entitled, Eighteenth Brumaire. The work, which stands nearly ten feet tall and consists of steel armature, plywood and printed image, represents an appropriated copy of David’s horse cut out from its surroundings with most of Napoleon cut off as well. Originally displayed at the rooftop of Steven Turner Contemporary on Wilshire Blvd. (across from Los Angeles County Museum of Art), the piece was created with the intent to engage in the conversation surrounding the Getty during their PST campaign throughout Southern California. He felt like there was cause to re-investigate the work which he first caught his attention during the exhibition, Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile at the Getty Center in 2005. Bankhead decided to address American capitalism/imperialism by removing the very figure that symbolizes the two (Napoleon), from the horse that is considered by many in America as a sign of freedom. In placing the work in a Pasadena neighborhood after a three month stint on Wilshire Blvd., Bankhead considers how location can enlighten the potential for new meaning.

Born in 1971 in Augusta, Georgia, Steven Bankhead earned a BFA at Auburn University and an MFA at Otis College of Art and Design. He has had solo exhibitions at Emma Gray HQ, Los Angeles (2011); Circus Gallery, Los Angeles (2008 & 2010) and at Galerie Andreas Binder, Munich (2009). His work explores themes of the avant-garde and its revolutionary spirit, engaging in both their successes and failures.

Funding for Steven Bankhead's Eighteenth Brumaire provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Jul. 8 - Sep. 15, 2012 : David Askevold: Once Upon a Time in the East

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:47:09 -0700

David Askevold: Once Upon a Time in the East

David Askevold (1940-2008) is recognized as an important contributor to the development and pedagogy of conceptual art, and his work has been included in many of the genre’s seminal exhibitions and texts. This full-career retrospective exhibition considers the four strains of Askevold’s exploratory journey – sculpture/installation, film and video, photo-text works, and digital images and includes key pieces from each stage of his career.

David Askevold broke into the art scene when his work was included in the seminal exhibition Information at New York’s MOMA 1970, which cemented Conceptualism as a genre. He later became recognized as one of the most important contributors to the development and pedagogy of conceptual art; his work has been included in many of the genre’s formative texts and exhibitions. This exhibition takes viewers on an eclectic journey through the various strains of Askevold’s pioneering practice — sculpture/installation, film and video, photography and photo-text works, and digital imagery. David Askevold moved from Kansas City to Halifax in 1968 to lecture at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. During the early 1970s, his famous Projects Class brought such artists as Sol Lewitt, Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Dan Graham, and Lawrence Weiner to work with his students, focusing critical attention on his adopted city and on his own unorthodox approach to making art. He quickly became on one of the most important conceptual artists practicing in Canada and throughout his career he remained at the vanguard of contemporary practice.

The accompanying catalogue, David Askevold: Once Upon a Time in the East, features essays by celebrated writer-curators Ray Cronin, Peggy Gale, Richard Hertz (author of The Beat and the Buzz), and Irene Tsatsos as well as several of Askevold’s contemporaries including Aaron Brewer, Tony Oursler, and Mario Garcia Torres.

Organized by the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia with the support of the Museums Assistance Program (MAP), Department of Canadian Heritage.