Plunging into the tide

Map of this Sunday's Trespass Parade. Courtesy West of Rome Public Art.

The LA art world is often overbooked, but it’s hard to imagine a crazier week and weekend than the one we’re in right now. The Pacific Standard Time juggernaut, its many related events, the much-anticipated launch of two new art fairs, and other random happenings that somehow got programmed in at the same time (West Hollywood Book Fair, this weekend? Really?) have us all buried under an avalanche of obligations, decisions, and for writers like me, the challenge of meeting deadlines with text that isn’t gibberish.

I would be remiss however if I didn’t point out some of the awesome performance art-related things that are happening now and in the coming days.

LACE has unveiled Los Angeles Goes Live, its much-anticipated PST contribution examining the histories and legacies of SoCal performance art in the 1970s and 80s. The project is multi-pronged and even has its own website.

TONIGHT at the Vincent Price Art Museum in East LA, Vincent Ramos gives a walkthrough for the show he curated, After The Gold Rush: Reflections and Postscripts on the National Chicano Moratorium of August 29th, 1970. There will also be a reading by Rubén Guevara and a performance by Felicia Montes. For more details on the event, click here.

If you can get in to MOCA’s Under the Big Black Sun members’ opening on Friday night, do it. The show is incredible (Schimmel’s greatest achievement to date, I think) and Henry Rollins is deejaying.

Otis’ Ben Maltz Gallery has Doin’ It in Public: Feminism and Art at the Woman’s Building. On Saturday night from 4-7pm, their opening reception will feature a ceremony led by Linda Vallejo and a performance by the Waitresses. Also at 5pm that day, Catherine Taft leads a discussion with video artists Brian Bress, Stanya Kahn, and Kenneth Tam for Open Platform at Art Platform—Los Angeles. Then starting at 8pm that night, Royal/T opens East Village West, a show that looks at Hollywood’s influence on New York’s neo-Dada art movement, with an evening of performances curated by Ann Magnuson and Kenny Scharf. For more details on this event, click here.

Sunday brings us West of Rome’s huge endeavor, the Trespass Parade, as well as the opening day performance for the Hammer’s PST contribution, Now Dig This!. Artists Senga Nengudi and Maren Hassinger will perform a collaborative project with Ulysses Jenkins in which they reimagine their works in the exhibition galleries.

And into next week… Monday, be sure to return to Open Platform at Art Platform—Los Angeles at 1pm for a panel discussion on the history of performance art in Los Angeles. Then on Thursay, flip a coin to decide whether to attend the Asco artist walkthrough at LACMA, the first event in Liz Glynn’s MOCA residency, or a talk between Lee Lynch and Marnie Weber at Steve Turner Contemporary.

I’m sure I missed some stuff. But since “we’re all in this together,” as George Herms says, please add missed performance-related events to the comments section below. Thanks and happy art-ing!