I Make Myself

L.A. lately

L.A. Sunset

L.A. mornings

L.A. Kitchen

L.A. morning light

L.A. reads

ArchieKobernik

L.A. late walks

L.A. afternoon stroll

L.A. neighbourhood

L.A. finds

L.A. colors

L.A. sunset

L.A. nights

Reading Curtis Sittenfeld books. All of them. At once. 

Loving her words, devouring her novels.

Driving for more than an hour to go to the beach. Finding that perfect one where I can read and Heinz can surf.

Unwilling to leave the ocean without taking a dip. Noticing that if I do I grow restless and get cranky. 

Listening to Big Magic the podcast, placing a hold on Big Magic the book. 

Waiting for more than 50-something people on the library queue. Finally reading it in less than two days.

Running more. Writing more. 

Taking time to settle. 

Noticing what moves and what remains still. 

Feeling the outside temperature getting cooler at night.

Remaining warm and cozy inside. 

 

Posted on 09/24/2016 at 04:43 PM in the L.A. époque | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Imitation of life.- Cindy Sherman

 

Imitation of Life is the name. The exhibition is at The Broad and the artist is Cindy Sherman.

The Broad's first special exhibition became Tuesday's afternoon perfect excuse to go to Downtown L.A.  

L.A.'s cultural hot spot.  

The museum is so ahead of its time that it dropped the word museum (it's only called The Broad) and the entrance fee (there's free admission*)

What it didn't drop was the I-didn't-make-a-reservation queue outside. I guess this is L.A. after all.

But this time I did. I had one reservation, tickets for two.

Who the f*@k is Cindy Sherman? That is the first question the exhibition aims to answer.

She is a photographer. Her work comes mainly from the studio. The actual space but also her study process. With an outcome that is intimate, vulnerable and glossy; she has been validated by the art market. She is a contemporary-art-collector must have, a wink to the role of celebrities.

I had heard about her when I was in graduate school learning how to price an art piece and let me just roll my eyes at myself here people because really, I don't think I'm qualified to price anything let alone a piece of art. I ended up paying $200 for a little Ganesh necklace that I had been looking for, the littlest not-even-gold Ganesh that looks like a hanging piece of chicken McNugget and yet I'm unwilling to pay $30 for a mani-pedi.

The art market is like quick sand. Once you are looking at things from within the market perspective is hard to get out. This is the context under which I studied Cindy Sherman's work. The prices, her auction performances, its collectors. Speaking of art collectors Mr. Broad it seems had the equivalent of a Netflix binge, except it was not Netflix but Cindy Sherman. This is something I can relate to because I did really want to stop watching Felicity and I couldn't. My Felicity binge went on for 48 hours, his it's been years and has produced a major exhibition (most of the exhibited work belong to Mr. Broad's collection)

The exhibition relies on the white box concept. A quest for complete isolation with the intention to fade out outside stimulus in order to focus exclusively on the art. Yeah, not a huge fan. Most of the time and for reasons that are too long to explain I've found this approach elitist. Specially when the only context given to the exhibition are words narrated by the curator hinting the viewer what to feel and how to interpret what is being shown. This was not one of those times.

This time it was actually the reason why I was able to approach Sherman's work in an entirely new way.  The chronological  layout featuring from her earliest to her latest work gave my linear-thinking mind the support it needed for creating a new story outside the art market.

The amount of work she's produced implies to me there is a production system. A very successful one. This fascinates me. I've always been intrigued by questions like how an artist perceives and approaches their work, how much space they make in their lives for their art-making process and how this manifests on their daily schedule.

The fact that most of her work comes from her studio is -I think- what makes Cindy Sherman, Cindy Sherman.

She photographs herself to explore archetypical femininity. Without advocating for good and bad or right and wrong she uses the language of mass-media to abstract and conceptualize her ideas.

Her work serves as a documentation of a very complex and intimate process.  It is my belief that she has shed many layers for her  to become the object of her own interest. Social roles, gender identity, cultural limitations, performance expectations, fear. Something I deeply admire as the path to non-attachement is a spiritual one. 

The final result is her visual commentary on cultural identity and a clear example of how the voice that comes from vulnerability hardly ever comes out shy but strong and precise.  With an exhibition that had me jumping between form and content, questions and answers. She creates a conceptual multistability experience. The greatest ambiguity overload.

As any great visual artist Sherman blurs out the borders of which is media and which is message but as any great human being she gives complete authority to the viewer to decide. 

It is with that authority that I can call her work abstract even when her aesthetics are not. 

Cindy Sherman Imitation of Life Cindy Sherman at The Broad
Cindy Sherman Imitation of Life at The Broad
Imitation of Life by Cindy Sherman at The Broad

Imitation of Life at the Broad
Exhibition View Cindy Sherman at The Broad

All pictures via The Broad

 

Having access to this  type of artists is precisely one of the reasons we moved from El Salvador. The art scene here in L.A. is another reason why I'm smitten with this city.  I'm particularly happy that The Broad's two big exhibitions are both by women. Cindy Sherman is the first, Yayoi Kusama is next.

Insert Charlotte-York fist pump here. 

 

 

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(*) As part of The Broad’s special exhibition program, tickets for Cindy Sherman: Imitation of Life are $12 for adults and free for visitors 17 and under.

Posted on 08/22/2016 at 11:31 AM in Happy Things, the L.A. époque | Permalink | Comments (0)

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One red rose.

As of yesterday I am thirty-four.

I'm thirty-four and particularly fond of owning two second-hand pieces of furniture. One pale-blue couch and a green-and-yellow, rose-printed armchair. 

I'm also fond of the new -WHITE!- Ikea chair that my dog insists on using as a bed.

There's also one mustardy-shaded round carpet for which I feel equal love and concern. Love for the integration it brings to my living room. Concern for the possibility of it becoming fertile ground for my current number one public enemy: Fleas. 

At this stage in my life I'm choosing to go to bed with a book every night. I'm reading Steinbeck for the first time and falling in love with the Great American Novel for the billionth time. 

The New Yorker is what I currently use as my morning read.  A #NumberOne #source for #tweetable English.

I'm un-focusing most of the attention I give to my time-consuming and also rarely-questioned social media patterns. Using the unspent scrolling-time for writing a self-imposed book. 

Trading the purpose of my phone to catching Pokemons and snapping sunsets.

Excusing my mostly-all-English reading list with my culturally-diverse music playlists.

Using Spotify to channel my newly found Latin American pride. Listening to Cuba, México and Colombia but also to New York and Miami también.

For my birthday I felt like planting something.

Maybe, I thought, the urge to grow roots is self-evident.

As of yesterday I am thirty-four and there is one red rose planted outside.

My birthday gift is knowing it'll blossom.

My birthday wish is to watch it as it does.  

 

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Posted on 08/09/2016 at 04:51 PM in Happy Things, the L.A. époque | Permalink | Comments (0)

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L.A.

A year that has been many things except ordinary. Heinz and I wrapped-up 2015 as we packed our stuff for 2016.

A few months in Costa Rica to start the year out, followed by what looks will be a year and a half in California.

This is where I currently am. I'm in California and my kitchen is red. The cabinets in the kitchen, in my new L.A. apartment are RED. A meaningless real estate feature but an undisguised You-are-Here mark on my road map.

The L.A. époque. 

I've started to write this post previous times but I've quit a few sentences in. I wasn't able to write down what I wanted to say. Self-doubtingly not sure of what it really was that wanted to be said. My voice felt somewhat shy which surprised me as this does not echo my inner landscape where it seems to be spring time. There's beauty all around but  the newness to it has me looking out for words, interpretations and mostly narratives to the multiple ongoing stories.

There's the story of how I ended up here. Here as in this illicitly hipster neighbourhood. A place I've fallen in love with so hard that I am willing to bypass the fact that there is no such thing as an actual lake in Silverlake.

L.A. has been both overwhelming and overwelcoming, both in the most soul-nurturing way.

Highways deserve a thorough essay on how much I dislike things that move too fast. 

And I will write it because these highways are my rite of passage. Yes, I find them as scary as f*#k but I thought...if only I could find the beauty in them; and I swear I think I can. I can see the beauty in the them.

There are certain places where the concrete horizon meets the threads to ruffled palm trees. If you are -questionably- lucky enough you'll catch this in a time of the day (rush hour) when everything but the sky wears a shadow dress. Meanwhile the sky displays a sun-tainted spectrum of color that will have you believing in unicorns in no time.

We Airbnb'ed a small studio in Echo Park as we hunted for a more permanent piece of real state jungle. The search was tough. Panther against a rabbit type of tough. I had no idea of how time consuming it would be to find an apartment, luckily Echo Park proved emotionally supportive.

Initially we were looking for a place near the beach. The real state market was quick to teach us that 1. student visa with 2. no credit score and 3. a dog where not priority as tenants. It would have been faster had we decided to rent a student apartment in a student building in a student area near the school campus but for a reason that now escapes my mind we were determined to find an apartment near the beach.

As the month in our Echo Park studio came to an end, one Tuesday afternoon we decided to go out and grab a drink. On that day we've had yet another apartment disappointment and my tender heart was feeling tired and almost hurt. As we found a place at the bar I noticed that it was packed! There was a band playing, people kept coming in and it was only Tuesday. I turned to Heinz and told him how much I was liking living in that neighbourhood and in complete agreement his reply was that he found it creatively stimulating. At that precise moment we had an epiphany. We made a toast as we decided to re-locate our search area. The very next day we made three appointments to look at some apartments. We chose the first one. It was love at wooden floors. We signed the lease that night. We moved to Silverlake on a cinco de mayo.

 

From the Echo Park studio to our Silverlake home.

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I'm curious about the different shapes and expressions this L.A. époque will take. An aesthetic of free summer concerts, hikes and beach days. If achievable even a tattoo by Dr. Woo.

The love for this neighbourhood is only a  partial truth, the complete truth is my heart has enough space for the entire city. 

Why everybody is moving so fast is a question that keeps me intrigued. I mean, can't we all see how beautiful this is?

 

 

Posted on 08/06/2016 at 10:52 AM in the L.A. époque | Permalink | Comments (0)

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