The LA Agenda: Southern California Design and Art Events
Author:Lindsey ShookCyber Monday got you feeling light on culture and weighed down with crazy cheap electronics? Check out our top picks of LA’s most thought-provoking art and design activities in the coming fortnight.
Midcentury Photo-Realism at Billis
Documenting what he terms “the endangered architectural culture” in Southern California, artist Danny Heller commemorates midcentury landmarks by the likes of Joseph Eichler and Donald Wexler with photo-realistic panache. The joint show with fellow painter Christopher Stott, who has a similar thing for typewriters—Remington and otherwise—is running at Culver City gallery George Billis. Bonus points for driving your ’56 Corvette there and polling the crowd for thier preferred sources for Egg Chairs; Through Jan. 5, George Billis Gallery, Culver CIty
Heath Ceramics Brooklyn Style
Purveyors of tableware for hipsters the world over (and the restaurants they frequent), Heath Ceramics is exporting the Brooklyn design aesthetic to the west coast—as you may have gathered from the beautifully designed bodega-inspired poster above, by New York husband-wife design studio enormouschampion. Co-curated by stylist Pam Morris, the show will run concurrently in Heath’s San Francisco and LA stores; opening Friday, November 30 in the former and Saturday, December 1 in the latter, through January 13. It will showcase culinary and design treasures for your kitchen and wider home by Brooklyn based artisans including cheese shop and print vendor BKLYN Larder, handmade porcelain studio KleinReid and isn’t-this-a-Portlandia-episode?-feeling jam and chutney makers Anarchy in a Jar; Nov. 30 — Jan. 13, Heath Ceramics Los Angeles and San Francisco
Reform Exhibition Lands
Morgan Maclean’s Devoe (Detail). Photo courtesy of the artist.
Melrose Avenue’s Modernism-happy gallery Reform fetes its new exhibition space The Landing with a solo show by LA sculptor Morgan Maclean, opening November 29 and running through January 31. Maclean draws on discarded objects he encounters in urban settings—from industrial waste to crushed coffee cups—for his work, which is masterfully chiseled from black walnut and mahogany. We’re enchanted by the mysteriously name Devoe, which looks to have been smoothed by the relentless workings of mother nature, but his mahogany tube of toothpaste (which appears to have been squeezed to the last drop) is truly a marvel to behold; Opening Reception Nov. 29, on display through Jan. 31, Reform, Los Angeles
Helvetica Rules at The Hammer
New York Times Signage by Pentagram (Detail). Photo courtesy of Pentagram.
Pentagram partner Michael Bierut (who memorably stole the show in cult typographic doc Helvetica by comparing the popularization of the font to receiving a crisp cool glass of water in the desert) will join Ellen Lupton, co-curator of The Hammer’s Graphic Design: Now in Production for a thought-provoking discussion about all things visual linked to the show’s exploration of the modern state of the discipline. Fair warning: Prepare for lots of audience question-disguised-as-worship about Bierut’s recent environmental graphics for the New York Times building, pictured above; Nov. 29 7:30 p.m., Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
