Public Reception: Thursday, September 17, 5:00 - 9:30 PM
Pacific Design Center Blue Building: Lobby & Second Floor 8687 Melrose Avenue West Hollywood, CA 90069 www.pacificdesigncenter.com
designLAb, curated by Pacific Design Center’s art program director Helen Varola, is pleased to announce its new fall season with new art and design exhibitions that open with a public reception on Thursday, September 17 from 5:00 - 9:30 PM. Sixteen exhibitions will be on view in the Pacific Design Center’s Blue Building Lobby and Second Floor with happy hour (cash bar) at Red Seven, located on the first floor of the Green Building.
Highlights include three sculpture installations in the Blue Lobby on view through July 29, 2016: Proposal for New Landscapes by one of Japan’s most important contemporary artists, Nobuo Sekine, a retrospective by acclaimed Italian architect/designer Antonio Pio Saracino and recent work by LA-based artist Matt Johnson. On the second floor above the Blue Lobby, thirteen new gallery exhibitions open to include Kevin Cheng’s interactive The Distance Between Stars at 4 A.M. and Industry’s Art With Heart to benefit the Friend Movement.
Image: Xavier Veilhan, Mobile n°3” (Music), 2015, Courtesy of Perrotin Gallery, New York. Proposal for New Landscapes: Nobuo Sekine September 17, 2015 – July 29, 2016 Blue Lobby
Nobuo Sekine’s Proposal for New Landscapes is a presentation of the artwork Phase of Nothingness—Black (1977–78), a series of sculptures that contrast the natural and man- made. The asymmetric arrangement of these disparate forms, from sprawling masses that lie low to the floor to geometric shapes that stand tall like totems, recall Zen rock gardens. Although they are made of black fiberglass, at first glance these works could be mistaken for stone, glass, metal, or plastic. This exploration of ambiguity is consistent in Sekine's practice, as he perceives form, matter, and space as infinitely malleable.
Nobuo Sekine is one of the key members of Mono-ha, a group of Japanese artists from the late 1960s and 1970s. Thanks to his participation in several critically acclaimed museum and gallery exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C., Blum & Poe in Los Angeles, and Gladstone Gallery in New York, his work is now being embraced in the United States.
Sekine was recently included in PROPORTIO, the critically acclaimed exhibition that explored universal proportions in art, science, music and architecture, held at the Palazzo Fortuny in Venice, Italy. His work has also been featured in important surveys, such as Prima Materia, Punta della Dogana, Venice, Italy (2013); Parallel Views: Italian and Japanese Art from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, The Warehouse, Dallas, Texas (2013); Tokyo 1955–1970: A New Avant- Garde, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2012); Reconsidering Mono-ha, National Museum of Art, Osaka (2005); Japanese Art after 1945: Scream Against the Sky, Yokohama Museum of Art, which traveled to Guggenheim Museum Soho, New York, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1994); and Japon des Avant Gardes 1910–1970, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1986). Nobuo Sekine was born in Saitama, Japan, in 1942, and currently lives and works in Tokyo and Los Angeles. He received a BFA in oil painting at Tama Art University, Tokyo, in 1968.
Image: Nobuo Sekine, Installation view of Phase of Nothingness—Black, 1977-1978. Courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo. Photo: Joshua White. Matt Johnson: Lautner Beams September 17, 2015 – July 29, 2016 Blue Lobby
Featured prominently in the Blue Lobby are four works by Matt Johnson (b. 1978), from his series titled Lautner Beam / Super String. Johnson created these works using repurposed cast- offs from John Lautner's demolished Shusett House that translate as rustic, metaphysical visualizations of string theory, the forms hypothesized to describe matter itself. Cast in steel from the arched beams of Lautner's modernist structure, they are reworked into trompe-lʼoeil, elegant forms.
Working with traditional media including bronze, stone, wood, steel and aluminum, Johnson's work utilizes materials that are synonymous with strength, belying the delicate, sensuous, and sometimes weightless appearance of the sculptures themselves. Objects seem to be poised just so, however fragile in their disposition. The work focuses on the physical point at which an object, when standing on its own, becomes a sculpture.
Matt Johnson lives and works in Los Angeles. He received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore and his MFA from University of California, Los Angeles. His work is represented by Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo and 303 Gallery, New York.
Image: Matt Johnson, “Eight” (Lautner Beam / Super String), 2014. Courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo. Photo: Joshua White. Antonio Pio Saracino: Retrospective September 17, 2015 – July 29, 2016 Blue Lobby
A retrospective organized by art advisor Helen Varola examines the relationships among product design, architecture and public art projects by acclaimed designer and architect Antonio Pio Saracino (b.1976). Designs include the Hexa Lounge, the debut of two new designs, Sky Lounge and Mineral Table, and several other furniture pieces presented in a Saracino-designed staged setting that provides visitors with a powerful all-at-once aesthetic overview of his architecture, industrial design and fine art.
Saracino’s Cervo Chair (Deer Chair), shaped out of thin strips of bent wood that recall the ribcage and antlers of a deer demonstrates Saracino’s organic design thinking. The Ray Sofa and Ray Chair are constructed with a cellular assemblage of 'rays' of closed-cell foam and are reminiscent of crystals formed in nature. The Blossom Chair’s organic shape with four petals adjusts to the human body dynamically with its elastic flexible seat and back that curl and spring back slightly, much like the petals of a flower opening and closing. By employing new technologies, sustainable principles, and creative thinking, Saracino pursues innovative design on every scale and explores the relationship between the natural and man-made world.
Saracino has completed numerous public art projects and monuments internationally, most notably recent public projects at 3 Bryant Park, New York and in Florence, at L’Accademia, curated by art advisor Helen Varola. Saracino’s design works are in the permanent collections of Pacific Design Center, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, Museum of Art and Design, New York and the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia.
For further information please contact Industry Gallery, Pacific Design Center (Suite B270) at 888 325-0420 or visit www.industrygallery.net.
Image: Antonio Pio Saracino, Hero and Superhero 2013, marble and polished stainless steel respectively, 3 Bryant Park, New York. Photo: Courtesy of the artist. designLAb GALLERIES - SECOND FLOOR BLUE
ANTHONY JAMES B215 anthonyjamesstudio.com
BOÎTE NOIRE Javiera Estrada: Pillars of Creation B222 September 17 - October 30 boitenoiregallery.com
CHRISTOPHER W. MOUNT Mapping the Information Age September 17 – October 30 B267 christopherwmount.com
CMAY Continental Drift: Doug Edge, MB Boissonnault, Brad Howe, Irina Alimanestianu, Victor Wilde, Amy Kaps September 17 – October 30 B226 cmaygallery.com
INDUSTRY Friend Movement: Art with Heart September 17– October 30 B270 industrygallery.net
LAWRENCE CANTOR FINE ART Andrew Myers September 17– October 30 B275 lawrencecantorfineart.com
MARY YOUNAKOF B239 343dresses.com
MICUCCI ARTE Contact gallery for info. B209 micucciarte.com THOMAS PAUL FINE ART Hei Myung Hyun: Ancestral Gardens September 17– October 30 B275 tpaulfineart.com
VAROLA Hot & Tasty: New Work by Allen Tombello Extended to October 30 B256 helenvarola.com
YOUNG PROJECTS George Barber: By the Way, September 17 – October 30 Stas Orlovski: Skazka, September 17 – October 30 Egill Saebjornsson: Fuzzy Trace, September 17 – January 2, 2016 B210 / B230 youngprojectsgallery.com
4 A.M. Kevin Cheng: The Distance Between Stars September 17 – October 30 B273 4artmanagement.com
NEW ACQUISITIONS
PDC is home to a large collection of contemporary art curated by Helen Varola that includes commissioned site-specific works addressing PDC’s formal architectural design and its natural panoramic surrounding. Mobile n°3 (Music), a new monumental work by renown French artist Xavier Veilhan hangs nine feet above the ground and compels the viewer to look up at PDC’s impressive interior space to recall a scene from Stanley Kubrick. The mobile (image shown above) which spans about 15 feet high is composed of thirty floating spheres which evoke the music and soundtrack of our time. Veilhan offers us a visual translation of our auditory environment, making visible our hypermodern and increasingly artificial aural world, which, without intervention, can often go unnoticed and unconsidered. The artist provides a visual reminder that our lives are suffused with sounds of our own design. Another Veilhan ceiling installation entitled Hong Kong Mobile No. 9, 2013 which is 9 feet high also hangs in the private office of PDC owner Charles S. Cohen. Location: Green Lobby.
Erwin Redl’s commissioned, animated, large-scale light installations for the Red Building’s Motor Court and Sky Lobbies provide a digital experience that also sensationalize PDC’s soaring red, blue and green corporeal presence. Redl has interpreted the motor court as a dramatic three-dimensional cinematic environment. His new light installation, HORIZON, along the long curved glass wall acts as an epic background panorama. CUBES, on the traffic island is the companion actor in the motor court’s spatial spectacle. Both installations’ light sequences are synchronized and create a dazzling scene leading into the Red Building. In addition to the Motor Court, Redl also created two large computer-controlled RGB LED ceiling installations for the East and West Sky Lobbies entitled Formations and Stalactites. Location: Red Building.
Gerardo Hacer (b. 1976), a Los Angeles artist and former assistant to Ellsworth Kelly and Jeff Koons, created two bright, large-scale green origami-inspired installations entitled The Fold: Mountain and The Fold: Valley that playfully rhyme the Red Building terrace’s vast view of sky, mountains and water. Born to Mexican-American teenage gang members and raised in a series of foster homes, Hacer’s use of origami’s infinite formal language has helped to reshape his past as he transforms his small fragile paper forms into large-scale poetic steel sculptures. Location: Red Building Terrace. Three life-size hand-welded, painted carbon and steel sculptures entitled Totems by Antonio Pio Saracino (who’s retrospective is on view in the Blue Lobby) are a study of prismatic shapes and light that constantly shift to offer varying tonal variations of the same color. Echoing the PDC’s three-color architectural dynamic, each work is painted in different shades of red, blue or green and recall the buildings’ mystifying play of light and perception between two and three-dimensional space. Location: Red Building Terrace.
Veilhan, Redl, Hacer and Saracino join several other internationally recognized artists whose work is prominently displayed in Pacific Design Center’s Red Building offices such as Bharti Kher, Doug Aitken, Daniel Firman, Kaz Oshiro, Gregor Hildebrandt, Wim Delvoye, Guy Limone, Phillippe Decrauzat, Paula Scher and Peter Zimmermann.
Pacific Design Center’s art collection may be viewed during business hours by calling PDC to arrange an appointment.
Images Courtesy of PDC: Erwin Redl, Horizon and Cube, 2013; Gerardo Hacer, The Fold: Mountain, 2015; Antonio Saracino, Totems, 2015. About designLAb designLAb provides a platform to explore art that addresses the design center‘s unique context of interior design, spanning a variety of art disciplines and media. designLAb is conceived and directed by New York-based curator Helen Varola and made possible by the support of Charles S. Cohen, owner and president of Pacific Design Center, collector and museum trustee at MOCA Pacific Design Center. designLAb is located on the second floor of PDC’s Blue Building and most galleries are open Monday - Friday from 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM or by appointment on Saturday. Enter the Blue Building on Melrose Avenue and use the escalators or elevators to visit the second floor.
Valet, garage, and street parking are available and complimentary parking for press is available by calling one day in advance, Monday - Friday, at 310-360-6417.
Please also visit MOCA Pacific Design Center, open 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM, Tuesday - Friday; 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM on Saturday and Sunday; and closed on Monday. Admission to MOCA Pacific Design Center is always free.
designLAb inquires or to submit an exhibition proposal: Please write a brief email with a description of your project to [email protected].
Press Inquires Beth Brett Blink Creative Group 310-850-2701 [email protected]
Art Tours (Groups, Press or Personal) Contact Janis Isaacs, Senior Building Administrator to arrange an appointment. 310-360-6407 jisaacs@pacificdesigncenter.com
Private Events To arrange your private event or screening at any one of the beautifully located event spaces such as Spectra, Red Seven, Silver Screen Theater, Center Blue Atrium, Blue Lobby, Plaza and Conference Center visit http://www.pacificdesigncenter.com/amenities/.