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UCLA Department of Art Students and Faculty Create Participatory Installation at LACMA

Carolyn Campbell (ccampbel@arts.ucla.edu) (310) 825-6540
For Immediate Use Wednesday, November 27, 2002.

An unprecedented collaboration between the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and five major art schools in Los Angeles, including UCLA’s Department of Art, has produced the next LACMALab exhibition, “MAKING,” in LACMA’s Boone Children’s Gallery. UCLA has assembled a team of 11 undergraduate and graduate students under the mentorship of art faculty members Henry Hopkins and Paul McCarthy to create a participatory installation that investigates the process of making art. Presented free to the public, “MAKING” will be on view Nov. 24, 2002, through Sept. 1, 2003.

“MAKING” is intended to bring the interests, perspectives and insights of the next generation of Los Angeles artists to museum audiences, as the artists examine the dynamics of art-making through collaborative projects.

The UCLA Department of Art installation, entitled “Collection: November 2002-September 2003,” grew out of discussions of the art process: how ideas are shaped, molded and then, often, discarded. Discarding or “giving up” ideas or work is an essential process, critical to the development of a single work, as well as to the evolution of a larger art practice.

The 11 students chose an artwork themselves to throw away. Decisions were based on whether or not they would discard good, old, theirs, another’s or a found piece, thus confronting the issues of what’s valuable, what’s not and how it feels to give something up.

The project encourages visitors to cross the barrier between artist and viewer and to participate in a collaborative artwork. Visitors are asked to revisit their existing artworks and select one to “discard” into a larger, collaborative work, which will continually transform over the course of nine months. The items are placed in a ten-foot-wide, nine-foot-tall Plexiglas container, which is approached by a ramp giving visitors access to all vantage points of the collective work. “Collection: November 2002-September 2003” demands that participants confront their own relationship to their art objects and to art-making in general.

The project also addresses the larger issue of collecting and discarding in this culture. Once several layers of paintings, sculpture and objects are heaped into the bin, creating material-culture and art-world strata of sorts, they will provide a unique archaeological study of our time.

UCLA Department of Art students on the project team are Kate Barclay, Michael Bauer, Vanessa Conte, Molly Corey, Stephen Fakiyesi, Sharon Hayes, Dan Ho, Nick Lowe, Kora Manheimer, Jill S. Miller and Oscar Santos.

Other schools participating in “MAKING” include Art Center College of Design, California Institute of the Arts and Otis College of Art and Design. A team of students and faculty from the University of Southern California Museum Studies Program will provide a unique analysis of the “making” of “MAKING,” which will be presented to the public throughout the exhibition.

“MAKING” has been realized with the help of the internationally noted architecture firm Frederick Fisher and Partners. The firm designed the overall space with firm associate Valery Augustin (UCLA ’02). Frederick Fisher (UCLA ’75) was selected to create an overall sense of cohesion for the four installations. As organic issues are present in the four installations, Fisher selected colors from nature — sky blue, grass green — to reinforce the artists’ themes and unify the entire space. Throughout the perimeter of the space, Fisher and his team have installed a continuous wainscot that unites text, images and didactic materials produced by the USC Museum Studies Program. In a departure from museum convention, all primary didactic information is conveyed in the voices of the participants, bringing clarity to this new model for working.

Fisher has also installed an important work from LACMA’s permanent collection, “Hammering Man” by Jonathan Borofsky, to further advance the theme of “making.” Fisher has added a library area and an individual artists’ workspace to supplement LACMALab’s ongoing children’s art-making area.

“MAKING” was conceived and produced by LACMALab, LACMA’s research and development unit that invites artists to create experiential artwork for all ages. Over the past two years, LACMALab has commissioned 21 artists — from internationally distinguished, mid-career and promising young artists as divergent as Alan Kaprow, John Baldessari (UCLA art department faculty), Jennifer Steinkamp (UCLA design | media arts faculty), Eleanor Antin, John Outerbridge, Eric Owen Moss and Jennifer Nelson — to create innovative and thought-provoking installations.

For “MAKING,” LACMALab director Robert Sain asked that the teams investigate both philosophical and practical questions as they relate to the making of art. Issues include the organization of collective projects; how an idea, concern or inspiration is turned into art; and the challenge of creating an installation that engages both child and adult.

“All participants responded with astonishing enthusiasm and determination to operate in this age-free, experimental terrain,” said “MAKING” curator Sain. “Now the visitor brings the artists’ works to life in Los Angeles’ largest public studio.”

Following the huge successes of LACMALab’s first two projects, “Made in California: NOW” and “SEEING,” “MAKING” will continue to produce valuable information for LACMA and other museums that seek a greater understanding of visitors’ art experiences and provide an innovative blueprint for engaging new audiences.

“MAKING” was produced by LACMALab and directed by Robert Sain, with Kelly Carney, project coordinator, and Howard Fox, LACMA curator.

This exhibition was produced by LACMALab, a research and development unit of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The exhibition was made possible by Sempra Energy, Brotman Foundation of California and Union Bank of California. Additional support was provided by Bert Levy.

In-kind support was provided by KKJZ-88.1 FM.

LACMALab is supported in part by the Caryll Mudd Sprague Endowment for the Education of Children and the Mattel Children’s Foundation.

Exhibitions in the Boone Children’s Gallery are made possible in part by the MaryLou and George Boone Children’s Gallery Endowment Fund.

Boone Children’s Gallery Hours: noon-5 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays; closed Wednesdays.

Contact: Carolyn Campbell
Phone: (310) 825-6540
Email: ccampbel@arts.ucla.edu