Pauline Adamek
Only two weeks are left to experience the summer exhibitions featuring the works of artists Carmen Argote, Alberta Whittle, and Trương Công Tùng.
The Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (ICA LA) is hosting a summer of exciting exhibitions, which explore a variety of themes, including motherhood, intimacy, and learning.
In addition to the exhibitions, ICA LA is also hosting a number of special programs, including a daylong focus on contemporary art from Vietnam, a walkthrough of Carmen Argote’s exhibition at her home and studio, and a moderated conversation on mothering, intimacy, and learning.
The summer exhibitions at ICA LA are a must-see for anyone interested in contemporary art. With only two weeks left to experience them, be sure to plan your visit soon!
Pictured above – Installation view of Joyce Pensato: I Killed Kenny, Santa Monica Museum of Art, June 1–September 28, 2013. Photo: Monica Orozco.
- Carmen Argote: I won’t abandon you, I see you, we are safe
This exhibition explores the themes of motherhood, intimacy, and learning through Argote’s sculptures, paintings, and videos. The works are often playful and humorous, but they also address more serious issues such as the challenges of raising children in a world that is often hostile to women.
In conjunction with Carmen Argote: I won’t abandon you, I see you, we are safe, ICA LA presents IN PROCESS, a series of collaborative actions performed by Carmen Argote and her longtime collaborators.
On Wednesday, August 30, join them for a unique tour with Carmen Argote and curator Daniela Lieja Quintanar on the occasion of Argote’s solo exhibition at ICA LA. This program focuses on the collaborative process between Argote and Lieja Quintanar, featuring a project which will be presented off-site at Argote’s home in Boyle Heights.
This event begins at ICA LA and ends at Argote’s home in Boyle Heights. In the spirit of Argote’s daily walking practice, attendees have the option to join the artist on a walk from ICA LA to her home or meet at Argote’s home at 7pm. ICA LA staff will leave Argote’s home at 8pm to walk back to the museum.
Wine and light refreshments will be served.
RSVP required. Address provided upon RSVP.
Schedule:
5pm: Optional early arrival to see I won’t abandon you, I see you, we are safe at ICA LA
6pm: Option to walk from ICA LA to Carmen Argote’s home in Boyle Heights (approximately 1 hour)
7pm: Arrive at Carmen Argote’s home for a special tour led by Daniela Lieja Quintanar
8pm: Option to walk back to ICA LA with museum staff
This film installation explores the experience of displacement and loss through the story of a young woman who is forced to flee her home due to war. The film is both beautiful and heartbreaking, and it offers a powerful meditation on the human cost of conflict.
Friday, September 1, ICA LA is hosting Art Buzz, which includes an exhibition walkthrough followed by a discussion with artist Carmen Argote, philosopher Rossen Ventzislavov, and ICA LA Senior Curator Amanda Sroka.
Then on Wednesday, September 6, don’t miss ON PROCESS—their final exhibition program that brings together Carmen Argote and her invited collaborators for a moderated conversation on mothering, intimacy, and learning.
- Trương Công Tùng
This exhibition features the work of a Vietnamese artist who explores the relationship between the individual and the land. The works are often made from natural materials such as wood, bamboo, and soil, and they evoke a sense of both beauty and fragility.
Drawing upon mystical ritual and indigenous mythologies, the work of Trương Công Tùng (b. 1986, Đắk Lắk province, Vietnam) is characterized by a poetic sensitivity to history, landscape, and materiality. His dynamic installations often incorporate natural materials that bear the traces of time and the echoes of generations and are composed in such a way as to reimagine the land from a site of colonial empire to one of communion. Disrupting the boundary between the physical and spiritual worlds, Trương’s practice reconfigures elements of each to reframe the relationship between the living and the inanimate.
Trương’s first museum solo exhibition brings together a constellation of sculptural and video works produced over the last three years. At the gallery entrance is a curtain of wooden beads made from a combination of coffee, cashew, and forest trees, all of which have been exploited throughout the artist’s homeland in the Central Highlands of Vietnam due to the relentless forces of war and industrialization. Created in homage to the dislocated, extracted, and disappeared, the network of suspended beads invites visitors to reflect on their own connections to these complex histories of people and place. Also on view is an installation made from gourds, water, soil, and seeds. The gourds are joined by a web of clear plastic tubes through which flowing water and earth create an undercurrent of migration from one gourd to the next. Each is sealed with a glossy finish made using lacquer, a once-prized and heavily traded material that is derived from tree sap. In the lacquerware painting tradition, lacquer is added to an object’s surface and then polished to reveal the hidden layers beneath. For the artist, this unearthing is a sacred act.
Reminiscent of the forest depths with its darkness, shadows, and gentle hums of insects and other life, Trương Công Tùng’s living exhibition requires ongoing cultivation and care, allowing it to become a metaphor for, and a journey of, co-existence and transformation.
- Alberta Whittle: between a whisper and a cry
This film installation explores the experience of displacement and loss through the story of a young woman who is forced to flee her home due to war. The film is both beautiful and heartbreaking, and it offers a powerful meditation on the human cost of conflict.
Planning to attend one of these programs? We encourage you to arrive early and allow yourself extra time to watch the full length of the featured film in Alberta Whittle: between a whisper and a cry, the themes in which are more poignant than ever as so many are recovering from the devastating effects of the recent wildfires in Maui and Hurricane Hilary.
The summer exhibitions at ICA LA are a thought-provoking and engaging experience. With only two weeks left to see them, be sure to plan your visit soon.
ICA LA is an art museum in downtown Los Angeles.
1717 E 7th St,
Los Angeles, CA
90021
Admission is always free.
Hours:
Wednesday 12-6pm
Thursday 12-7pm
Friday 12-6pm
Saturday & Sunday 11-6pm
Closed Mondays, Tuesdays, and public holidays.
