Being Ernest Shackleton - El Sereno (in Two Phases)
Jim Ovelmen, Mehran Ayati, Armando Bobadilla
12/12/2015-3/6/2016
A multi-phase installation involving artist Jim Ovelmen, artist/architect Mehran Ayati, and East Los Angeles street artist Armando Bobadilla (Mondo59420).
PHASE I: A mixed media/sculptural interpretation of the 1914 icy shipwreck of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton has been installed on the rooftop of AWOL by Jim Ovelmen, and Mehran Ayati. Since the inception of the exhibit from December 12, 2015, experimental and improvised performances by participating visual artists, including Walter Santucci (puppetry), Thomas Whittaker Kidd (as Sr. Ernest Shackleton) have irregularly occurred during the show. An interactive video periscope in the gallery below allows visitors to view the installation and rooftop performances. Live video has also been broadcasted on YouTube and/or on Periscope TV @ArtAwol throughout the show.
PHASE II: Since late January 2016, East Los Angeles street artist Armando Bobadilla (Mondo59420) has reinterpreted and gradually modified components and works of the Phase I installation into his own creative visions, including a mural on the rooftop.
Phase II opening event will also be live on YOUTUBE. URL for the broadcast will be posted on the AWOL website www.awolimited.com at the day of the event."Being Ernest Shackleton - El Sereno (in Two Phases)" will be on view through March 6, 2016.
BACKGROUND: 13 years ago, the now defunct storefront art space, London Street Projects (Los Angeles, CA), featured an interactive rooftop installation called Being Ernest Shackleton, titled after the early 20th century British explorer, whose ship and crew were stranded on sea ice for many months, instead of traversing the South Pole as planned. The 2002 show featured a video-periscope that viewed a faux-Antarctic scene installed on the roof, while live-feed was projected inside the gallery below. Experimental performances, improvisational actions and events occurred on the roof on a weekly basis, which could only be spied by visitors through the periscope.
BEING ERNEST SHACKLETON | EL SERENO (IN TWO PHASES) has reprised similar components to the 2002 show. Instead of a storefront gallery in Silver Lake, the show will be featured at a former-tile-shop, art space in El Sereno; AWOL. The timing, and location of this sequel presentation, invites views about the social impact of urban/residential art events. The exhibition seeks to frame inquiry about the perception of art being inside or outside of the community. Can an art event be creatively countermanded into polar narratives? Will this creative practice reveal or create more contradictions? Who or what does art benefit? Who is represented as identities and concepts phase? By the mere existence of this exhibition, and by its change of form, the show questions how a public art show in El Sereno is implicated into geographic patterns of gentrification.
Ernest Shackleton was an adventurer with goals, who thought of himself as an explorer. He sought, yet failed, to place the British flag on an icy land in which his country assumed nothing previously lived, much less thrived. Pushing the metaphor, this can be used to describe a privileged-class newcomer, entering a low-income neighborhood as thoughtless as the explorer, to “claim” a new experience as his or her own, thus impacting those around who are highly vulnerable to economic change, to erasing of cultural histories, and to displacement.
Jim Ovelmen, Mehran Ayati, Armando Bobadilla
12/12/2015-3/6/2016
A multi-phase installation involving artist Jim Ovelmen, artist/architect Mehran Ayati, and East Los Angeles street artist Armando Bobadilla (Mondo59420).
PHASE I: A mixed media/sculptural interpretation of the 1914 icy shipwreck of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton has been installed on the rooftop of AWOL by Jim Ovelmen, and Mehran Ayati. Since the inception of the exhibit from December 12, 2015, experimental and improvised performances by participating visual artists, including Walter Santucci (puppetry), Thomas Whittaker Kidd (as Sr. Ernest Shackleton) have irregularly occurred during the show. An interactive video periscope in the gallery below allows visitors to view the installation and rooftop performances. Live video has also been broadcasted on YouTube and/or on Periscope TV @ArtAwol throughout the show.
PHASE II: Since late January 2016, East Los Angeles street artist Armando Bobadilla (Mondo59420) has reinterpreted and gradually modified components and works of the Phase I installation into his own creative visions, including a mural on the rooftop.
Phase II opening event will also be live on YOUTUBE. URL for the broadcast will be posted on the AWOL website www.awolimited.com at the day of the event."Being Ernest Shackleton - El Sereno (in Two Phases)" will be on view through March 6, 2016.
BACKGROUND: 13 years ago, the now defunct storefront art space, London Street Projects (Los Angeles, CA), featured an interactive rooftop installation called Being Ernest Shackleton, titled after the early 20th century British explorer, whose ship and crew were stranded on sea ice for many months, instead of traversing the South Pole as planned. The 2002 show featured a video-periscope that viewed a faux-Antarctic scene installed on the roof, while live-feed was projected inside the gallery below. Experimental performances, improvisational actions and events occurred on the roof on a weekly basis, which could only be spied by visitors through the periscope.
BEING ERNEST SHACKLETON | EL SERENO (IN TWO PHASES) has reprised similar components to the 2002 show. Instead of a storefront gallery in Silver Lake, the show will be featured at a former-tile-shop, art space in El Sereno; AWOL. The timing, and location of this sequel presentation, invites views about the social impact of urban/residential art events. The exhibition seeks to frame inquiry about the perception of art being inside or outside of the community. Can an art event be creatively countermanded into polar narratives? Will this creative practice reveal or create more contradictions? Who or what does art benefit? Who is represented as identities and concepts phase? By the mere existence of this exhibition, and by its change of form, the show questions how a public art show in El Sereno is implicated into geographic patterns of gentrification.
Ernest Shackleton was an adventurer with goals, who thought of himself as an explorer. He sought, yet failed, to place the British flag on an icy land in which his country assumed nothing previously lived, much less thrived. Pushing the metaphor, this can be used to describe a privileged-class newcomer, entering a low-income neighborhood as thoughtless as the explorer, to “claim” a new experience as his or her own, thus impacting those around who are highly vulnerable to economic change, to erasing of cultural histories, and to displacement.