ALAC Is Back With Flare in Santa Monica

Glowing fiery orange from the road flares around them, cubes of dry ice were piled up in eight pyramid-like stacks, each about 5 feet high, outside the at the Santa Monica Airport.

In a recreation of her dry-ice sculpture from the 1960s, feminist artist Judy Chicago and a team of volunteers assembled 25 tons of the frozen carbon dioxide in the past few days, and illuminated it with road flares Thursday night to kick off Art Los Angeles Contemporary 2012.

After a successful run in 2011, ALAC returned Thursday to Santa Monica. Its opening officially launches the renowned 11-day Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival.

The ice will evaporate over the duration of ALAC, which will last four days, through Jan. 22. ALAC is known as a sophisticated yet accessible display and features recent work from 70 local and international galleries. A series of lectures, performances and screenings will also be held throughout the airport and Los Angeles.

Inside the 40,000-square-foot Barker Hangar is a maze of contemporary art in a variety of mediums and textures, from gingham fabric to paper sculptures to tapestries to flat-screen TVs.

Out front is the re-imagined "Disappearing Environments." It was originally produced as two temporary public displays by Chicago, Lloyd Hamrol and Eric Orr in 1968 in Century City as a commentary on the rapid commercial development that was transpiring citywide.

“With partnerships like this, we continue to deliver the best in what contemporary art has to offer on a worldwide scale, while paying homage to the Los Angeles contemporary arts community," said Tim Fleming, founder and director of Art Los Angeles Contemporary.

Little girls twirled in the milky gas as it swirled slowly around the ankles and crept up the waists of adults who huddled around the formations, snapping photos with their cellphones. One couple stopped for a long kiss.

"It's so mysterious," one woman cooed; others hummed spooky sounds. South Los Angeles resident Alaisen Reed scooped up chunks of the freezing ice (the temperature of it is about -109 degrees), cupped it in her hands and carried it on her pamphlet.

It gave here "a few wounds," she said, but "I can't help myself."

ALAC AIRPORT EVENTS

FRIDAY

• Performance: Gifted and Blessed 11 a.m. Friday at the Barker Hangar

GB (Gifted and Blessed) is an analogue electronic artist. Gabriel Reyes-Whittaker is the principal composer, producer and director of GB. Although his music ranges widely stylistically, he classifies his work under the umbrella term technoindigenous studies, a sound that emphasizes the integration of modern analog electronics with the spirit and sometimes the aesthetic of the music of his ancestors.

• Conversation: Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival Preview 11:30 a.m. Friday at the Ruskin Theatre

Curators Glenn Phillips, Lauri Firstenberg and artist Liz Glynn offer a preview of the Getty's 11-day Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival. Phillips and Firstenberg of LA><ART, are the co-organizers of the festival, which celebrates art in Los Angeles from 1945-80. The festival examines this history through a contemporary lens, with a series of adaptations, re-inventions, and commissions that are inspired by the installation and performance artists working in Los Angeles.

• Screening: Sean Dack, Double Exposure 1 p.m. Friday at the Ruskin Theatre

In Double Exposure, Sean Dack contrasts two worlds: Expo 2000 in Hannover (or rather, its relics); and the recently concluded World Expo in Shanghai. A duality forged over a decade, a decade that has seen immense change within the ever increasing globalized society. 

• Performance: Turn On the Sunlight 3 p.m. Friday at the Barker Hangar

Turn On the Sunlight is an explorative journey through sound, feeling and dimension. It is the new folk duo collaboration between multi-instrumentalist Jesse Peterson, and Carlos Niño (Build an Ark, Dublab.com, the Life Force Trio, the Sound of L.A., Spaceways Radio, Suite for Ma Dukes). 

• Performance: Superdeluxe 6 p.m Friday at the Barker Hangar

A performance by Superdeluxe, an experimental hip-hop duo from Micah James and Frohawk Two-Feathers.

SATURDAY

• Performance: Contact Field Orchestra 11 a.m. Saturday at the Barker Hangar

The new cinematic improvisation beat project of singer-songwriter Damon Arron, frequent contributor to Dublab and Hit+Run.  

• Performance: The Action Bureau at 11:30 a.m. at the Ruskin Theatre

Presented by the curatorial collective the Action Bureau, Los Angeles artist Paul Waddell will perform his new piece, "Quick Start Camping Trip Urbane Sim Revision: a System for  Showing esults (2012)." Developed specifically for Art Los Angeles Contemporary, this performance will loosely take the form of an intuitive camping trip.

• Conversation: David Wojnarowicz: A Definitive History of Five or Six Years on theLower East Side 1 p.m. Saturday at the Ruskin Theatre

Sylvere Lotringer and Jennifer Doyle will discuss artist David Wojnarowicz  (1954-1992). Philosopher Sylvere Lotringer met with Wojnarowicz in 1991 a borrowed East Village apartment to conduct a long-awaited dialogue on Wojnarowicz's work. Wojnarowicz was then at the peak of his notoriety as the fiercest antagonist of morals crusader Senator Jesse Helms—a notoriety that Wojnarowicz alternately embraced and rejected. Already suffering the last stages of AIDS, David saw his dialogue with Lotringer as a chance to set the record straight on his aspirations, his personal history and his political views.

• Reading: Chris Kraus, Where Art Belongs 2 p.m. Saturday at the Ruskin Theatre

Chris Kraus will read from her 2011 book Where Art Belongs, in which Kraus argues that "the art world is interesting only insofar as it reflects the larger world outside it." The Glasgow Review of Books describes it as "an incitement to find art, to read in a heroic way, and to create a moment."

• Screening/Conversation: Halsted Plays Himself 3 p.m. Saturday at the Ruskin Theatre

Semiotext(e) presents acclaimed artist and filmmaker William E. Jones who will read select sections from his new book, Halsted Plays Himself. He will also screen segments of L.A. Plays Itself: a sexually explicit, autobiographical, experimental film whose New York screening left even Salvador Dalí repeatedly muttering "new information for me."

• Performance: Farmer Dave Scher 3 p.m. Saturday at the Barker Hangar

Farmer Dave Scher is an artist from Southern California who specializes in the music/sound design/DJ/visual arts mediums. In addition to his involvement with Beachwood Sparks, All Night Radio, West Coast Dream Sequence, and his self-titled work, Scher has worked as a producer and touring and session musician with Elvis Costello, Interpol, Jenny Lewis, Jonathan Rice, Will Oldham, Vetiver and many others.

• Performance/Screening: Brian Butler, Union of Opposites 5 p.m. Saturday at the Ruskin Theatre

Los Angeles-based artist Brian Butler will debut "Union of Opposites,"
an experiment in ritual magic, combining the use of sound and light with the intent of creating a collective out-of-body experience. A film screening will transform into a live performance in which the artist executes an occult rite inspired by Aleister Crowley’s mysterious "Ritual of the Mark of the Beast."

• Performance: The Americans 6 p.m. Saturday at the Barker Hangar

Classic rockabilly dance quartet The Americans perform.

SUNDAY

• Performance: Yaakov Levy 11 a.m. Sunday at the Barker Hangar

Legendary multi-instrumentalist Yaakov Levy of the Build An Ark collective will play a solo set of acoustic meditations. Yaakov Levy is a professional musician and poet from Los Angeles who plays saxophones, bamboo/metal flutes, kalimba, and alto-clarinet. Yaakov has played at venues such as Royce Hall, the Getty, Disney Hall, the Wiltern, Rose Bowl and Pasadena Playhouse.

• Performance: El Haru Kuroi 3 p.m. Sunday at the Barker Hangar

El Haru Kuroi is a unique mix between the smooth soulful sound of Brasilian Bossa Nova and gritty East L.A. Garage Rock. Since the Spring of 2004 East Los Angeles trio El- Haru Kuroi has developed a powerful, unique style as rooted in Mexican, South American and African melodies and rhythms, as it is influenced by Fugazi and Gang of Four.

Art Los Angeles Contemporary 2012 is open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $18 for a one-day pass and $30 for a three-day pass.