TORRANCE TODAY - Special feature on TRYST and Nomad II by TorranceCitiCable

https://youtu.be/oxMhfv-zea0?si=7Bu-U2ElNnQpxtKS

By Christine Lee | CLee@TorranceCA.gov | Torrance Citi Cable

PUBLISHED: JUNE 29th, 2023

TORRANCE TODAY is a 15-minute live news broadcast airing Monday through Thursday at 4 p.m. Tune in for daily news and information related to the City of Torrance. Featured segments include stories related to health, wellness, safety, education, economic development, and local issues.

Banner Image: TRYST and Nomad II logos

TORRANCE TODAY - WINDOW

https://youtu.be/OLfsAhS1P28

By Kirk Leins | kleins@torranceca.gov | Torrance Citi Cable

PUBLISHED: JUNE 29th, 2023

TORRANCE TODAY is a 15-minute live news broadcast airing Monday through Thursday at 4 p.m. Tune in for daily news and information related to the City of Torrance. Featured segments include stories related to health, wellness, safety, education, economic development, and local issues.

Banner Image: WCMTL, Together, we Dream!, 2022, 30 x 40”, Acrylic & spray paint with a mix of thick media on canvas

Enjoy an anxiety-free day: Courtesy of ChatGPT

https://eccunion.com/features/2023/05/25/enjoy-an-anxiety-free-day-courtesy-of-chatgpt/

By Brittany Parris |  brittanyparris45@gmail.com | The Union

PUBLISHED: May 25, 2023 at 2:06

Since its release in November 2022, the Open-AI-designed chatbot has garnered national attention for its ability to write anything ranging from speeches to final term papers.

Now, the software could even be a stand-in tour guide and counselor.

The Union asked ChatGPT to plan an itinerary catered toward reducing anxiety to explore and verify if they were truly anxiety-reducing.

Here are the top five locations ChatGPT recommended to visit throughout the South Bay area to help clear your head.

• Torrance Art Museum

• The Grain Cafe

• Madrona Marsh Preserve and Nature Center

• Redondo Beach Pier

• Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden

click here to explore interactive map.

click here to see the article of The Union website

WEEKENDS IN TORRANCE

https://youtu.be/Ayhx9dueEE8

By Cindy Kennedy | ckennedy@torranceca.gov | Torrance CitiCABLE

PUBLISHED: May 18, 2023 at 2:06 p.m.

Torrance Citi Cable feature on the ¿WILD? residency program and spring artist in residence Katie Shanks

TORRANCE TODAY - Un-Civil WAR (an election special)

https://youtu.be/o8q61g3xt5Q?t=168

By Kirk Leins | kleins@torranceca.gov | Torrance Citi Cable

PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 25, 2022

Torrance Citi Cable feature on Un-Civil WAR (an election special)

TORRANCE TODAY is a 15-minute live news broadcast airing Monday through Thursday at 4 p.m. Tune in for daily news and information related to the City of Torrance. Featured segments include stories related to health, wellness, safety, education, economic development, and local issues.

14 pop-ups, drops and shows in L.A. that can help open your third eye in August

https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/image/story/2022-08-12/august-drip-index-fashion-art-beauty-pop-ups-merch-drops-events-in-los-angeles

By LA Times Editors

Published August 12, 2022 7:32 AM PT

This story is part of Image issue 12, “Commitment (The Woo Woo Issue),”

below is the excerpt mentioning the museum:

The L.A. Six’ at Torrance Art Museum

Open through Sept. 10 at the Torrance Art Museum, “The L.A. Six and the Underground” celebrates the work of iconic L.A. photographers Merrick Morton, Estevan Oriol, Frankie Orozco, Anthony Friedkin, Suitcase Joe and Julia Dean, who have centered their careers on capturing the realest parts of the city for decades. The exhibition also includes hand-painted pieces by muralist Jacqueline Valenzuela, artist Tonantzin Reyes and more. 3320 Civic Center Drive Torrance, Calif. torranceartmuseum.com

…………(to continue reading the article click here)

TAM x LA ART SHOW

https://www.laartshow.com/diverseartla/

By LA ART SHOW

Memorial To The Future

Sculpture by Daniela Soberman 
Video installations curated by: Kisito Assangni
Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
Photographic elements: open source via TAM staff
Curated by Max Presneill
Torrance Art Museum (TAM)

You can view a 3D walkthrough of the work by clicking the link below:
https://matterport.com/discover/space/V7Sf6wvAH9S

DiverseArtLA   CATALOG
https://issuu.com/palmbeachshowgroup/docs/la_art_show_catalog_2022

4) DiverseArtLA  PRESS (some press only here) 

https://www.diversionsla.com/la-art-show-2022-sparkles/ 

https://www.arteporexcelencias.com/en/events/its-wrap-la-art-show-2022-great-success

http://www.nmartproject.net/the-climate-change-memorial-2022/

https://www.prweb.com/releases/los_angeles_beverly_arts_laba_founder_joey_zhou_interviews_curator_marisa_caichiolo_at_la_art_show_2022/prweb18453413.htm

https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/2022-l-a-art-show-looks-to-the-future-with-nfts-and-the-environment

https://www.thebeverlyarts.com/post/la-art-show-2022-opening-night-premiere-party-benefiting-st-jude-s-children-s-research-hospital

https://artdaily.com/news/143311/LA-Art-Show-wraps-up-successful-2022-return#.YijJPhPMI9U

Torrance Art Museum to reopen after pandemic closure by taking art to the streets

https://www.dailybreeze.com/2021/07/15/torrance-art-museum-to-reopen-after-pandemic-closure-by-taking-art-to-the-streets/

By RICHARD GUZMAN | riguzman@scng.com | Press Telegram

PUBLISHED: July 15, 2021 at 2:06 p.m. | UPDATED: July 15, 2021 at 2:06 p.m.

The Torrance Art Museum will use the city’s parks, malls and other public spaces as its new exhibition spaces when it reopens this weekend with an ambitious citywide installation.

Beyond filling the streets with art, the show could also signal a new direction for the museum

“We’ve never gone outside the museum walls and we were really interested in rethinking what the museum’s role will be in the future. And one of the things that came out of that conversation was the potential for the museum not to just be the site, but going out to the community more,” said Max Presneill, head curator of the museum, which reopens July 17 with the new “Ultra!” exhibition.

The museum, which has only offered online exhibitions for more than a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, will be the central hub for the free exhibition. “Ultra!” runs through Aug. 28 and is made up of more than 20 pieces of art spread out throughout the city at locations such as Del Amo Fashion Center, the Torrance Cultural Arts Center and the Madrona Marsh Reserve Nature Center.

It launches at noon Saturday with a reopening ceremony at the museum that will include a new mural dedication, an outdoor sculpture exhibition and performance art by various artists.

People can get a taste of what they’ll see around town in the museum’s main gallery which will feature work by some of the “Ultra!” artists.

From there, they can pick up a brochure with a map of the artwork — or see it online — and hop in a car, bike, bus or walk around town checking out sculptures, video installations, neon art, photography and even crochet art from contemporary Southern California artists and art collectives.

“Good art is there to promote thinking and to realize different ways of thinking about the world and most of the art we’ll have on display will have multiple leaves of meaning you can engage with,” Presneill said.

The idea for a large-scale outdoor exhibit had been around for years but it was the pandemic that helped push the project along, Presneill said.

Going all out at the Torrance Art Museum

https://easyreadernews.com/going-all-out-at-the-torrance-art-museum/

BONDO WYSZPOLSKI|JULY 14, 2021

Tears of joy, tears of sorrow, and what’s that about social media?

Jason Jenn curated “Even Sparkles Have Shadows” for the Torrance Art Museum

by Bondo Wyszpolski

“Ultra!” was conceived last summer when the Torrance Art Museum staff realized that having a mostly outdoor public art tour would be beneficial for everyone. It has since become that and a little more in the months since. The show is impressive and ambitious, and it opens on Saturday at noon. Even without water it’s going to make a big splash because the exhibition not only takes place within and around the building but in several locations throughout the city.

This wide-ranging project, helmed by director and curator Max Presneill, was aided by assistant curator Sue-Na Gay, museum registrar Hope Ezcurra, and outreach specialist Jason Jenn. The museum has three distinct exhibition spaces—a main gallery, which is able to house large artworks, a more intimate Gallery Two, and an even tinier Dark Room that has often been used to screen videos or to feature singular installations. This time, in an effort to make us aware of the dangerously endangered Northern White Rhinoceros, Cynthia Minet has created an illuminated inflatable sculpture using recycled camping tents.

“Ultra!” does not lack for compelling and provocative artists (and are you really an artist if you don’t meet one of these criteria?), but I’d like to bring attention to “Even Sparkles Have Shadows” in Gallery Two. Presneill had solicited proposals from his staff and it was Jason Jenn’s concept that prevailed. With the work installed and ready for its DeMille closeup, Jenn discussed and revealed how it all came together. The eight artists include Michael Craig Carrier, Zära Monet Feeney, Chuck Hohng, David Hollen, Stevie Love, Haleh Mashian, Ken Gun Min, and Alison Ragguette.

“The artists were chosen because of my familiarity with their body of work,” he says, as we stand in the center of the gallery. Each piece, Jenn feels, connects with the show’s title-slash-theme: “They immediately catch your attention because of their color, because of their brightness, and because they draw you in. They look pretty. And then, as you look closer, you realize that there’s a deeper meaning behind it; it’s more than just colorful works: sometimes the stories are sad or have a darker element to them, and sometimes they critique certain elements in society, certain issues.” The subtext, if we may call it that, is not always apparent. Some of it we may discern, and some of it we may need to intuit and come to our own conclusions.

A curator worth his or her salt has a decorator’s eye, knowing that how the work is arranged will precipitate certain dialogues, not only between the viewer and the art, but between the individual pieces on display. There’s truly an art to presenting art.

“It’s a show that I’ve been thinking about for a while,” Jenn says. And what he means is that he’s not only looked at a lot of work but best decided how it interacts with each other.

However, the theme of “Even Sparkles Have Shadows” was filtered through another lens as well. Remember, Jenn is the museum’s outreach specialist.

“One of my jobs here is as the social media person in charge of our Instagram and Facebook, so I deal with the volunteers and I deal with the public and the press. And, as the person in charge of social media, I have this love-hate relationship with social media.

“This show was influenced,” he continues, “by how people present themselves on social media and how things might look really sparkly, or people are smiling, but you know that there’s a story behind it. People are presenting one aspect, but there’s always something more. That’s how social media is. And so I was thinking about how these artworks work in a similar way—they are shiny and bright and they put on a good show. Sometimes the story beneath it is just as compelling or adds a whole other dimension to the surface.”

To help us along in deciphering some of that backstory, viewers can scan a QR code or go to the museum website “and pull up more of the stories beneath the images.”

Then there’s the arrangement of the gallery, which is far from accidental. “When you walk into the room you immediately see the brightness,” Jenn says. But then, when you invariably look to your left, two of the four walls are not illuminated by track lights, but rather are self-illuminated, and in one instance, the two tapestries by Monet Feeney, illuminated by blacklight.

“There’s a concept here of sparkles and shadows, and I really wanted to create a space that was in a way immersive and an unusual installation of works.” Jenn has achieved this, insofar as that’s possible in a room of this size.

Here’s what you’ll see

The Torrance Art Museum created several online programs during the interim, but the doors have been closed to the public for 16 months. For Jenn, this wasn’t entirely a loss.

“I’m grateful for having a year to add in a few things and to fine-tune the creation. I knew what the concept was, I originally had six artists involved, and then I added two more that I thought really fit.”

Apart from two large painted canvases by Ken Gun Min, everything else, wall-mounted pieces, a hung-from-the-ceiling piece, and a stand-alone on the floor, are comprised of mixed media. One of Stevie Love’s wall pieces, looking a bit like a small, multicolored throw rug, could in itself represent the theme of the show: “It has a story behind it that’s darker and deeper,” Jenn says. And the backstory? Love’s storage unit, behind her home, burned in a fire and 30 years of artwork was destroyed. But later, according to Jenn, “there were these juniper bushes that started to sprout again. So, symbolically, for her, it had this element of new life from the fires. From tragedy, new life.” And now, knowing this, we can make out the “shadows” behind the “sparkles.”

Min’s paintings are apparently a critique of “hyper-masculinity and men on Instagram who really work on their bodies and are pumped up and overly sexualized. He’s sort of made a critique on that,” Jenn adds, “because he works out himself.”

Min’s canvases are muscular as well, but then Jenn had the idea of placing three of Chuck Hohng’s teddy bears between them. Having seen several of Hohng’s bears many years ago I suspect that by now he has more than enough to equal the terracotta warriors of Qin Shi Huang. Of course these little fellows, sewn from repurposed materials, are not the cuddly playthings of one’s youth, or rather they combine that with something entirely different, an adult maturity grafted onto them. And unlike what one finds in a department store, each one has its own personality or character.

The cellular cluster by David Hollen that appears to have seeped out of the ceiling and blossomed into organic chandeliers was created pre-pandemic, but through our pandemic-weary eyes we may see them as viruses and, yes, as a direct response to COVID-19.They go well with Zära Monet Feeney’s two tapestries, which cascade from the wall and onto the gallery floor. Under blacklight they are quite enchanting. There’s a critique here, too, of colonialism and aristocracy, and Jenn points out the crown, or corona, which perhaps alludes to you-know-what.

Impressive as well are the three vertically-mounted rattlesnake skins, each one illuminated from underneath in a different softly-glowing color, that Michael Craig Carrier has repurposed into artworks. He lives in Temecula and apparently has found these shedded skins while out walking. “He likes to take material and give it new life,” Jenn says. “He’s a very environmentally-conscious artist.” One is tempted to reach out and stroke the textured surfaces, which makes me think that there should be a little rattling noise if the viewer gets too close. These pieces are effective because they entice us and yet we usually think only of drawing away when we think of rattlesnakes.

Next to Carrier, Jenn has placed a large work, also textured, by Haleh Mashian. The myriad teardrop shapes literally represent tears (another backstory for you to uncover), but the large work, also softly illuminated from within, is gently reminiscent of the Viennese Gustav Klimt.

The one work that will be hard to miss is by Alison Ragguette, and it depicts a pair of skates perhaps ensnared in some molasses-like goo, or as Jenn remarks, “We’re skating along in life and suddenly we’re stuck in the gum.” Some people might look back over the past year (now that we have 20/20 hindsight about 2020) and say that this pretty much sums up what we’ve all been through. And we’re not out of the goo or the gum yet, are we?

“Even Sparkles Have Shadows,” which is just one aspect of “Ultra!” is quite a lovely bouquet and highly recommended. As for the rest:

Ultra! Is a community-based public art exhibition which opens at 12 noon on Saturday. Over 20 artworks from contemporary artists are dispersed throughout the city. Maps are available at the gallery or online. Several performances are scheduled for the afternoon as well as during the run of the show, which closes on August 28. Hours, Tuesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free. Call (310) 618-6388 or go to TorranceArtMuseum.com. 

‘Semblance | Sunshine’ and ‘Music to My Eyes’ at Torrance Art Museum

Artillery Magazine review. by Genie Davis | Aug 5, 2020

To view article on their website: https://www.artillerymag.com/semblance-sunshine-and-music-to-my-eyes-at-torrance-art-museum/

Two lush summer shows are blossoming online at Torrance Art Museum. Both exhibitions are visual stunners; and they continue the museum’s ongoing aesthetic for cutting edge, culturally resonating art.

Semblance | Sunshine co-curated by Josh Hashemzadeh and the Torrance Art Museum, is a group exhibition that offers a concise history and progressive overview of minimalist art from the 60s through present, Southern California style. The artists include Lynn Aldrich, Math Bass, Juan Capistran, Laddie John Dill, Sam Durant, Lauren Halsey, Anna Sew Hoy, Alex Israel, Claudia Parducci, Helen Pashgian, Kaz Oshiro, Aaron Sandnes, and Roy Thurston.

As much an insightful look at artistic style and shifts of the minimalist movement, the exhibition also pays homage to the California dream of this period as well, and specifically the influence of Los Angeles itself upon it. With the world seemingly caught on “pause” before change upon change, this is both a contemplative show and a call to action.

Lynn Aldrich offers a dazzling sculpture, “Streams in the Desert.” The blue enamel coated galvanized steel work is both water and aquaduct; a puzzle piece that is as entwined and convoluted as the history of water and water rights in the region. It seems to flow through the entire exhibition, both in its curated position on the gallery floor, and in its simple but thought-provoking energy. Laddie John Dill’s “Ohio Blue Tip” is a cool blue, green and golden work of argon, glowing hottest at both ends, like an LA sunset/sunrise, or a candle burning at both ends. Sam Durant’s illuminated green textural art “You Are on Indian Land, Show Some Respect” vibrates with both rage and a call to return to a different sort of life. Lauren Halsey’s “Untitled” gypsum on wood is an enigmatic image, very much of the moment – ghostly, petroglyph-like, and other worldly, as if dropped into exhibition from another planet. If only the world was more like Alex Israel’s “The Bigg Chill” – a jumbo soft serve, made from marble and a Styrofoam cup, a perpetually frozen memory of a quintessentially Californian good time.

In Gallery Two: Rob Grad and James Van Arsdale make the aural become visual in Music to My Eyes. The sculptural mixed-media two-person exhibition sings with seductive pleasure. The layered assemblages are filled with a kinetic sense of motion; it is as if, when the gallery closes, the music comes out to play. Van Arsdale’s “Circle Zap,” comprised of denim, faux leather, and patch is both rock n’ roll emblem and tribal tattoo; his “Electroexplosive Time Machine to the 70s” is an homage to the road musician: bursting from a road case are shapes of wood, foam, and acrylic, a fever dream for would-be roadies transformed into art. Grad’s lush and shimmery plexiglass and aluminum “Switching Lanes” is a kind of visual jazz; a brilliant palette bursting with promise. The artist’s “Tomorrow Colored Glasses,” UV cured ink on layered, die-cut plexiglass is like a vision of blossoming sound; his “Like Home” is both collage and assemblage, an overture to the city and its music.

Finally, the museum’s Dark Room exhibition space is now online as well, with video art to view from home. Now through September 5th, TAM presents a new video program each week from NewMediaFest 2020, with the Seven Memorials for Humanity, curated by Wilfried Agricola de Colgone. It is an absorbing retrospective of global video art from the last twenty years. It makes a worthy companion piece to both gallery shows.

SFAI Alumni Spotlight Joshua Hossain Hashemzadeh

https://sfai.edu/blog/joshua-hossain-hashemzadeh-and-semblance-sunshine

Semblance | Sunshine, on view at the Torrance Art Museum through August 29, 2020, traces the material and aesthetic influence of post-war Los Angeles on minimalist art within Southern California from the 1960s to today. SFAI caught up with Joshua Hossain Hashemzadeh (BFA Painting, 2015), co-curator of the exhibition, to discuss the concept, the works, minimalism, his practice, and more. Read on to delve deeper, and go here for more information and additional images of the works.

SFAI: What is the story of the development of this exhibition, where did the idea for it originate? Where did the title come from?

JHH: Ya, I had been in talks for a little while with several artists around LA that had been interested or involved in this period of Southern Californian minimalism between the 1970s and the 1990s and initially we came together to do a show called Re-Verb at Baik Art in Culver City. That exhibition opened up a dialog that articulated minimalism beyond the more recognized 1960s movements and focused on contemporary painting within Los Angeles within that subsequent 30 or so year period. After completing that I had started thinking about a show that could chonolog a broader view of minimalism in LA and that would basically link the “light & space” and “finish fetish” movements to contemporary works that embodied similar thinking today. That show later became, Semblance | Sunshine. 

The title was something I played with for a while, but it’s pretty much a nod to the Sunshine Noir show from the late 90s which intended to present a chronological overview of art and cultural influences happening in LA from 1960 - 1997. 

SFAI: What have you observed in the changing landscape of minimalism from the 1960s to today in the context of this exhibition?

JHH: I think the biggest distinction from the 1960s to today is the ability for that kind of “classic minimalist aesthetic” to exist in works that don’t solely play to the kind of viewing experience that Judd and Stella championed in New York. I think “minimalism” can celebrate the traditions that they, and others in the West like Helen Pashgian, Mary Corse, and Larry Bell set in motion, while opening up the stylistic approach to allow for metaphor and personal or historical narratives. It really, in its broadest sense, has become a tool for anyone to articulate their environment and ideas via this reductive material-centric approach. It becomes somewhat evident when you see how much conceptual artists and minimalists overlap in the way they view, make, or conceptualize their work. Which is ironic because both modes of thinking kind of came into existence in opposition to one another lol. I think that’s why including artists who haven’t always been thought of in the same vein as that 1960s standard was important for this exhibition. It allowed us to show how widely those initial material and aesthetic influences had become to generations of artists living here and to the story of the city itself. 

SFAI: The exhibition statement mentions breaking away from regimented traditions and instead presenting “reductive art objects  that are informed by local Southern California environments,  subcultures, and communities”. Can you say more about the particular environments, subcultures, and communities that inform any of the particular works in the show? 

JHH: I think every artist is always making work that’s influenced by the things around them or their personal interpretations of the world. Though you do start to see things in Semblance | Sunshine that allude to more specific narratives within Los Angeles like in Alex Israel’s Bigg Chill, Lynn Aldrich’s Stream in the Desert, or Aaron Sandnes’s Death Marks the Spot (1964 Pontiac). 

Perhaps, one of the clearest examples though, could be Lauren Halsey’s Untitled,  as it draws on her hyper-local experience in South Central where citizens are perpetually faced with the pressures of economic transformation and the displacement of their cultural history. The subjects in the work are turned from the viewer, leaving only the racially charged signifier of their hair to cement the figures identity while floating aimlessly in an otherwise voyeuristic and minimal space. I immediately think about this lack of permanence that we see so often in LA. Nothing is grounded. No center or familiar faces to identify with, merely bodies consumed by this gesture of development & displacement. There’s maybe no better place than the communities within South Central to personify this fraught history within Los Angeles. It reminds us of all the ugliness and shortcomings of our judicial systems and the systematically biased infrastructures we still hold onto today. From food deserts, to a lack of accessible capital, education, and racially influenced urban planning, these residents have been in large part barred from the economic prosperity that LA has witnessed decade after decade.

However, I also read the work as a celebration of these communities. The power of embracing ones’ self via personal style and the preservation of culture through institutionalized art can be immensely transformative. I think representation is key here, and this hieroglyphic-esque depiction is a badass way to breathe hope into a region that birthed some of Southern California’s greatest cultural influences. 

From Hip-hop to 90s street fashion the legacy of this community is seen everywhere around the globe despite having so much stacked against it. It not only articulates these subcultures and experiences but also our collective capacity for social reform and cultural preservation. 

The work, to me, is a bit of a throwback to Rauchenbergs white-paintings, from Black mountain college. Only instead of rooting the experience of the work in the indexical variables of an institutional setting, like John Cage’s 4:33. Lauren etches, quite literally, the experiences and expressions of her community into artworks that the city’s collectors and institutions are now tasked with protecting. Kind of becomes a performative take on indexical mark making in and of itself. 

SFAI: What do you anticipate will be in store for the future of minimalist art in Los Angeles?

JHH: I don’t have a crystal ball, but I like to think these aesthetics will always be tied to Southern California in some way. There’s a presence here that just provokes that kind of thinking. I assume artists are going to be faced with digital spaces more and more in the future and minimalism will have to figure out how to adapt to that lack of physicality. Luckily it still photographs well. The real issue is it’s not always very accessible and people generally don’t like that. You’d be amazed at how many people want to fight over a red square lol. The austerity can be problematic at times, but it helps to understand the genre as a language of contemplation where you want to use the simplest constructions to achieve the maximum result. That approach is and will be pretty important in how we navigate the future so I’m sure there will be artists that continue this tradition however that may be. 

SFAI: How does curating interrelate with your art practice? Does your practice engage any of the themes in this exhibition?

JHH: The two overlap a lot. When I curate I typically am trying to explore something I’m also trying to articulate in my art practice. But it takes a lot of time as an artist because you’re trying to imagine and then construct an object that says everything you want where as a curator you can point to it after it already exists. So I feel like there’s a benefit from doing both. One is understanding the object and the other is understanding it in space. 

In regard to specific themes, I would definitely say there’s a lot of art history in my work some of it relates to minimalism and some of it doesn’t. Things are so fluid now it's sometimes hard to tell. Movements like Dada, Fluxus, and Bauhaus will always be pretty important to me tho and I think there are themes of minimalism in all three.

SFAI: What other projects have you been working on recently? What’s next?

JHH: I’m working on a series of small art objects that I called Reliquary-Memes, they’re vintage LA postcards that get encased in wooden containers and layers of resin and paint. Think Ken Price meets Dustin Yellin. 

Other than that I’m playing with a couple exhibition ideas. Want to do something that speaks about a desire for objects in a world that is increasingly ephemeral. Not totally sure yet but I’m focusing a lot on the idea of collections and collecting. There are a few other projects in the air but I think like most people I’m just trying to make it through the year and see what happens next. 

Joshua Hashemzadeh (b. 1993), has a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute (2015) and lives and works in Los Angeles. His work, often varying in mediums, is built around an investigation of language and its links to art-historical pedagogy, socio-economic critique, and cultural iconicism. Recent works have been featured in several exhibitions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York with recent highlights being: Office Hours, Main Museum, Los Angeles; FIVE, Baik Art, Los Angeles; Poster, Black Ball Projects, Brooklyn; LA Art Show 2017, Los Angeles; Critique of Reason, MRG Fine Art, Los Angeles; and Our little Angle, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco. The artist also maintains a curatorial practice with recent highlights including Semblance | Sunshine, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance; the 2020 Armory Show, New York; Re-Verb, Baik Art, LA; Felix Art Fair, Roosevelt Hotel, Hollywood, and Henosis, Baik Art Seoul, South Korea.

Image credits, top to bottom; all images courtesy of Torrance Art Museum:

Left to right: Helen Pashgian, Untitled (GR9), 2016. Formed acrylic, 12 x 18.25 x 13 inches; Lynn Aldrich, Streams in the Desert, 2017. Galvanized steel downspouts and elbows, exterior enamel, 53 × 86 × 56 inches; Aaron Sandnes, Death Marks the Spot (1964 Pontiac), 2016. Automotive paint on wood panel, 60 x 60 x 1 3/4 inches. 

Clockwise from top left: Math Bass, Yellow Gate, 2014. Powder coated steel, 81 x 42 x 27 inches; Lauren Halsey, Untitled, 2020. Hand-carved gypsum on wood, 48 x 48 x 1 7/8 inches; Juan Capistran, The Text is the Beginning of the Plan, 2016. Stack of paper prints, 6.5 x 19.25 x 13 inches; Laddie John Dill, Ohio Blue Tip, 1969. Argon gas, glass tubing, 88 x 1/2 inches.

Claudia Parducci, Life Line (series), Cast bronze, Dimensions variable. 

Lauren Halsey, Untitled, 2020. Hand-carved gypsum on wood, 48 x 48 x 1 7/8 inches. 

Left to right: Lauren Halsey, Untitled, 2020. Hand-carved gypsum on wood, 48 x 48 x 1 7/8 inches; Alex Israel, Untitled (Flat), 2012. Acrylic on stucco, wood and aluminum frame, 84 x 60 inches; Alex Israel, The Bigg Chill, 2012-13. Marble and styrofoam cup, 5 x 3.5 x 3.5 inches.

Artillery Magazine | Quarantine Q & A with TAM Head Curator Max Presneill

Quarantine Q&A: Max Presneill of Torrance Art Museum

Article: https://www.artillerymag.com/quarantine-qa-max-presneill-of-torrance-art-museum/

by Anna Bagirov | Apr 15, 2020

Max Presneill in the ‘viewing area’ of his home based studio.

Is your museum still open and operating with certain staff members still coming in to work? We are keeping staff members to a minimum at the museum to enable some ongoing tasks; to continue that requires one person at a time to handle. Still, the staff has their hands full—some working from home for now—with aspects of their job that need to be completed regardless of the isolation at this time. It takes long periods of behind-the-scenes work to bring an exhibition together. There are a lot of moving parts to synchronize. Of course it should look effortless at the actual exhibition but the ball cannot be dropped even during these difficult times.

Exhibitions still need to be thought up, researched and developed. We are planning exhibitions a couple of years in advance at any given time so we continue to research, develop and connect with those we need to in order to ensure we are ready when the restrictions are lifted. And there are those projects that we hope we will be able to bring to the public later this year. To be able to do that we need to move ahead with our jobs right now!

Are you in touch with your members, fans and donors? Are they still interested in going to the museum for your programming or are they showing hesitation due to the stock market slump or fears of the virus? We are concentrating a lot on our online presence to keep in touch. We are asking artists what they are making right now so people can post their activities with our Facebook page. We have instigated a project called Hobson’s Choice, where we select seven artists per week to showcase an artwork. These choices are made from the submissions sent in by the public to a dedicated email. The nominations can be from artists themselves regarding one of their own works or by anyone else. We are currently on Week Three of this ongoing project and we will continue it through May, with a different seven each week being presented on our website—where you can find more details (or on our Facebook page). 

The staff is also writing about their Staff Picks, art that has influenced or inspired their personal journey with art, and we post those on our website to let people know more about our personal sources. These short articles are from our curatorial team, our registrar, our social media specialist and our preparatory, so you get a full range of influences and opinions. 

Torrance Art Museum Exterior

How are you overcoming the challenges we are now facing?Looking to the immediate future we are envisioning new exhibitions and programs that might help bring us all back together. These need to be flexible in their timing as we do not know when the isolation will end. Another MAS Attack is in the works potentially, to allow artists to all show together in a one-night-only open exhibition of support and connection, a hopeful and forward-thinking social practice event where everyone can bring a work and have it shown that night. 

How can Artillery’s readers help museums and artists while they are closed?Engage with the social media and websites of the institutions, art groups, galleries and artists—like and comment a lot on their Instagram/Facebook/Twitter. For institutions this is evidence to the politicians and people who control the budgets (and employment of the staff). The more we can show our relevance to the public, our engagement with them and sense of keeping people connected then the more they are likely to keep supporting our programs. It is usually the Arts that get axed first, forgetting the importance of culture to daily life—through movies, literature and art. You can help art institutions avoid staff furloughs and unemployment, budget cuts and such by showing the community leaders that you care about us and what we do. If you want art museums and think they provide a valuable service to the art community and greater public then do your bit to keep them healthy and open—SHOW YOUR SUPPORT. 

For artists—show that you are paying attention to what they are making! Buy what you can from them or from galleries you support. Re-post images of what they are doing. Share. Help them grow their Instagram following. Connect them to any curators and gallerists you know so that future things may grow from this. Gallerists, curators, consultants can keep their ‘doors’ open to everyone, for personal advice and suggestions, via phone calls, Zoom meetings, Skype, etc. 

The question we should ALL be asking is “How can I be of service? What can I offer to others? What skills can we give up to another?”

It’s common knowledge that most museum traffic is what brings in funds through ticket sales, the gift shop, membership fees, parking, donations etc., so how does the closing of your museum affect your business? Or are people finding other ways to connect with the museum? Or to help the museum?TAM is free. It always has been. We offer an educational and entertaining experience without cost thanks to the City of Torrance. If anything, we bring in revenue to the City by the visitors who shop while in town, go to restaurants, etc. It is not a financial boost from visitors we need (although that couldn’t hurt!!), but support through showing the powers-that-be that we are important to the public, that TAM and other cultural organizations are a valued contributor to the culture of Southern California and further afield. People can let the City know this directly (email, phone or letter) or they can take the easier and more engaged route by visiting our social media and website and marking their support there! I encourage you all to do so, for TAM and the other institutions, groups, non-profits and others who are working to keep this thing of ours together and alive.

During the Great Recession, were people still going to TAM’s exhibits and participating in museum programming and donating? Can that still happen again? We did not see a decline in numbers visiting during the recession. In fact, being free and having exhibitions and programming that were relevant and interesting we saw our numbers increase every year. I see this returning. It all comes down to us: your readers, artists out there and art lovers – we either get out there and show our love and support when we can eventually gather or this activity we love will fade to insignificance. That is our pro-active choice.

Some art professionals are optimistic, and others worried. How do you feel? Is there anything surprisingly positive you have noticed so far? Or something you feel you or we all could learn from this? I think we should take the immediate lesson of just how important creativity is to us and everyone else in general, besides the obvious need to rethink financial, health, education and other social structures. Will there be long term changes? I am doubtful of this. What did we learn from the 1918 flu epidemic? Unless fundamental societal changes are demanded and given/taken I think a return to what was is more likely, for good and bad.

Saying that, I have to say I am an optimist otherwise. I suspect people will, like myself, be hungry to spend quality time around other people who share their interests, in art or whatever. We will run towards what we could not have—museums, galleries, cinema, live music and clubs, the beach, etc. We have to live in hope, not fear!!

Exhibition view of Death Cult, TAM’s last show before the shutdown.

How the Torrance Art Museum is going online and global with its new exhibition

https://www.dailybreeze.com/2020/04/02/how-the-torrance-art-museum-is-going-online-and-global-with-its-new-exhibition/

The Torrance Art Museum had a busy few weeks planned with a trio of new exhibits running from April 4-May 16 in separate galleries. However, like all other venues, those plans were shelved as the museum was forced to close due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. But the art must go on, so instead of physical exhibits the museum is giving all artists a chance to have their work displayed for the next few weeks. This weekend the museum launches its new “Hobson’s Choice” online exhibition made up of artwork submitted by the public.

“We could have looked at the show we were going to do at the museum, we could have put up images of what those artists were going to bring to us but we prefer to look at the artists in our audience,” said Max Presneill, director and curator of the museum.

The exhibition will run on the museum’s website from April 4-May 16 to coincide with the dates of the previously planned exhibitions. Once a week Presneill will choose seven artists and display one piece of artwork from each artist. And the response so far has been very good with more than 100 artists already submitting work representing local and international talent.

“We’ve had submissions from Greece, China and Germany,” he said.

“We are getting (work) from across the board. There’s installation, painting, videos, drawings, sculptures,” Presneill said.

And since this is a serious art museum, Presneill is curating the exhibition as he would any other exhibition that would go on display at the museum.

“We’re really looking at the quality of the work. It’s not going to be an easy process,” he said.

Presneill is also looking forward to discovering new artists through this exhibition.

“Because people can submit themselves or people they admire, it really goes beyond the curators previous knowledge. So we can get introduced to stuff that we might not know of,” he said.

To be considered, people can submit one image of their own work or that of an artist they admire with the artist’s name, the work’s title, date, size, materials and a short paragraph addressing the work’s content and why they think it’s significant and then emailing it to TAMchoicecot@gmail.com.

For more information and to see the art, visit torranceartmuseum.com.

Galleries go dark; art stays lit

by BONDO WYSZPOLSKI|MARCH 18, 2020

https://easyreadernews.com/galleries-go-dark-art-stays-lit/

Finding light in dark times

Local art galleries: postponements, and viable alternatives to showing their art

Almost all local galleries are closed or closing temporarily, but what do the gallery owners have in mind during the meantime? Receptions have been cancelled, and some exhibitions that have been scheduled may never open. We’ve been in contact with several owners and curators and would like to share their thoughts. We’d also like to share some artwork that you may not be able to see in person right now but, let’s hope, you’ll be able to see at a later date.

(edit)

TAM – Torrance Art Museum

Exhibitions at the Torrance Art Museum have been curated by Max Presneill for the last decade, but at the moment, as he emphasizes, it’s all just wait-and-see:

“At this time decisions regarding the City’s responses to the coronavirus are being disseminated throughout the various departments. With this ongoing and quickly changing scenario I cannot tell you what our program will look like for the next few months with any certainty. I do know that all decisions will be based on what are the best and healthiest responses for the public and City of Torrance staff.”

TAM’s last show, “Death Cult,” opened in January and was scheduled to close last Saturday. Meanwhile, Presneill, who is himself an established artist, is busily at work in his studio.

Local art: Death Cult! Intergalactic! Industry of Meaning!

https://easyreadernews.com/local-art-death-cult-intergalactic-industry-of-meaning/

On the street, on the waves, or lost in space

“Death Rider,” by Liz Craft, in the foreground, and “Denimz Rogue, Porirua, MMIX,” by Jono Rotman, in the distance. Photo by Bondo Wyszpolski

Local art shows: “Death Cult,” “Intergalactic,” and “Industry of Meaning”

by Bondo Wyszpolski

Not to start off on a dour note, but it’s been said that there are two kinds of motorcyclists, those who’ve gone down and those who will. In short, being on a motorcycle gives one a sense of freedom and even ecstasy that’s hard to imagine if you’ve always been confined to a standard, four-wheeled vehicle. However…

The downside of all that freedom, grace, and ecstasy can be what happens when the SUV up ahead doesn’t see you and makes a sudden lane change. “Death Cult,” which opened last weekend at the Torrance Art Museum, seems to acknowledge this. Not the SUV, but the ever-present risk. The exhibition, nicely installed and curated by Max Presneill and Sue-Na Gay, states its “particular focus on the motorcycle world lifestyle” and duly notes that “its participants have one of the largest mortality rates among these sub-cultures.”

If there’s a particular motif that accompanies the images of bikes and their riders, it’s that of the skull. You’ll see a lot of cool skull imagery in “Death Cult,” and this is all first-rate art as well.

Ronald Price and his work on view in “Death Cult.” Photo by Bondo Wyszpolski

Adjacent, Adjacent at Torrance Art Museum

https://artandcakela.com/2019/12/21/adjacent-adjacent-at-torrance-art-museum/

Adjacent, Adjacent: Multi-Curated Innovation
Torrance Art Museum

Hagop Najarian. Adjacent, Adjacent. Torrance Art Museum. Photo Credit Genie Davis

by Genie Davis
Adjacent, Adjacent, at the Torrance Art Museum through December 21st, is a vibrant, lively, exciting communication between works that serve as the culmination of TAM’s Forum 2019. The Forum itself is a participatory ten-month collaborative residency made up of 14 artists.

Non-thematic, and curated by collaborative residency participants, Henderson Blumer, Kim Marra, Hagop Najarian, Larissa Nickel, and Surge Witron, the exhibit is electrically exciting in and of itself.

Each of the artists has something fresh and engaging to impart; the curators have managed to coalesce this diverse group of images into a stellar show that engages the eye and the mind.

Exhibiting artists include Amoral Poem (Devion Law & Joshua Ross), Christina Shurts, Dakota Noot, H. Leslie Foster II, Hagop Najarian, Henderson Blumer, Jen Vanegas Rocha, Joshua Vasquez, Kim Garcia, Kim Marra, Larissa Nickel, Molly Schulman, Surge Witrön, Sharon Levy.

For the viewer, the exhibition feels as if it were “adjacent” to something only just barely imagined, an intersection of fantasy and reality. Highly contemporary in style, the range of mediums and color palettes works well together, highlighting adjacency in another way: each work is different than, but adjacent to, the next. The underlying message seems deceptively simple: step inside the museum and explore.

Especially striking, Molly Schulman’s “Cursed,” are motorized, battery-operated plastic hands that were spinning around the gallery floor during the opening. The movements themselves were eye-catching, of course, but the hands, which resemble bold Mickey Mouse-style white gloves were simply terrific, both due to their motion and their amusing yet somehow ominous finger pointing and gestures.

Sharon Levy’s glowing “Smog, Sunset” which evoked a familiar view down La Brea Ave., was created with acrylic paint, muslin, wood, and LED lights. It was like a living, breathing piece of cinema conjoined with painterly art; the color of the piece transitioned depending on how near or far the viewer was to it.

Hagop Najarian’s figurative oil on canvas “Factory Najar 1969-2019” is both memory piece and dream; the artist has indicated that his work is a response to various musical genres, and there is within the work a sense of rhythm and light, images that even actually recall the patterns of musical notes.

Dakota Noot’s wonderfully dark, whimsical, and enchanted acrylic painting is a dazzling creature with a bright palette rich with pinks, blues, and golds. With five human hands and three human legs, two of which make up the horned beast’s antlers, the work is one-hundred-percent magical.

Likewise vivid, Surge Witron’s “Flaming Hot Cheetos” is a dazzling mix of spray paint, graphite, and Yupo paper; Kim Marra’s vibrant geometric oil paintings play off Witron’s more chaotic approach.

Kim Garcia’s large scale “all things inside” is a strange fruit or fraught anchor of Forton, acrylic paint, polyurethane foam, and rope.

Larissa Nickel’s mesmerizing “En Passant” uses a reflective chrome mirror to interact with the museum space and its visitors, at least “in passing,” as its name – and reference to a specialized chess move – suggests. The artist’s other works in the exhibit, based around a collection of lace doilies, is a fascinating use of textiles and sculptural forms.

The Forum itself that birthed this show is an annual mentorship program, which TAM director and head curator Max Presneill describes as “looking for people with enough experience to understand the goals of the program and how to take advantage of them and what the expectations are, but with not so much experience that we aren’t offering anything.” The group, once selected, meets once a month at the museum, where they talk with different art professionals including critics, curators, and gallerists.

“Forum members can ask any questions they want and spend time in the meetings, and form the basis of relationships within the group. There are expectations that people take on roles in the group.” Presneill notes that each applicant applied as a writer or curator or an artist. “We encourage them to be all of those things, so they can get experience doing them. During the program, they all develop their own show, working as curators, writing essays, organizing the logical elements such as collecting and delivering work, getting information to the museum to print exhibit labels, and getting images on the website for the museum. It’s all encompassing,” he notes.

The exhibition runs for several weeks, and while it is important – and a terrific experience for gallery attendees – Presneill explains that the true value of the mentorship program “is not in the exhibition, but in the relationships that the group forms, that kind of supportive sense of community they can move forward with in the future, help each other out, offer moral support and a knowledge base, particularly as their careers develop.”

TAM is also “highly encouraging” of the cohort developing a collaborative alternative artists group so they can function together in terms of exchanges, acting as a cohesive group going forward. A number of those exhibiting in this show will continue their working relationships through an art collective titled Museum Adjacent.

“There really is power in that type of group, particularly when you work together to get new opportunities,” Presneill attests.

The deadline to apply for each Forum program is January; interviews take place in February, and the courses start in March. Besides putting the mentorship together, Presneill notes that “the only part we play in the actual exhibition is the installation, working with the group in hanging the show. We have no say in the selected works, and the curation is all down to the group themselves. They deserve all the credit for what is in front of the public.”

In terms of Adjacent, Adjacent, much credit is due, indeed.

ART/EVENT PICK: “WAR, ART, AND VISUAL CULTURE” SYMPOSIUM AT TORRANCE ART MUSEUM

https://www.laweekly.com/art-event-pick-war-art-and-visual-culture-symposium-at-torrance-art-museum/

War is not healthy for children and other living things, the classic sign says, and we don’t need more evidence to prove it. But considering that an entire generation has come of age, with another close behind, in a world in which America has never not been at war, it does seem worth investigating the mechanisms by which this is communicated, internalized, and expressed in our culture.

In conjunction with the ongoing exhibition GENERATION W(ar), the Torrance Art Museum hosts War, Art and Visual Culture, a free, one-day symposium addressing today’s images of war, terror, and political violence. Shaun Gladwell, VR and video artist, and a former Australian Official War Artist, will be a keynote speaker, as will international expert on war and art, Dr. Laura Brandon, now retired from the Canadian War Museum. Other panels will include addresses from TAM director Max Presneill, who also co-curated the museum exhibition with Ichiro Irie, and GENERATION W(ar) artist Allison Stewart.

The crossover between depictions of war and the creation of art is not commonly apparent. Often art addressing war is overtly political or even activist in nature, it is not typically nuanced, semiotic, ambivalent, aestheticized, humorous, or subtle. But with this thoughtfully curated exhibition, the artists each in their way manage to occupy more liminal, symbolic, and even witty territory in their conceptual campaigns. The idea after all was to not make art about war, but rather, to use art as a way to figure out the cultural effects of unrelenting wartime visual culture on young minds.

Exhibition highlights include Stewart’s prepper-chic “Bug Out Bags” and erased confederate statuary to Vanessa Beecroft’s fashion-plate military sex appeal send-up, Josh Azzarella’s counterfactual 9-11 in which the plane misses its target, Ben Jackel’s medieval Brutalist fortress sculpture, Joaquin Segura’s redacted tapestries, Kim Rugg’s reconstituted newspaper headline collage, and many other rich emotional, material and intellectual responses.

Torrance Art Museum, 3320 Civic Center Dr., Torrance; torranceartmuseum.com; Saturday, August 17, 10am-5:30pm; Exhibition continues through August 24; free.

artinconflict.com/symposium-la

GENERATION W(ar) artists are: Shusuke Ao, Josh Azzarella, Vanessa Beecroft, Harun Farocki, Melanie Friend, Shaun Gladwell, Ben Jackel, Jerome Lagarrigue, Dinh Q. Lê, Hillary Mushkin, Simon Norfolk, Kim Rugg, Joaquín Segura, Allison Stewart,  Dan Van Clapp, and Yoram Wolberger.