The Sad Song of Columbine is from Antin’s series titled “Roman Allegories.” In the visual arts, an allegory is typically an image that, through the viewer’s interpretation of symbols, reveals hidden meaning. The images in this series depict the decadence of Rome in its decline set against the backdrop of the modern world, specifically Southern California. In comparison to many of the other images in this series, Eleanor describes this more poetic work as “a sad song instead a direct punch.” It defies a direct narrative, encouraging viewers to tease out their own interpretations. Eleanor Antin works in photography, video, film, installation, drawing, performance, and writing. Her many one-woman exhibitions include the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum and a major retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The “Us & Them” project by Wayne Martin Belger is a museum-based Camera and Photo Installation that focuses on the fictitious “us” and “them” that governments and the “powerful” create and use as a tool to dehumanize, divide, dominate and at times exterminate a select group of humans.

The first photoshoots for the “Us & Them” project took place in November 2015 on the Greek Island of Lesbos in the Kara Tepe Syrian Refugee Camp. After that, the camera project traveled to the Palestinian Territories to meet, connect with, and photograph Palestinian families living in the West Bank. Then, it spent two months in Standing Rock North Dakota with the Sioux Water Protectors as they protested a pipeline going through their ancestral lands. Belger recently visited all five of the Zapatista compounds deep in the jungles of Chiapas Mexico as they face a country-altering election.

For the last four years Wayne Martin Belger with the “Us & Them” camera has traveled the world to connect with like humans “Us”, forced into inhumane situations. And he will continue traveling to places with injustice, war and persecution to bring awareness to the myth of Us and Them.

Adam Belt’s work is quiet, meditative and rich with metaphor, connecting to the spiritual world through modern technologies. According to the artist, “My artistic practice is a religious vocation resulting in works and projects that are a contemplation of physical and phenomenological aspects of our world, the cosmos, God, and religion.” Adam lives in Carlsbad and his work has been exhibited at a variety of museums and galleries both nationally and internationally including the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville AR, Quint Gallery, La Jolla, CA, Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York, NY, RCM Galerie, Paris, France and Wonderspaces.

The bust of Mary is made from cast Carrara marble, molded directly from Michelangelo Buonarroti’s original sculpture of the “Pietà” (c. 1498-99), housed at the Basilica of St. Peter, in Vatican City. The “Pietà” is an icon in it’s own right, both as a religious symbol and as standard of beauty and artistic genius. The work seen in this exhibition is cast from the original, in homage to the great sculpture and as such, is an extension of the Romantic idea that the sculpture is directly connected to the hand of the artist, the singularity of artistic genius captured or preserved within the sculpture.

Bacchus is cast from a slightly earlier work by Michelangelo (c. 1496–1497), based on Roman antiquities and perhaps his earliest surviving sculpture. The Roman God of wine, fertility and agriculture was a patron of the working class who shared his knowledge of the vine with humanity. While this god has his own rites and rituals as a mystery cult of Greek origin, to many contemporary viewers, this pairing with the bust of Mary is a juxtaposition of the sacred and profane.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was born in 1475 in Caprese, Republic of Florence, Italy and died in Rome in 1564. As a painter, sculptor and architect, he is generally considered one of the greatest creative forces in the history of Western art. His love of ancient Roman statuary led to his mastery of marble sculpture and his detailed studies of the human figure reflect a scientific approach to nature. Among his best known works are Vatican City’s Sistine Chapel ceiling, his monumental “David” at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence and “Moses” at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. His sculpture of Bacchus, located in Florence’s Museo Nazionale del Bargello and the “Pietà” in St. Peter’s Basilica, are among his oldest and most beloved Roman sculptures, both of which are represented in this exhibition.

The work’s title is a word play on Dandy del Sur - a bar in Tijuana that artists would frequent. Based on the large Toltec sentries from Tula, Mexico, this sentry explores the complexities of the ‘mestizaje or mestizo’ (a person of mixed racial or ethnic ancestry).

Brothers Einar and Jamex de la Torre were born in Guadalajara, Mexico, (1963, 1960), and moved to California in 1972. Currently, the brothers live and work on both sides of the border: The Guadalupe Valley in Baja California and San Diego. The complexities of the emigrational experience, with its ensuing biculturalism, as well as their life on both sides of border are rich sources of inspiration which heavily inform their work. The brothers have been collaborating in earnest since the mid-nineties. Taking a multifaceted view of modern life, their work reflects a complex and humorous aesthetic. Their mixed media, blown-glass and installation work freely mix disparate themes such as Catholicism, pop culture, and first world problems, incorporating contemporary iconography often from an ironic point of view.

In 2010, the Mayan calendar was often being talked about in terms of its 2012 expiration date. Always an entertaining subject, end-of-the-world theories tend to make us analyze our own existence. In this work, the Mayan gods play Nintendo while adorned by contemporary material culture. The sacrificial heart of glass on top is waking us up to the true cost of our consumption based search for well-being and happiness.

The subjects of the pieces are the Mayan rain god Chaac and Tlaloc of the Aztec pantheon. Under the god/urn is a scene of firefighters putting out a wildfire and emphasizing the universal need of water. Personal and universal narratives are often woven into the work of the De La Torre brothers. The title of this work, Chacamotas, refers to memories of their deceased uncle Chave.

There is a monumental sculpture of Tara on a hillside in Ensenada, Baja, California. This image is based on that sculpture, which has endured years of tagging, defacing and negligence. The artists were struck by the sculpture’s regal stance in spite of the degradation. Just one of many versions of Tara, this piece was created to pay homage to the unparalleled labor mothers endure while holding a full time job.

The Agnostic Angel is a tribute painting dedicated to the artist’s father who died following a stroke that left him unable to speak or move. Douglas states, “I received the call telling me that he had finally died, I felt what can only be described as an epiphany. I don’t know if what I experienced was relief or an out of body experience, but this angel, part reality and part other-worldly, was the result.” Steven Douglas has exhibited both locally and nationally and won many honors and awards. His work is included in many public and private collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, and the Northwestern University Collection.

The image contains a latin translation of how the artist came upon a Lourdes Holy Water bottle at an estate sale for 25 cents. He goes on to tell the story of Lourdes and the holy spring believed to be there. Through his meticulous restoration of the old object, including a new face borrowed from the Madonna of Edvard Munch, Eilenberg brings the bottle back to life but admits its healing powers can’t be restored. Steve Eilenberg (b. 1957) is a radiologist, photographic artist, inventor and welder. His work has been included in numerous museum exhibitions, including at the Museum of Photographic Arts, the Mingei International Museum, The San Diego Natural History Museum, Oceanside Museum of Art, the Scripps Aquarium and the Smithsonian.

A Veve is a representation of a Voodoo spirit, or Loa. In this case, it is a representation of an aspect of Madame Corazon, a member of the Family Ghede. When the artist repeats the symbol, he refers to it as Gunpowder Ikat. Another image in this series, Papa Legba, serves as the intermediary between the Loa and humanity. He stands at the crossroads, where he can be contacted. When one is at a crossroads in their life, for instance. In classical blues he is the man at the crossroads, and often incorrectly demonized by Christianity. He also stands at a spiritual crossroads and gives (or denies) permission to speak with the spirits, and is believed to speak all human languages. The image of Papa Legba is located elsewhere in the SDAI gallery, for viewers to find.

Gunpowder is a material used in traditional Voodoo. This piece is created with the artist’s personal recipe of black powder, smokeless powder and ground sage. This alchemical combination both charges the image and purifies the line. Froschauer refer to his process as Gunpowder Gutenberg. He carves a design into a wood “plate” which he then packs with gunpowder to place on his Gunpowder Printing Press. A canvas is then pressed into the packed plate and the gunpowder is detonated into the canvas to create the sharp lines and trails of smoke that define the image. The visual representation of spiritual beings is a complex subject. The Quran, for instance, forbids visual representation of the Prophet and the second commandment of the Old Testament is against images of the sacred. But Voodoo thrives on abstract representations of spirits as a means of connection to them.

Scott Froschauer lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He received his BA in Linguistic Theory from Syracuse University in 1994. His work has been exhibited in a wide variety of venues nationally and internationally including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, The Burning Man Arts Festival in Nevada, La Monnaie in Paris, France, The City of Glendale, CA, The City of Colorado Springs, CO and The Orange County Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Ana, CA.

Dave Ghilarducci uses his training in electrical engineering to create objects that capitalize on human behavior. By creating mechanized works that emphasize playfulness over functionality or productivity, he encourages viewers to relate more directly with his machines. Once engaged in this dialogue, our symbiotic relationship with all of the machines with which we surround ourselves becomes undeniable. In Change for Salvation, he uses humor to address the concept of investing in our futures, in either the spiritual or corporeal sense.

Cole Goodwin’s work is a response to his upbringing in what he describes as “a severe, literalist, protestant religious sect” of Christianity. He juxtaposes a sense of religious fervor with the usually cool and emotionally detached aesthetic of minimalism. According to Goodwin, “Austin 3:16 references the professional wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin who mentioned the phrase Austin 3:16 in a promo he cut after a victory over Jake “the Snake” Roberts whose character was a born again Christian. Cole is currently an MFA Candidate at University of California San Diego.

With the “Imposter” series, Ichiro Irie appropriates images and symbols from popular culture to create impasto-like wall pieces using the stationary material, poster putty, on wood panel. With the three works on display, The Church, Santa Lirio and The Alchemist, he lifts symbols that appear respectively in 3 feature films by cult director, Alejandro Jodrowsky. The all-seeing eye from “El Topo”, the numerological symbol from “Holy Mountain”, and the crossed-arms symbol from “Santa Sangre” respectively allude to either real or fictitious religions and secret societies. Born in Tokyo and raised in Los Angeles, Ichiro Irie is a visual artist, curator, director of the artist-run-space JAUS in Los Angeles, and founding member of the curatorial collective QiPO.

This installation is comprised of book rests traditionally used to support the Quran when they are read. Looking at the installation from above, the placement of these book rests spells out the word “OKU,” which means to “read.” Oku is the first word in the Quran. It is the artist’s contention that in many areas of the world, including her home country of Turkey, the words of the Quran are no longer being truly read. Instead they are reinterpreted to exercise political control.

Beliz Iristay is a Turkish-American mixed media artist, born in Izmir, Turkey, who now teaches ceramics in her studio TURKMEX in Guadalupe Valley in Ensenada-Mexico and lives as a “border artist” commuting between in Baja California, Mexico and San Diego with her family.

This work displays the Hebrew Bible and New Testament each blended into pulp and canned under pressure. Levine explores the concept that both texts freely use metaphors and parables to impart wisdom. Since they are both open to widely varying interpretations, readers see what they want to see in the sacred texts. Paula Levine is a media artist with deep roots in experimental narrative and the histories and dynamics of place. She works across media and technologies and was an early proponent of, and experimenter with GPS in art.

The Old Testament was soaked in hot water to liquify the glue that holds the book binding together. The book is drained and sculpted page by page, sealing the text within the body of the book and creating white space in its place. The book is then dried, allowing glue to set the pages in place, rendering the text invisible.

These are sculptures that are blown and cast to incorporate cremains as an integral part of their composition. Some have been commissioned and are displayed as unique works of art whereas others may be exhibited as part of owners’ contemporary art collections during their lifetime. Munroe believes that every life is a unique work of art and her Eturns reflect those lives.

The large Sterling Eturn was commissioned by his executors to commemorate a silver “specialist” at a major New York auction house. The copper Eturn holds the remains of a beloved family pet. The small silver Eturn preserves a tooth and a velvet memento from the artist, Elizabeth Franzheim, rung by a crystal halo made from her cremains.

Maria Munroe is a sculptor who has been specializing in funereal art since she founded the Eturn Society in 1989. Utilizing the marriage of fine arts and funerary vessels that date back to ancient times, the Eturn Society is comprised of artists and artisans who fabricate her designs in virtually every enduring material: wood, glass, bronze, plaster, steel and precious metals.

Having been raised in an environment of religious fundamentalism and a family of medical professionals, Cheryl Nickel has long contemplated the contrasts, conflicts and convergences of science and spirituality. Ways to Go addresses the various ways in which we approach or confront death, by creating vehicles to assist us on our ultimate journeys. According to the artist, “Many assume that the fear of death is the basis of the birth of religion. In the US, death has become so medicalized that it is often viewed as a failure rather than an expected stage of life. This view of death frequently results in people dying in institutions, cut off from loved ones and familiar surroundings. In many societies outside the United States there is a far greater acceptance of and preparation for death.”

Cheryl Nickel has a Master’s Degree in landscape architecture (art/archeology minor) from Cornell University. She has exhibited installation and sculptural work in various media including public site and landscape work.

In his new media series, void Sigil( ) , Noyce forged a relationship between magical artifacts of antiquity and the coding language used to write apps and web technology. The title refers to common syntax used in programming (void) and the symbolic representation of a witches’ desired outcome (sigil). Subjects in his paintings are rendered by a computer using code that is written like a digital spell book, leaving an iterative artifact from that program. Repetition of language and image further reinforce the paintings’ magical properties, which is central to the process of casting a spell. Born and raised in Salt Lake City, UT, Noyce’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the United States and Europe.

BREAKING DOWN GLASS CEILINGS

Q-vo! In 1943 U.S. sailors and servicemen roamed the barrios of East Los Angeles. They were not there for the culture and nightlife. They were there to dispose of an enemy. They were there for reprisal after a group of sailors declared they were attacked. The enemy could not be the Japanese; they were serving time in “relocation centers” throughout unknown deserts, unknown to themselves and their families. There was an additional enemy to fill the racial paranoid void lurking in the minds of Southern California’s hysteria. This enemy did not tiptoe after hours and attempt to conceal their identities. They thumped and tapped their Stacy Adam’s as they Pachuco Hopped throughout the nightclubs of East Los, allowing them to be quite visible in their intentions to not conform to American standards. This put them in a space of contention with over two hundred sailors mobilized to confront them, which resulted in the Zoot Suit Riots.

By not succumbing to American assimilation those Mexican-Americans ended up paying a heavy price for their defiance. Retribution, usually carried out by death, took the form of humiliation as well as dehumanization. One by one the pachucos were disconnected from reality and transported back in time to a sacrificial re-enactment for the Amerindian deity Xipe Totec. Absolutely not in the manner of being bludgeoned to death in the ritualistic fashion of drinking the blood of one’s first kill. On the contrary, pachuco’s skin became the prop for Xipe Totec’s ceremonial use of skin, placing it over one’s own body to signify renovation through death to insure the continuation of life. The pachucos were stripped and flayed of their visible markers, sus trapos, their zoot suits, their second skin, and left naked, jailed, and humiliated. All the while the press hailed the servicemen as heroes for stemming the spreading of corruption and contamination to others by pachucos.

Carrying this weight of historical fragility over my shoulders, my arms, my head, and my shoes, Pachuco à la Vidrio entered another space known for contention towards artists of color, “The White Cube.” It serves as an artifact, depicting the glass encrusted “skin” out of action from my 1999 intervention that disrupted the exhibition walls and minds of art patrons at the Escondido Center for the Arts; a museum event reflecting a mostly homogenized demographic. The exhibition on display at the time was of blown glass works by Dale Chihuly. It was an aesthetically charged– visceral spectacle, a perfect calling card for a captive audience.

Just as the pachuco’s clothes of the ’40’s made meaning with their bodies, hateful and desirable, my suit acted in the same manner. The friction of glass resonated this audible vibrancy of crashing glass throughout the entire institution. The noise startled, disrupted, and yet enchanted the audience. Staff members, docents, and gallery attendees alike were shocked, alerting the security guards into action. But I had total agency. Protected by La Guadalupana on my back, I strategically entered through the service entrance as an employee of the institution. I knew the space and they knew my face. I painted those white walls and installed those very works of glass on the pedestals with my own hands. But my appearance were no longer that of a laborer. I literally transformed and metaphorically jumped off a pedestal as a walking art piece subverting the institution. Thus forcing the museum to become my personal art space.

As I continued to roam the halls of the museum no one dared to strip me of my actions and glass suits. They physically could not without causing direct harm to themselves for handling raw shards of glass. This was the new improved tacuche, zoot suit. I voluntarily chose to shed my own skin and placed it unto others, not empowering them but myself. Audience members and patrons were allowed to wear my trapo, my coat, and tando, my brimmed hat. They animated themselves through fear and excitement by being encrusted in a glass zoot suit and becoming part of a pachuco aesthetic. The empowerment took place briefly right afterwards when the audience member wanted to return to normalcy, through fear of getting cut they could not remove the garras, the suit, by themselves. I took on the position of Xipe Totec and flayed this added second skin. Orale!

Written by Ruben Ochoa 1999/2018
Edited by Cam La

Born in Oceanside, CA, in 1974, Ruben Ochoa’s practice engages space as both a concept and a material. Often produced with material forms associated with construction, Ochoa’s works expose the ideological and broader sociopolitical and economic relationships that facilitate the way spaces we inhabit and move through are assembled. His work is included in the collections of the Hammer Museum, LACMA, MOCA, the Smithsonian Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art among others. Ruben Ochoa lives and works in Los Angeles , Ca and is represented by Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects.

In her own words, Erika Rothenberg has “always been fascinated by the directories on the façades of religious institutions.“ These signs often list a variety of self-help groups, available to parishioners, to address the panoply of physical and psychological problems faced in the modern world. Her own brand of self-help has been to engage in social commentary, to address the issues of the day such as poverty and racism, addiction, mental and physical abuse, and a score of other injustices.

Erika Rothenberg was born in New York City and attended the University of Chicago until she was kicked out for participating in a student protest. Before becoming a full-time artist, she was the first woman art director at McCann-Erickson advertising agency in New York, working on Coca-Cola, the New York Times, and other clients. Museum collections include Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the Art Institute of Chicago among others.

Schomaker’s new body of work is about: confrontation, weight, shape, excess, history, voyeurism, objectification, control, confinement, containment, self-esteem, confidence, bravery, revealing and concealing, and authenticity.

The artists calls is “a hyper-personal exploration of being overweight. It is about taking control of my body in a time where #metoo is about our bodies being controlled by someone else.”

Kristine Schomaker is a Los Angeles based multidisciplinary artist and art historian. She received her BA in Art History and a MA in Studio Art from California State University Northridge. In addition to being a practicing artist Schomaker is an independent curator, the founder of Shoebox PR, oversees and curates a residency space called Shoebox Projects at the Brewery in Los Angeles and she is the publisher of the online contemporary art magazine Art and Cake.