Phones, Rigs and Tinkerers Explored in Westside Exhibits

“Tell me something good” at the Santa Monica Museum of Art (SMOMA) is a collaboration between Kim Schenstadt and Rita Mcbride that takes its inspiration from an event at the Museum of contemporary art in Chicago in 1969 “Phoning it in.” The exhibitions both address conceptual art, where the artists value process over product, experience over possession. They are more concerned with time and place than with space and form. And they are fascinated with the object quality of words and the literary connection of images. They reject illusion, subjectivity, formalist treatment and hierarchical values in "art."

This new exhibition is an intimate collaboration between the artists' visions.

SMOMA Santa Monica Museum of Art
2525 Michigan Ave
Santa Monica CA 90404
310.499.9227

The Center for Land Use Interpretations (CLUI) -- a nonprofit organization dedicated to the diffusion of knowledge about how the nation’s lands are apportioned, utilized and perceived -- is currently exhibiting URBAN CRUDE: The Oil Fields of the Los Angeles Basin.

The fabric of Los Angeles a continues cloth of development, draped on the surface of the land, is shallow, but the roots, thousands of meandering straws of oil dig deep into the soil. Like tree roots, these veins extract the living essence out of the ground fueling the city of the car. Like historical roots, these are the pools where the economy of Los Angeles originated, driving the development and the culture of the city. Today it continues. Los Angeles is the most urban oil field, where the industry operates in cracks, corners and edges, hidden behind fences, camouflaged into architecture, pulling the oil from under our feet.

The Center for Land Use Interpretations
Begins Oct 30 –Jan 25
9331 Venice Blvd
Culver City CA 90232
310.839.5722
Open 12-5 PM Friday sat and Sunday
Or by appointment, admission free.

Sean Duffy “Can’t Stop It” at Susanne Vietmetter gallery exlores the relationship between original and copy. Sprung from distinctly do-it-yourself, garage tinkerer aesthetics connects with a history ranging from Kienholtz to Warhol, from assemblage to seriality. The formal framework for the exhibition is the tension between sculpture and painting.

Shaman Drums, Carless Experiences and Obsessive Details

The art and sounds of a distant nomadic tribe, photos and documents of those who live in Los Angeles without a car and minutely detailed images of nature are showcased in a series of exhibits this month.

JEFFREY VALLANCE: "Lapland Shaman Drum"

Vallance's second exhibition at Margo Levin Gallery shwcases his continuing strange forays into often obscure parts of world cultures. Vallance's new project evolves around his time spent with the nomadic Lapp people. Central to the Lapp people's religious practices are the Shaman, or Noid and his mystical drum, which bears painted pictographs and helps him in prophesying.

Vallance created his own drum, inserting his own symbols combined with Lapp mythology and his own artistic anthropological study.

Margo Levin Gallery
812 North Robertson Blvd
Los Angeles Ca
Hours Tue-Sat 11-5 PM
Oct.10 -Nov 14 2009
On Oct 24th 4 p.m. Vallance will perform at a special event

DIANE MEYER and Angelenos Without a Car

18th Street presents its final exhibition of 2009 entitled Without A Car In The World (100 Car-less Angelenos Tell Stories of Living in Los Angeles). This exhibition features 100 photographs by artist Diane Meyer with accompanying narratives from persons who live without a car in Los Angeles. Meyer’s exhibit was inspired by her recent decision to give up her car and navigate through the city using a combination of walking, biking and public transportation.

18th street Arts Center
1639 18th street
Santa Monica CA 90403
Oct. 17- Dec 11, 2009

ROBIN MITCHELL

Santa Monica artist Robin Mitchell's second show at Craig Krull Gallery promises obsessive details and richly colorful layered marks that suggests plant forms or other microscopic shapes laid out in symmetrical patterns. Her paintings, while highly introspective, demonstrate the spiritual association between the natural world and human nature.