Los Angeles Art Association, 16. Januar 2010

Curators Statement
Merriam Webster’s 2009 Dictionary defines intervention as “to interfere with the outcome or course especially of a condition or process”, a description seemingly in contrast with the goals of successful collaboration. However, an important role of artists is to confound descriptions, and to make or dismiss meaning in service of a larger aesthetic outcome or product. As a title of a contemporary art effort, the phrase urban intervention suggests a need for interference in the urban context. As an international collaboration between LAAA and Germany’s Artlab 21, Urban Interventions functions as an opportunity for artists to expand the expectations for cross-cultural discourse while exploring the ever-changing definitions of a formal exhibition experience. Consistent with Los Angeles Art Association’s (LAAA) mission to provide opportunities, resources and services for emerging artists of all media, Urban Interventions is an expansion of LAAA’s commitment to respond to the needs of non-traditional emerging artists inadequately served by the present system of gallery protocols and art world ‘politics’.
The project began during conversations with German artist Bernhard Zuenkeler about the growing body of evidence that suggests that, not only are artists not relying on the gallery construct for the display or understanding of their work, but they are willfully rejecting what Zuenkeler calls the “white cube” of gallery presentation in order to meet the full demands of singular aesthetic visions. As Zuenkeler and I reflected on the shared missions of LAAA and
Artlab 21, we understood that any collaboration between our agencies would have to accommodate the desire of artists to respond to the formal presentation of the gallery model and also to allow artists to create a civic component of their work throughout greater Los Angeles. For the effort, Zuenkeler is joined by fellow German artists Amely Spoetzl and
Bernd Zoellner as well as LA artists Rebecca Lowry and Flora Kao for an exhibition at Gallery 825 which features a compliment of work by each artist, and a teaser of the work that was created for the urban landscape. The curious art lover can seek out the urban installations on view in parks and streets throughout Los Angeles and West Hollywood. The delight of the resulting endeavor is the revealing alignments and contrasts that each artist contributed to the project. Zoellner’s movie still like photographs of “just-a-moment” and Spoetzl’s playful flower dispensers convey an uncommon lyricism for participatory art making that easily dovetails with Lowry’s dialog on the meaning of landscape and the rules that govern landscape. Kao’s ephemeral time-based documentation of urban light and beauty create the perfect foil for
Zuenkeler’s search for the ugliest locale in Los Angeles and his hometown Bochum in Germany. The timeliness and implementation of such a project based in Los Angeles underscores a greater need for artistic intervention…or as a colleague adroitly questioned,
“what city needs intervention more?”

Peter Mays
Executive Director, Los Angeles Art Association