Alien Race - Envisioning sites of our our future ancestors
Curated by Labkhand Olfatmanesh
October 15th–November 13th, 2022
Opening Reception Saturday October 21st, 2022 from 12-5 pm
Taking place in LA Artcore’s two gallery spaces:
LA Artcore at Union Center for the Arts,
Little Tokyo 120 Judge John Aiso St., Ste. A, Los Angeles, CA 90012
LA Artcore Brewery Annex
at the Brewery Arts Complex in Lincoln Heights
650 South Ave. 21, Los Angeles, CA 90031
Gallery hours - Thursday-Sunday 12-6 pm (in both locations)
Exhibiting artists:
Dove Ayinde, Katayoun Bahrami, Zeina Baltagi, William Camargo, Community Quilting Bee, Shaghayegh Cyrous, Leslie Foster, Vanessa Holyoak, Coffee Kang, Alberto Lule, Yuchi Ma, Felli Maynard, Thinh Nguyen, Luciano Pimienta, Cindy Rehm, Michael Rippens, Jaklin Romine, Jeong (Llyn Stransky), Cedric Tai, Diane Williams
LA Artcore is pleased to present Alien Race - Envisioning sites of our our future ancestors, an exhibit that highlights underrepresented narratives surrounding access and belonging in relation to dominant systems within globalized contemporary culture through video, installation, sculptures, mixed media, photography, performance, ceramics, and textiles.
Through its 21 artists, Alien Race proliferates the uniquely interconnected positions and circumstances of its artists as they mediate realities shaped outside of images of a hegemonic American ideal and transform rigid definitions of a normative American identity. Presented throughout each of its gallery spaces, Alien Race traces lost time as a result of exclusionary systems through strategies of protest, collective care, and renewal.
LA Artcore is a non-profit art space dedicated to the creative exploration, discovery, and expression of the global residents of LA while supporting the careers of emerging and established contemporary artists. Since 1979, LA Artcore reflects the diverse global perspectives of Los Angeles by engaging contemporary artists as the visual and performing conduits of and for the residents and communities in which they live, work and serve.
JOINT STATEMENT TOGETHER WITH ALIEN RACE EXHIBITING ARTIST: JAKLIN ROMINE
We have gotten to know the life and work of Jaklin Romine through engaging the artist’s story and artwork within this exhibit. ACCESS DENIED, a work of performance and video by Romine that would otherwise be turned on for this exhibit, has been left intentionally turned off, though its facilitating architecture still remains: A 38 x 52” monitor, and its folded slab of packing foam base.
ACCESS DENIED follows the artist to various art spaces in Los Angeles. Stationed in the middle of the frame with her back turned to us, we see Romine still, but gazing forward as she confronts a flight of stairs as the only access way to enter each space she encounters. The starkness between the artist facing a backdrop of a stairway (or stairwell) is heightened as people move in, out and around her and the tensions become unequivocal. Through this, the stillness is held by Romine, who brings viewers into the range of what can felt. This piece is vulnerable in its confrontation.
In learning about Romine’s life and work, we invited Romine to take part in this exhibit on view here in Little Tokyo. The exhibit also extends to our Brewery Arts Complex space. Having only one space which is accessible to wheelchairs and not the other for the artist to access is regrettable due to a lack of planning and a failure of consideration to the reality of the artist’s life and work.
Our assistive lift, installed at the Brewery on October 15th of this year ultimately was chosen from an able-bodied perspective, and without consultation to the artist or from another dependable source. The Brewery space’s inaccessibility was not announced before or upon inviting the artist to exhibit.
The artist came to find out about the Brewery space being inaccessible during the exhibit, by arriving in the same way that occurs in ACCESS DENIED. In this moment, life and art collided. To lack the foresight and consideration to have not incorporated accessibility successfully into our mission is what caused harm.
Through this experience, we are made to see our own role in inaccessible spaces. It has compelled our organization to take steps toward complete accessibility. We encourage you to reach out regarding our progress to make the Brewery accessible. We apologize to the wheelchair users everywhere and promise to do much better to bridge the gaps of inaccessibility and our role within our ableist culture.
This statement was a generative collaboration, and a generous gesture by the artist, to allow her work to stay in the exhibit, although modified to be turned off, and with the incorporation of this statement. Together, this is an exercise in mutual solidarity toward accessibility and a more accessible future.