Star Left

January 29, 2005
Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE)
installations, performances and contradanceœ  


"The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned;"
--W.B. Yeats


the ceremonial stage

Dark Mass,Contradance with the Old Jitters, dark music by D'argento.Swedish folk-punk by Bambatanterna Installations by Ryan Griffis and Karen Lofgren.


All text below from the event's publicity:

The Journal of Aesthetics & Protest presents: star left
-exhibition all day
-announciation performance led by Journal editors 7:30
-contradance with Old Jitters 8:00
-D'argento 10:00
-Old School Swedish Punk 10:30

Brothers and sisters-let's get tanked. We are a black mass touring parking lots, sifting through plaid sand, reading red states ravaged, moving against thistle, glistening gold missiles, and the sweet anarchy unleashed by an old time string band.

Saturday, January 29, the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest will transform Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions into an 11-hour happening.


Thoughit appears that we were having fun, this event was horrible... it was a dirge. Bush had been reelected.


The Journal and artists Karen Lofgren, Maria Karlsson, Karin Johansson, Toast, and the Temporary Travel Office will present and perform site- and context-specific works that mine the relationships between physical bodies, space and resistance. Karen Lofgren¹s installation Thistle is a plaid sand mandala that visitors must walk through to enter the space.

Lofgren¹s recent work My Army, a kinetic sculpture will patrol the center gallery, moving visitors to the periphery of that space where they peruse the contents of The Red States Journals, a collection of personal accounts of people living in "red states" Alaska, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Georgia, Missouri, etc

Stop off at the Temporary Travel Office to listen to phone messages in which LA tourists and locals describe in detail their ideal, utopian destination, and tour adjacent parking, accompanied by audio CDs and a map of the street and lot parking within the block. Finally, Toast¹s experimental film Sticks Part III flickers in the darkness of a Black Mass in the rear gallery.

Throughout the day, Bambatanterna conducts "Staten & Katitalet". Bambatanterna is Maria Karlsson and Karin Johansson.

Annunciation at 7:30. Congregational
Beginning at 8pm, LACE will become the site for a contradance set to the music of Old Jitters. Old Jitters is: Christof Certik on Banjo, Benjamin Guzman on Mandolin, Barbara Hansen on Fiddle, Kelly Marie Martin on Bass and Walter Spencer on Guitar, Ginger Alberti is caller.
Dirge At 9.30 D'Argento: inspired by the bloodbaths of Dario Argento's movies and the soul power of D'Angelo, D'Argento lovingly reproduces the cool modern sounds of the hip crowd and then rips 'em apart, with horrible results. Their point of departure in planning this performance is Lee Scratch Perry's dub version of "London Bridge is Falling Down".

A $7 donation requested after 7:30pm. paid parking is available behind LACE (accessible from Wilcox) metered street parking