This Sunday May 22 at the Beacon Arts Building (808 N. La Brea Avenue Inglewood, California 90302) from 1 -4 PM, there will be pancakes!
Plus sausage and bacon, coffee. Courtesy IHOP. This is not a Put-On!
Plus at some point an ARATALAND! panel discussion with me, Arata, Pagel, Mat Gleason, Carol Cheh,and Shana Nys Dambrot (if she can hobble down)... and YOU! I think it's set for 3 - that's what it said on the invite - but there's been talk of moving it up so people can still get to the COLA show after. Check back here or on facebook.
UPDATE: Looks like we'll start at 2, but keep yakking for the stragglers, for as long as any of us can stand it. OK, my top ten Pere Ubu songs...
Don't miss this last chance to see this historic show! Here's what the critics have been saying:
Rainbow larvae. Hello Kitty bombs. Secret pine cone messages. Such inspired madness may sound like the contents of a precocious and/or demented child’s toy box but in fact, they're the building blocks of Arataland!, the “mid-career survey of artworks by Mount Washington's Michael Arata:" a description that, while factually accurate, can’t begin to convey Arata’s mix of the playful and the disconcerting; the observational and the interactive.
Read the rest of Kim Axelrod Ohanneson's review/interview here
In the 32,400 feet square art space that used to be used for storage is a massive collection of Arata’s works, some that have been previously seen and excitingly, those that have never been displayed in public. Expanding over the space of three floors in the four-story building, the exhibition has many installations that guests can ponder over as well as play with. Composed of small to large-scale installations, the show ignites a youthful energy in the viewer with its bright pop colors and whimsical forms.
Read the rest of Cindy Kyungah Lee's review here
Arataland! wants to be slick but can’t help itself from slipping on the proverbial banana. For Example, in Arata’s Pet Spaces photos, Arata re-creates the poses of Victoria’s Secret models as the ideals of feminine beauty, here is the catch, its Arata making the poses in the photographs. In Pet Spaces, Arata absurdly mocks his own masculinity and fascination with the Venus of our time typified by the Victoria’s Secret model. By mocking the model of beauty, Arata’s sexiness itself is nullified, that he chooses to decorate the areas of his own portraits with googly eyes is no wonder. The googly eyed negative “Pet Spaces” are as goofy as they are sad. In Arata’s own objectification he seems to turn the mirror on us. Through him we see desire as spectacle that prods us into such poses in the first place, and makes us all look a little pathetic.
Read the rest of Mary Anna Pomonis' review here
The sense of opening up that one gets upon ascending to the fourth floor mirrors the overall feeling one has while traveling through this exhibition. Arata's ideas truly bloom in these spaces, which are clean and neutral yet casual, lacking the stiff formality of a museum space. His individual works bloom as well, whether being showcased in the broad light of the fourth floor, or peeking out from unexpected corners between galleries on the second; they seem to simply live and breathe everywhere. Arata says that his artmaking process begins with a massive junk pile of ideas and material, which he stores in his mental warehouse; the ideas that are good enough to work on are then moved into his mental library. It is fitting that his finished work now finds an apt showcase in a warehouse of another kind.
Read the rest of Carol Cheh's review here
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