Beacon Arts continues its Critics-as-Curators series with Arataland! A Mid-Career Survey of Artworks by Michael Arata curated by art critic Doug Harvey, opening Saturday, March 26, 2011. Arataland! will be the first museum-scale retrospective devoted exclusively to the work of this important Los Angeles artist, and the first monographic exhibit hosted by the Beacon Arts Building during its inaugural Critics-as-Curators series. Drawing on three decades of sculpture, painting, drawing, photography, installation and performance work, Arataland! will transform the Beacon Arts Building into a theme park exploring the complex and idiosyncratic vision – darkly humorous, playfully erotic, conceptually quirky, and often confrontational – that animates Arata’s oeuvre. The exhibit will run for eight weeks closing on Sunday, May 22, 2011 with a Critics-as-Curators panel discussion from 1:00 to 4:00pm. Beacon Arts is located at 808 N. La Brea Ave., Inglewood, CA 90302. For additional information please call 310-621-5416 or visit http://www.beaconartsbuilding.comas well as http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inglewood-CA/Beacon-Arts-Building/129817703733091?v=info.
Arataland! A Mid-Career Survey of Artworks by Michael Arata will kick-off on March 26th with an opening reception from 7:00 to 10:00pm. Join the artist for the unveiling of a new mural on the side of the Beacon Arts Building – a large rendition of a piece from Arata’s Pet Spaces series. Additional special events include “Deconstructing Arataland” an exhibition walkthrough and conversation with Michael Arata and Curator Doug Harvey on Sunday, April 10th starting at 1:00pm. At the end of the month on Saturday, April 30th, or Walpurgisnacht (a Northern European pagan renewal ritual), join the gallery for “One Night Stand: Walpurgisnacht” from 7:00 to 10:00pm. Like one of Arata’s famous “One Night Stands” – his series of one-night guerrilla exhibitions held in motel rooms dating to the late 1990s – the evening will center around a hot dog/drawing exchange, whereby guests can create a drawing in exchange for a hot dog in a bun branded with Arata’s signature. A 60-page catalogue, containing a map of Arataland! will also be published in conjunction with the exhibit and will be for sale at the gallery. All Arataland! events are free.
Critics-as-Curators is the inaugural art exhibition series at Beacon Arts. In recognition of the gallery’s first year, esteemed art critics and writers — recognized locally, nationally and internationally — have been invited to conceive and curate shows of their choosing at the Beacon Arts Building in conjunction with discussions, lectures, catalogues, or other ways to reveal the thought process behind why exhibition works are chosen with insight into their importance to the curator. The individual expertise and personal taste developed by the curators’ world-view will be on exhibit throughout Beacon Arts’ first year. Critics-as-Curators strives to enrich appreciation of contemporary fine art by critically engaging in art. This series of shows provides a wonderful opportunity for artists and art audiences to learn what individual critics look for, how they think about the art they choose to focus on, and what catches their eye. The series kicked off in October 2010 with Ghost Stories: Happenings, Hauntings, & Curiosities curated by art writer Shana Nys Dambrot, followed by Peter Frank’s exhibition, Densities: Line Becoming Shape, Shape Becoming Object in December/January.
This Article Originally appeared on Examiner, by Ryan Stabile, LA Nightlife Events Examiner