Something to write home about

Dedicated Summercamper, Janice, measures the spot for our soon to be booth at the LA Mart

It's back to school and back to work here at Summercamp. We are excited to be in the planning stages for the Co/Lab Alternative Art Fair in conjunction with Art Platform Los Angeles at the end of the month (more details to follow sooooon), but until then we cannot let a fabulous summer season end without sharing some exciting news...

Liza Wade Green, writer/director and performer of Hill House Mine and Janice Gomez were recently interviewed by Monica Hicks at GYST Radio. Take a listen here.

While you are following links, take a look at the amazing review by Carol Cheh of our last show Friday Night Lights & Sunday Afternoons in the LA Weekly.

symchronaut/ synchronot by Constantina Zavitsanos

Thank you for all of your support this summer. Please keep it coming and let us introduce you to our 2011 Fall Resident Artist, Constantina Zavitsanos. You may remember her holographic paint bucket and stopwatch and compass on headphones from Slick during our first summer. A New York based artist, we are very excited and preparing to have Tina in residence to build a site specific work for Home Sweet Away from Home at the the Co/Lab Alternative Art Fair.

conjuggle visit by Constanina Zavitsanos

 

with small fans (apart for the hole) by Constantina Zavitsanos

Tuesday Evening Recap of Friday Night Lights & Sunday Afternoons.

Alison Owen's House Rules

Thanks to all who came out this weekend, especially those who came for the whole shebang - Friday night and Sunday afternoon.

Friday started off with Maya Gurantz's Floormap: Seduction, a self guided dance on our temporarily erected dance floor and ended with Liza Wade Green's full blown dance party - part of Hill House Mine - on the very same floor.

As the sun set, we soaked in Endurance Performance Proposition (Fade to Black, Sunset / Denoument) by Maya Gurantz.



Endurance Performance Proposition (Fade to Black, Sunset / Denoument) by Maya Gurantz

 We lounged on beanbag chairs with magazines and tequila shots while watching CamLab's Under the Blanet, a live feed performance from bedroom to Goatspace.

Summercampers watching CamLab's Under the Blanet

Sunday was a different affair. . . we traded the cool evening of Friday Night Lights for the warmth and sunshine of an afternoon on the hillside.  Marcus Durkheim treats us with a careful installation of paintings and repaintings in Goatspace.  Michael Carter's Appetite for Destruction tempted and repelled people with champagne and a roasted suckling pig. Suzanne Fontaine spent the afternoon interacting with guests using cellphones, string and forces in A New Kind of Fortune Telling while Erin Payne's Memory Lane for Langerstroemia gives the Crape Myrtle tree a chance to see itself for the first time in it's native setting.  Matt Wardell and his rolling melon lead us down the hill with his "longish and flattish site specific installation" entitled Fig to Pataya (Ramp). Greeting us at the bottom of the hill is Aili Schmeltz's Tailings. 

Fig to Pataya (Ramp) by Matt Wardell

Tailings by Aili Schmeltz

Appetite for Destruction by Michael Carter

Erin Payne's Memory Lane for Lagerstroemia

A New Kind of Fortune Telling by Suzanne Fontaine

Is this not four paintings by Marcus Durkheim?

Alison Owen's solo show, House Rules in Guestroom adds and intertwines old and new elements to the house and it's story with repeated patterns and built succulents. And as on Friday night, we closed out the evening with Hill House Mine, a dance/theatre performance written and directed by Liza Wade Green with traveling audience members moving about the house with beer, champagne, cookies...oh, and swedish fish. 

Liza Wade Green's Hill House Mine Finale with Steven Wendt, Liza Wade Green, Janice Gomez, David Gochfeld, Yanghee Lee and Andrew Thacher

 (Photo by Devon Tsuno)

Many thanks and shoutouts to Technical Director of Hill House Mine and usher, Danny Green; Intern and usher, Sean Tan; usher and huge supporter Tom Norris; beat giving & fist pumping inducing DJ Legion; Ryan Taber's gift of a birdhouse and its silent role; our neighbors for their patience and attendance; and to John & Dan Kaelin for coming to see their old home.  

For more pictures from the shows, check out our *new* flickr site here!

Upcoming 2Day-Extravaganza

Press Release Friday Night Lights & Sunday Afternoons

Friday Night Lights Performances, August 19th 7-9:30PM
CamLab
Maya Gurantz
HILL HOUSE MINE  by Liza Wade Green starts promptly at 8:45PM (audience travels through the house)

Sunday Afternoons August 21- September 4
Opening Reception, August 21st 5-8PM
Michael Carter
Marcus Durkheim
Suzanne Fontaine
Erin Payne
Aili Schmeltz
Matt Wardell
and in Guestroom Alison Owen

HILL HOUSE MINE  7:45-9PM
performance starts promptly at 7:45PM

Hours by appointment. Please contact summercampprojectproject@gmail.com.

Summercamp's ProjectProject presents Friday Night Lights & Sunday Afternoons- evening of three performances and a daytime outdoor group exhibition of artists who work within the realms of exploring the unknown. Both events will feature a performance by Liza Wade Green, written during her Fall 2010 Residency at Summercamp.

Friday night:
CamLab, a collaborative project between Anna Mayer and Jemima Wyman, will start things off with a durational performance using a soft relational object in one of the bedroom's at Summercamp. All of their activities and investigations to forge intimacy "Under the Blanket" will be seen via a live feed on a monitor downstairs in Goatspace.

CamLab’s investment in the body is supplemented by an investigation into the interrelatedness of language and embodiment. Some performances use language exclusively while others depend on non-verbal exchanges. CamLab believes that a contemporary politics of pleasure must acknowledge the contiguity of language and body in facilitating the spectrum of experience between alterity and intimacy.

Likewise, Maya Gurantz deals with social issues by working in video, performance, theater, installation and community-generated projects. Gurantz’s work uses rigorously physical and playful theatricality to expose the dark histories and painful contradictions embedded in performances of power.

To end the evening, Liza Wade Green's HILL HOUSE MINE is a dance/theatre work created specifically for the midcentury modern home that hosts Summercamp’s ProjectProject. Part haunted house, part live installation, HILL HOUSE MINE takes the audience on a journey through five rooms and the backyard of the residence and explores a world where the fantasies of childhood become truth and the realities of loss are buried.  The story follows a family coping with two tragic deaths.  As the audience travels through the house they meet different family members and piece together a puzzle of death, dance, memory, and time.

The site-specific work is written and choreographed by Brooklyn-based theatre artist Liza Wade Green in collaboration with six performers from New York and Los Angeles. The performers use movement and text to bring the characters to life as they connect to the house’s architectural details.  Hidden passageways, plastic-covered furniture, an expansive sloping yard, and a claw foot tub all add to the eerie backdrop for this interactive experience.  Brick and mortar give way to the home’s memories and dreams, while the performers awaken its ghosts and rumors – all giving voice to a family in transition.

Because the the audience travels through the house Hill House Mine  starts promptly at 8:45.


Sunday Afternoon:
At the bottom of the hill, Erin Payne makes visible a botanical journey that is often not considered. Payne will visually represent the ancestral home of our Crape Myrtle tree as a painted curved backdrop of tree’s landscape of origin in China. Payne explores anthropomorphic ideas of nature examining itself through human constructs by using a tall mirror allowing the tree to view itself within its native landscape. From the bottom of the hill to the top, Matt Wardell's construction of wood, fabric, found and constructed elements traverses the length of Summercamp's hill. Maybe a cantaloupe will be involved, but its hard to say.

Also near the base of the hill, Suzanne Fontaine will hold A NEW KIND OF FORTUNE TELLING*. This interactive experience
seeking understanding
of destiny
and self.
*Readings limited to one per person.

Aili Schmeltz's Tomorrowland  explores the idea that utopia can be considered not only a place or a goal, but also as the very act of striving for such a target. These hybridized structures are materializations, remnants of an ideal that never was and may never be. As fallen monuments to a utopic philosophy, they function as relics of both a “good place” and “no place.” They nod towards a bright future and a fallen past, recontextualizing and recombining materials that are both nostalgic and futuristic. An embedded sense of naiveté is inherent to the objects, formed from a chemical bond of sunshine and noir that was repeatedly cooled and heated by urban temperament and artifice. Part architectural, part fossil, part potential: these works utilize discarded building materials that appear to have crystallized within a ‘natural’ process—strata that have undergone philosophical transformation yet to be fulfilled. Michael Carter's Appetite for Destruction, also explores the role of ideology, but in social practice.  By investigating the embedded but often overlooked content of the ubiquitous reception table, Carter will stage an encounter where the expectations of interaction are unknown and uncertain. Carter poses the question:  Do the ideological assumptions of contemporary social practice actually limit the goal of individual empowerment?  Ultimately, does power only grow out of the -metaphorical or actual - barrel of a gun?

In parallel, the illusive nature of physical reality and how our beliefs and preconceived ideas prejudice our responses to everything around us fascinates Marcus Durkheim. Objects become extensions of the self and only gain meaning by the associations we attach to them through experience, memories and emotions. A cupcake may remind one person about a wonderful experience, while another may be triggered to relive a trauma, and yet, another has no connection to cup cakes whatsoever. The objects in our life can reflect who we are, what we think and feel: inert avatars, ambassadors of self. "Things are not what they appear to be: nor are they otherwise."  Surangama Sutra

For the solo show in Guestroom, Alison Owen has constructed House Rules. Owen studied the facts of the house- its narrative history, the materials and patterns found in it, the specific movement of the light across the walls. By tracking this data Owen hopes to discover part of the intangible nature of the space. Intrigued by the house’s history, 3119 Chadwick is not a static place. Owen imagined it sending out tendrils like a grapevine, expanding, covering over old bits, breaking off into new rooms and new hiding places, like the labyrinthine house in Bruno Schulz’s book “The Street of Crocodiles”. Owen's composition is an attempt to create a new and logical offshoot of the house, arrested mid-growth.

And again, to end the evening, Liza Wade Green's HILL HOUSE MINE. Because the the audience travels through the house Hill House Mine  starts promptly at 7:45.

Help Kickstart Liza Wade Green's Hill House Mine

photo by Carrie Leonard

HILL HOUSE MINE is a dance/theatre work set in five rooms and the backyard of a midcentury modern home in the hills of Los Angeles, CA. Part haunted house, part live installation, HILL HOUSE MINE takes the audience on a journey through each room of the residence and explores a world where the fantasies of childhood become truth and the realities of loss are buried. The story follows a family coping with two tragic deaths. As the audience travels through the house they meet different family members and piece together a puzzle of death, dance, memory, and time.

Six performers from New York and Los Angeles use movement and text to bring the characters to life as they connect to the house’s architectural details. Hidden passageways, plastic-covered furniture, an expansive sloping yard, and a claw foot tub all add to the eerie backdrop for this interactive experience. Brick and mortar give way to the home’s memories and dreams, while the performers awaken its ghosts and rumors – all giving voice to a family in transition.

HILL HOUSE MINE is specifically for the midcentury modern home that hosts Summercamp’s ProjectProject in the neighborhood of El Sereno, Los Angeles and will be performed on August 19 and 21, 2011.

The site-specific work is written and choreographed by Brooklyn-based theatre artist Liza Wade Green in collaboration with six performers from both coasts.
Here’s where you come in!

By donating through this handy Kickstarter page, you’ll help HILL HOUSE MINE become a reality and receive some great rewards in the process! Your donation will help cover artists’ stipends, rehearsal space rental, travel expenses, and costumes, as well as video, audio, and other technical elements of the show. Please help this bi-coastal collaboration come to life!

Rolling... and Action!

Looking into Secret Space to find Dream kitchens. (photo credit: Christina Pierson)

 

 

Thanks to all of you for coming and making Sunday such a grand event. Jen Smith's Pickling Demonstration started us rolling with the words, "There is no wrong way to make a pickle." Empowering us all to let our freak pickle fly!

Check out images from the opening- including what is going on in Secret Space- on Devon Tsuno's Flickr page.

Again, many thanks for rolling Sisyphus and Newton up the hill, saving it from crashing into Chris's prototype and Carmine's cement blocks on it's way down, crawling into Christy and Yoshie's intimate spaces, getting psychedelic in Goat Space with bear frogs and lizard people, and not dispersing despite our unlawful assembly! Let's keep it going.

Summer is around the corner and so are we!

Start the ball rolling again

Opening Reception Sunday, June 12th from 5-8PM
Pickling Demonstration with Jen Smith from 4-6PM

Exhibition runs from June 12th to July 2nd

Summercamp's ProjectProject 3119 Chadwick Dr. LA, CA 90032

Hours by appointment, please contact summercampprojectproject@gmail.com

Gaye Chan
Chris Ellis
Carmine Iannoccone
Jason Kunke
Yoshie Sakai
Jen Smith
Ryan Taber
Mercedes Teixido
and Christy Roberts in Guestroom

Summercamp’s ProjectProject presents, Start the ball rolling again, an outdoor group exhibition of artists who re-purpose ideas and translate materials. Organized by Fatima Hoang, Elonda Billera & Janice Gomez.

Mercedes Teixido’s Sisyphus and Newton, a big boulder (painted giant ball) to be pushed up or rolled down Summercamp’s ProjectProject’s hill becomes a theatrical and playful version of the task. Teixido is interested in concepts related to the domestic sphere; its histories, presence and mostly the people that inhabit them. Investigating history in many different spheres, Ryan Taber mines the canon and explores the linkages. Taber codifies and re-contextualizes his findings into newly crafted objects, drawing and sculptures.

To find the hidden forms that authority takes in art, and vice versa, Jason Kunke pursues his desire to want to be a cop, or at least, an artist who acts like a cop, investigating where authority and aesthetics coexist. Common wisdom considers authority and art as oppositional, and the artist as a transgressor of authority. Kunke thinks they contain each other, and the apparent opposition is just one way the authoritative structure manifests within art.

Understanding the notion of common standardized units, Carmine Iannoccone tests his memory of the ubiquitous “eight inch regular” and gives them an embodied presence by hand building cement blocks without measuring tools and molds. The eight inch regular is cheap and employed in the most democratic of ways by absolutely everyone, from the huge building contractor responsible for vast swaths of urban infrastructure, to the solitary homeowner building a property wall on the weekend, to the dorm-room denizen jury-rigging a quick set of bookshelves. Iannoccone creates a liquid set of correspondences and exchanges: between the art store and Home Depot, between the studio site and the construction site, between industrial engineering and fine art, between craftsmanship in sculpture and craftsmanship in the building trades, between uniformity and irregularity, between blue collars and white collars, between critical thinking and manual labor.

In an investigation of the “working prototype”, Chris Ellis contrasts the differences in the static and the kinetic object to see what relationships may happen between the two. With Prototype of Mechanics of Transition there are multiple ways to manipulate and move the structure while encountering physical parameters or limitations that guide the experience. While Ellis encourages perpetual structured change, Gaye Chan re-purposes a ceramic frog/bear from the lost and found unclaimed communal glazeware shelf to reclaim existence and poses the question, “Did it turn out so differently than intended that you fail to recognize it, or was the shock of recognition so horrifying that you simply fled?”

In secret space, Yoshie Sakai’s Dream kitchens. video installation will be investigating the “kitchen” and its related aspects from the functional to basically, the kitchen as an emotional hub. There will be videos simultaneously projected onto kitchen-related items. The videos will range from an original cooking show broadcast made specifically for this piece juxtaposed with selected scenes from various kitchens/chefs from different families, restaurants, dormitories, etc., wherever the everyday (un)magic is happening.

Summercamp’s ProjectProject will host a hands on pickle demonstration with artist and cook, Jen Smith. Smith aims to negotiate a synthesis between her formal aesthetics, social practice project of pickling and day job as a caterer. Interested in a dialogical aesthetic that encourages critical investigation, communication and fellowship, Smith hopes that is what these community canning exercises bring to participants. Please BYOV (Bring Your Own Vegetables). Space is limited. RSVP to secure your spot with a $5 donation (materials, except vegetables, included). All proceeds go to the artist.

In addition to Start the ball rolling again, Christy Roberts will take over Guestroom, an intimate space that features a single artist. She will create a platform for dialogue using local concerns of El Sereno as a driving tool. In a previous site determined project, Roberts stated “I was trying to help the land with my art project, at the end of the day, the land is bigger than I am, with an agenda larger than mine. The process itself, then, became a symbolization of our relationship to the land. We can affect the land, but ultimately, the land has the final say. By destroying the land, we do not kill the planet, we make it for ourselves.”

Click here for more detailed information about the exhibition.

Hollywood Stardom! Re-Visions of LA

Come to LACE and draw forts and still lives with us on Hollywood Blvd this Sunday, May 1st from 1-4PM. As a part of their ongoing ASAP (After School Arts Program) Re-Visions of LA drawing workshops, Summercamp's ProjectProject's own Fatima Hoang, Elonda Billera, Janice Gomez & Sean Tan will be on hand to draw and converse with any and all who stop by.

Discos, Camp Tours and New Edition

"...and this is where Goatspace is."

The past few weeks have been busy here at ye olde Summercamp. It's foxtail season again, and you know what that means! Weeds are getting whacked as we ramp up for the summer season.

In preseason news, Occidental College's Contemporary Art/Institutions in LA class led by the multi-talented Aandrea Stang, dropped by for an informational lecture, tour and glass of refreshing iced tea (with an optional Red Vine). 

ah memories... FEJ at CGU

We were also invited by Christy Roberts to lead a discussion at our (FEJ's) alma mater for the SNATCH Disco- a Claremont Graduate University student discussion group on the subject of Political, Public, and Activist Art, and Alternative/Non-Traditional Spaces.  It was fun to visit the old haunt and hear about all of the new goings on. There's a lot of activity going on at CGU and their open studios are May 1st so you can check it out for yourself!

To help with all of this (and more!) pregame activity, we have a new member of the Summercamp's ProjectProject team. We would like to introduce you Sean Tan, our Intern from University Of California Riverside. He introduced himself to us this past January after a lecture we gave to his class Proximity and Access: An Artists' Field Guide to LA Art. We are so excited to have Sean on board, please welcome him and introduce yourself at our next shindig.

Sean and Wolfie

sharedspace sneak peek

Matt MacFarland's Tourists

 

Anita Bunn, Ryan Lamb and Julie Schustack STACK!

Chelsea Dean's Linoleum block prints and Devon Tsuno's Palm

Amy Maloof's Leftovers

The whole gang!

Join us at the Collective Show Los Angeles Opening this Thursday, January 20th from 6-9 at 995, 997 Hill Street in Chinatown. We are excited to share works by Anita Bunn, Chelsea Dean, Ryan Lamb, Amy Maloof, Matt MacFarland, Julie Schustack and Devon Tsuno!

We're going to China(town)!

What other way to start the new year than to have a gathering of gatherings!?! Summercamp's ProjectProject is participating in Collective Show, Los Angeles where multiple groups, artists, performers, writers are invited to represent their organization through whatever form they see fit. For our part, we've invited Anita Bunn, Chelsea Dean, Ryan Lamb, Amy Maloof, Matt MacFarland, Julie Schustack and Devon Tsuno to share work in a shared space.

To help with the event, you can chip in some dough, coins, and buckaroos here:
Help kickstart it up! 


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COLLECTIVE SHOW LAUNCHES LOS ANGELES EXHIBITION
Los Angeles, CA – January 11, 2011 – Collective Show is pleased to present “Collective Show Los
Angeles 2011,” an artist-organized exhibition of contemporary art groups recently established in Los
Angeles. This collaboratively curated “group show of group shows” features artist-run spaces and projects
formed in the past five years.

Previously realized in New York in 2009 and 2010, Collective Show exhibits local art groups that work in
a growing space between established non-profit organizations and commercial galleries. These groups
explore a wide range of collaborative approaches and missions, often in flexible and adaptive conditions
with an emphasis on communities and conversations.

Over 30 groups will exhibit artwork, publications and posters during the show at a newly renovated space
in Chinatown. In addition, screenings, performances and talks will take place during the exhibition. A
catalogue will accompany the exhibition and will be available at www.collectiveshow.org/LA
Participating groups include: 323 Projects, Actual Size Los Angeles, Adrian Piper Gallery, Art 2102 of
Los Angeles, ACP (Artist Curated Projects), CANAL, Commonwealth and Council, CUBO, Dan Graham,
Darin Klein & Friends, Eighteen Thirty Collaborations (ETC), Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0 *particle
group* b.a.n.g. lab, Elephant, The Elysian Park Museum of Art, Eternal Telethon, Human Resources, J
Moca (Justin’s Museum of Contemporary Art), LA Pedestrians, Los Angeles Road Concerts, MATERIAL,
Monte Vista, [Name], NIGHT GALLERY, Open Arms, Public Address, Public Fiction, The Public School,
Silvershed, Statler Waldorf Gallery, Summercamp's ProjectProject, Workspace, WPA, and upcoming Collective Show hosts: Ditch Projects (Oregon) GIBSMIR-Family (Zurich) and Secondhome Projects (Berlin).

Collective Show Los Angeles 2011 is organized by artist groups ACP (Artist Curated Projects), Human
Resources, [Name], Night Gallery, Public Fiction, The Public School, Silvershed, Statler Waldorf Gallery
and Workspace. Collective Show was founded by collaborators from New York and Los Angeles, and
aims to further creative relationships by providing an open-source format for locally organized shows.
Collective Show is not-for-profit, volunteer organized, and is free and open to the public. To learn more
about Collective Show, please visit us online at www.collectiveshow.org
* * *

Public Hours

Opening Reception: Thursday, January 20, 2011, 6-9pm

Exhibition Hours: Friday, January 21 to Sunday, January 23, 2011, 12-6 pm

and Thursday, January 27 through Sunday, January 30, 2011, 12-6 pm

Location 995, 997 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012

Events

Please see the calendar at www.collectiveshow.org/LA for listings of screenings, performances and talks.

About Collective Show

Previously realized in New York at Participant Inc (www.participantinc.org) in September 2010, Collective
Show is an artist-organized exhibition of contemporary art groups. This collaboratively-curated "group show
of group shows" features local artist-run projects and spaces, independent curatorial initiatives, not-for-profit
endeavors and web-based groups established in the past five years. Collective Show is an open-source
project organized by Silvershed, an artist-run project space in New York and Los Angeles. Collective Show
organizers are currently developing the next Collective Show in Berlin.

About Silvershed
Silvershed is an artist-run contemporary art project space in Chelsea. Collaborating on exhibitions,
publications and events in New York, Los Angeles and Berlin, Silvershed explores contemporary art values,
ethics and aesthetics of the early 21st century. Started in 2008 by Patrick Meagher, Yunhee Min and Oliver
Lanz, Silvershed is volunteer organized and accepts tax-deductible contributions as a sponsored project of
Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. www.thesilvershed.org

Press Contacts
Collective Show: Collective Show Los Angeles 2011:
Kerry Hassler
Tel: 917-685-4652
kerry@collectiveshow.org

Sabrina Chou
 Tel: 805-300-1689
 sabrina@collectiveshow.org

Cheers to a New Year from Wintercamp at Summercamp!

After a hectic and amazing Fall Residency at Cypress College your camp counselors were able to get a little hibernation in during the Los Angeles winter. We wanted to salute, bow and curtsy to all of you who have graced us with support in sharing 2010 through visiting, exhibiting, installing, listening, speaking, rolling down hills, eating pizza, cross stitching, bicycling, moderating, air guitaring, taping floors & walls, toasting marshmallows, Google waving, making instruments, jazzing it up, being real, obsessing, breathing true oxy air, opening your arms, organizing while holding hands and everything in between.

Here's a few images from our residency at Cypress College. The students were a blast to work with. Thank you to Devon Tsuno, Ed Giardina,  Dan Stephens and the rest of the art department for inviting us into their space and allowing us to take over for a few months. Special thanks to the exhibition design and portfolio review students. The experience was truly awesome.

Images from the Panel Conversation: non locality and the transference of space, memory and energy can be found on Devon's flickr site.
Photographs below taken by Graham Husted  and Fatima. Thanks, Graham!

Jay Lizo out front of the gallery.

  

Dan Stephens in the house! 

 Don't Panic: Photo not reversed.

 Rockin' and Rollin' in the Goad Space.

 Falcon Eddy shuttin' it down!

Parting treats of s'mores a la microwave.