Exhibition: September 13-October 20, 2023
Curatorial Conversations: Wednesday, September 13, 2023, 2-3 p.m.//RSVP Required
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Curated by: Elana Mann
Participants: lucky dragons (Sarah Rara + Luke Fischbeck), Alison O’Daniel, Susan Silton, Clarissa Tossin
What Can Listening Do? (Part 1) presents a growing movement of artists in Los Angeles who use aurality (and its limits) to alter consciousness and spur action. The exhibition brings together four artists/collectives who are deeply invested in sound as both material and strategy: lucky dragons (Sarah Rara + Luke Fischbeck), Alison O’Daniel, Susan Silton and Clarissa Tossin. Working across mediums, these artists/collectives transmute reverberations of colonialism, patriarchy and ableism into forms that push for societal change. Their artworks create radical vibrations that urge us to organize, listen and voice. Though these artists/collectives have been working alongside each other for years, this exhibition marks the first time their works will be shown together, revealing the echoes and susurrations between them.
This exhibition is the first iteration of a two-part project on the theme of echoes by artist Elana Mann, who is the artist-in-residence at Crossroads School of the Arts & Sciences for the 2023-2024 academic year. The show gathers members of Mann’s Los Angeles art community (colleagues, friends, role models), who have profoundly impacted the art world and Mann’s own artwork. The second part of the project, What Can Listening Do? (Part 2), will take place in January 2024 with a solo exhibition of Mann’s art alongside student workshops.
Participant Bios:
lucky dragons is an ongoing collaboration between Los Angeles-based artists Sarah Rara and Luke Fischbeck, who research forms of participation and dissent, purposefully working towards a better understanding of existing ecologies through performances, publications, recordings and public art. lucky dragons have presented their collaborative work at REDCAT, LACMA, MOCA and The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. They have also shown their work at Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), the Institute for Contemporary Art (London), The Kitchen (New York City), the 54th Venice Biennale, Documenta 14, The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York City) and The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington D.C.).
The name “lucky dragons” is borrowed from a fishing vessel that was caught in the fallout from H-bomb tests in the mid-1950’s, an incident which sparked international outcry and gave birth to the worldwide anti-nuclear movement. To learn more, visit luckydragons.org.
Alison O’Daniel is a d/Deaf visual artist and filmmaker who builds a visual, aural and haptic vocabulary that reveals the politics of sound that exceed the auditory. O’Daniel’s film “The Tuba Thieves” premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and is currently on the international film festival circuit. O’Daniel is a United States Artist 2022 Disability Futures Fellow and a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow in Film/Video. She is represented by Commonwealth and Council in Los Angeles and is an assistant professor of Film at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. To learn more, visit alisonodaniel.com.
Susan Silton resides in Los Angeles. Her interdisciplinary projects respond to the complexities of subjectivity in a given moment often through poetic combinations of humor, discomfort, subterfuge and unabashed beauty. These works take form in performance, participatory projects, photography, video, installation, text/audio and print-based works. Her work has been presented at Los Angeles museums including MoCA, Vielmetter Los Angeles, LAXART, The Hammer Museum and the MAK Center for Art and Architecture. She has also shown work across the United States and globally at galleries including SFMOMA (San Francisco), ICA/Philadelphia and the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (Melbourne), among others. Silton has received fellowships and awards from the Getty/California Community Foundation, Art Matters, The Center for Cultural Innovation, The Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, The MacDowell Colony, Banff Centre for the Arts, The Durfee Foundation, The Shifting Foundation and Fellows of Contemporary Art (FOCA). Most recently, she was awarded an LA Metro commission for a permanent installation in the Wilshire/Fairfax subway station. To learn more, visit susansilton.com.
Clarissa Tossin is a visual artist who uses moving-image, installation, sculpture, and collaborative research to engage the suppressed counter-narratives implicit in the built and natural environments of extractive economies. She has had solo exhibitions at the Frye Art Museum, Seattle (2023); Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (2022); La Kunsthalle Mulhouse, France (2021); Moody Center for the Arts, Brochstein Pavilion, Rice University, Houston (2021); Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge (2019); and Blanton Museum of Art, Austin (2018); and featured in notable group exhibitions including the 14th Shanghai Biennial (2023); the 5th Chicago Architecture Biennial (2023); Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh (2020); Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2018); 12th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2018); Made in L.A. at the Hammer Museum (2014). Tossin is the recipient of grants from Graham Foundation (2020); Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2019); Artadia Los Angeles (2018); Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship (2017-18), among others. Her work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge; The Art Institute of Chicago; Fundação Inhotim, Brazil; Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco; and others.To learn more, visit clarissatossin.com.
Elana Mann is an artist who explores the power of the collective voice and the act of listening through sculpture, sound and community engagement. Mann has presented her work in museums, galleries and public spaces in the U.S. and globally. Recent solo exhibitions have taken place at 18th Street Art Center (Santa Monica), Lawndale Art Center (Houston), Artpace (San Antonio), Pitzer College Art Galleries (Claremont, CA), and Commonwealth & Council (Los Angeles). Mann has participated in group exhibitions and screenings at the Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, the Orange County Museum of Art and the Hirshhorn Museum. She has been commissioned to create public projects by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Montalvo Art Center and the Getty Villa. Mann has received numerous awards, including an International Artist-In-Residence at Artpace San Antonio, the California Community Foundation Artist Fellowship, the Stone & DeGuire Contemporary Art Award and the COLA Individual Artist Fellowship. To learn more, click here.
CLICK HERE to RSVP for Curatorial Conversations. During normal gallery hours, please make a reservation in advance by clicking here. Visitors must check in with security.