We Americans live in interesting times. The old Chinese curse has come home to roost long before the country itself has supplanted our economic and cultural hegemony. We have more freedom, more choices generally – but we’re not equally informed or empowered to sort through them efficaciously. An ever-increasing number of us may feel they have virtually no choice whatsoever. ‘Selection’ by definition is never value-neutral – though it may frequently appear arbitrary. S/Election, a sprawling 32-artist group show curated by Erin Christovale at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery takes the occasion of the current political year to explore the variable selection implied by citizenship status, and the frequently clashing values that characterize our political and cultural conversations around it. Some of these conversations – as with Linda Pollack’s Habeas Steps – go to the fraught (and most basic) relationship between the status-challenged citizen and the prerogatives of the state. Jennifer Moon revisits the ostracism and fracturing imposed by a state’s carceral justice system. Martin Gantman‘s Democraczy Album unfolds a contemporary dialectic of social and political evolution through that most contemporary medium – the cell phone; and Olga Koumoundouros goes to that contemporary agora of political valuation – the refrigerator door. Other notable participants include Charles Gaines, Ramiro Gomez, Rubén Ortiz Torres, Mara Lonner, Jane Szabo, Jody Zellen, and Olga Lah. ‘Blessings all around,’ as Lah might put it. Now get out and vote.

Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery
Barnsdall Park – 4800 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Show runs thru January 8, 2017