If a 1993 Chevrolet P30 step van found on Craigslist is not at the top of your gallery rounds list, think again. Gas Gallery, a mobile art space founded by curator Ceci Moss, has set up shop outside Night Gallery, The Pit, and most recently, BBQLA. Ceci found the van listed by someone in Austin who had also used it as a roaming gallery, and opened it to the LA art world in September 2017.

Ceci’s impressive curatorial background comes from institutions like New Museum and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, but with Gas, she has found curatorial freedom perhaps not available at conventional galleries. Gas’ first exhibition, Fuck the Patriarchy, asked artists to consider what refusal might look like under the new political regime, while the following group show, Liquid Love, included work from an unexpected mix of poets, writers, curators, and researchers.

I talked with Ceci about Gas’ latest group exhibition, Take Care, the name of which comes from a common valediction, which is both an expression of familiarity and an instruction of caution. take care is an appropriately complex exhibition that considers an expansive array of possibilities for care and art.

Why a truck?​ It feels quintessentially LA to me, with mobility as response to landscape.

That’s a great question. The mission statement describes Gas as “a mobile, autonomous, experimental and networked platform for contemporary art.” The shows happen not only in the truck gallery, but also online. The notion of “mobility” extends in many directions; allowing a great degree of flexibility and versatility, lower overhead overall (so the project is more sustainable) and accessibility to more audiences, both online and off. I’m interested in using every avenue as a possible exhibition space – the gallery’s website, all corners of the physical truck from the front driver’s seat to my own to body, to an engagement with the terrain of Los Angeles.

Gas Gallery

Gas seems like an independent curator’s dream. Do you see it as some kind of public critique of how — and where — we institutionally view art?

I feel quite lucky to have worked for incredibly forward thinking and progressive institutions such as Rhizome, the New Museum and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. From this training, I was able to glean inspiration for Gas in terms of what arts organizations can and should be. I’ve also spent most of my lifetime in DIY and artist run spaces, and I revere the vibrant, urgent experiences that can happen within those contexts. As a curator, I think it’s essential to consider, on a very basic level, what kind of ideal space I want to help usher into the world. For me, the ideal space is the dance floor, the basement show, the performance in someone’s backyard. I want to realize these non-hierarchical shared experiences of belonging and human connection that can sometimes only occur through art. I want more of these moments to exist, which I see as a feminist ambition. I’m hoping, even in the smallest of ways, that I’m moving towards that with this project. 

Hayley Barker, Oh heal me pls!, 2018 (Detail)

Gas has done three thematic group shows at this point, Fuck the Patriarchy, Liquid Love, and now Take Care. I imagine that curating a group show can be a kind of system of care, managing the nuances of each body of work and how they interact with one another. Did you experience it this way? 

You’re right in that there’s certainly quite a bit of thought that goes into these exhibitions. That’s one of the reasons why I only organize three exhibitions a year – Spring, Summer, Fall – because I want the work to be about the shows, and not some sort of marathon where we’re turning over exhibitions left and right, like many spaces do, commercial or non-commercial. The point is to center the artists, the ideas, and the art. That takes time. Also, Gas as an exhibition space is open and expansive, so there’s room and opportunity for artists to really play and experiment. I find that so rewarding. For instance, in Liquid Love, Los Angeles artist Olivia Mole produced a new piece Dud Ankress that existed as a performance at the opening, an installation in the front driving cabin open over the exhibition run, a dedicated instagram account, and a script printed in the zine publication that we produce for each show.

I’m also struck by how these shows seem to function as questions: In Fuck the Patriarchy, it’ was ‘what does refusal look like?’ In Take Care, it’s what self care looks like, which is a potent space to explore since it’s been co-opted by consumer culture and used flippantly.

I hope that the pedagogical threads within the exhibitions, which you picked up on, encourage multi-layered and open conversations about these important issues, whether it’s sustaining unresolved hope under Trump as a form of refusal in Fuck the Patriarchy or a consideration of the continued radical possibility of “self-care” in take care, when it’s been so widely co-opted as you describe. In its best form, I hope there’s a lateral, crisscross of exchange with each show. Meaning, lots of one on one conversations with the visitors (a welcome result of the truck’s small space), the use of the tumblr as a reading list (which often includes articles shared by exhibiting artists from their research), the zines published with every exhibition (which feature interviews with prominent scholars and artists projects), etc. It’s about sparking a conversation, and giving it room to develop in all these different directions.

I thought of this tweet I saw recently from Ayesha Siddiqui:

It hit the nail on the head for me, and I thought about how with this show, the idea of self-care seems socially expansive, rather than limited to this narrow, self-congratulatory, consumeristic sense.

For take care, specifically, like many others I saw the hashtag #selfcare proliferate in recent years, particularly after the 2016 election. Like the quote you mention, it seems there was a lack of awareness regarding the history of this terminology within social justice movements, while it was swiftly swept up to brand and sell products. At the same time, we inhabit a biopolitical reality where, due to technological advancement, our habits and behavior are thoroughly quantified by tracking and surveillance. The show reflects on this current reality for “self care” given the many tensions that surround the topic, while pointing towards its activist history and imagining speculative futures.

How does take care offer conceptions of care that go against this proliferation?

In terms of present practices of self-care, artist Amanda Vincelli explores normalizing conceptions of health in her work REGIMEN (2015-2017). For the project, Vincelli surveyed the medicinal regimens of one hundred women ages 21-35 in New York, London, Amsterdam, Montreal and Los Angeles. She took portraits of the participants, their medications (if applicable), and recorded their written and oral testimonies. Visitors to the exhibition can listen to these stories while seated on a custom cushion in the truck, or go to the website regimen.online (featured on gas.gallery) that collects all the documentation related to the project.

Other works pull from feminist and anticapitalist alternative healing and spiritual practices that have historical roots in social justice movements. For example, the exhibit features a new large scale drawing Oh heal me pls! by Hayley Barker, whose work is informed by her years of participation in feminist neo-pagan circles. A few works are oriented towards the near future, such as a suite of new commissions by Ian James. Taking the form of a car sunshade, a photo-sculpture and a car air freshener (which is available for purchase), the project serves as a mini-campaign obliquely advertising imaginary, futuristic products. 

  • Young Joon Kwak, Face Wipe III (Corazon), 2017

  • Sarah Manuwal and Saewon Oh, Elemental Offerings, ritual vessels for the earth, 2018

  • Darya Diamond, Arterial Line (16E001-007), 2017

  • Amanda Vincelli, REGIMEN, 2015-2017

  • C. Lavender, Sagittal Plane Interference, 2018

  • "take care," Installation

  • Ian James, Reliquary: PLUMPED and truly more sculpted, 2018

  • Young Joon Kwak, Face Wipe II (Traviesa),2017

  • Amanda Vincelli, REGIMEN, 2015-17

As you said “take care” is an expression that implies a familiarity, but it’s a warning of caution. It reminds me of Sophie Calle’s ‘Take Care of Yourself,’ named after the last line of a breakup email. Calle uses it as both an ironic command and a sincerely encouraging one.

Wonderful reference! I’m a fan of Sophie Calle. Yes, I hope the title signals and balances these two sides of self-care, where we continue the community and survival oriented aspects of “self-care” present in its activist history, while also remaining cautiously aware of our present environment, which is so thoroughly informed by capitalism. 

What’s next for Gas?

I’m developing a number of shows simultaneously right now. The next exhibition, for Fall 2018, is a group exhibition exploring the infrastructures for oil production around Los Angeles. I view the truck itself, which is a converted delivery truck, as a product of oil dependent infrastructures. For the exhibition, we would park at active and former oil extraction sites, which are ubiquitous throughout the landscape of Los Angeles. I’m hoping to use the show to raise awareness about the continuing hold of the oil industry, and to make its infrastructures – which defines so much of Los Angeles’s history and development – more visible through sculpture, sound, painting, and a series of site specific performances.

take care runs through July 20 at Gas Gallery, parked at BBQLA from noon-6 p.m. on Saturdays. Other times and locations will be announced on Gas’ Twitter page.