At the center of a room, a woman’s bust, cast in bee’s wax and covered in honeycomb, rises from the center of an altar. The sound of buzzing fills the space, coming from radios antennas pointing toward the sky. This is, at once, both a grotto and a padded room. A doubly-interior space for solitary contemplation, or confinement. If a viewer is willing to embark on a journey with us, they will not experience this space alone. If, as artists, we are committed to liberation, we must practice our craft with this intention. We aim to create territory where individuals may heal from various forms of institutionalization, systems of oppression and find new pathways toward freedom.
Through distinct creative practices that blend ritual, personal narrative, history and mythology, Veronique d’Entremont and Danny Mekonnen come together in the spirit of collaboration and expansion to present Her Body Became and Antenna, Transmitting the Message of God. The two artists met in Boston through community organizing in 2003, and since, they have charted intersecting courses of inquiry that have converged, once again, at a similar point.
Veronique d’Entremont is a Los Angeles-based interdisciplinary artist of Sicilian-Arcadian decent, who comes from a line of women blessed with spiritual gifts, or cursed by mental illness—depending upon who you ask. She maintains a collaborative practice with a honeybee colony that she considers to be the earthly manifestation of her dead mother.
Danny Mekonnen is an Ethiopian-American artist and musician born in a Sudanese refugee community and based in Boston. His current project, Emergence, deeply explores the legacy of instrumentalist and composer, Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, by bringing together elements of spiritual jazz, Indian classical music, Afrofuturism, and his own voice.
:Audio Transmission Session: A chime, then silence. A low, long tone on a saxophone, then another. These build. For twenty-one minutes and one second, together we will enter a liminal space.
Please RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/her-body-became-and-antenna-audio-transmission-sessions-tickets-82881395485
Opening: 3-6pm Sunday, December 8th, 2019
Audio Transmission Sessions:: 3-6pm Sunday, January 26th, 2020, RSVP required
Open by appointment: December 8th, 2019 – January 26th, 2020
Nothing Special is the name of an artist-run series of exhibitions in an 11 by 11 foot room on the second floor of an art studio in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles. Exhibitions revolve around simple themes that make a virtue of the gallery’s limitations, featuring projects that either expand upon or exist in parallel to the participants’ usual artistic practice. We believe that artistic merit should not be determined by commercial viability. Nothing Special works outside the mainstream gallery system in Los Angeles and encourages accessibility via an engaged social media presence. PLEASE NOTE: we are apologize but our exhibition space is not wheelchair accessible
https://www.nthngspcl.com/
