Located in Hollywood, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) is a nonprofit exhibition space and archive of the visual arts for the city of Los Angeles, California, USA. Currently under the leadership of Carol Stakenas, LACE contributes to the enrichment of Los Angeles’ urban landscape by engaging with timely political, social and cultural issues that shape local and global life. LACE events, including exhibitions, performances, screenings, dialogs and other public forums, strive to inspire imagination and to expand the interactions between art and audience in Los Angeles. Since 1978, LACE has presented the work of over 5,000 artists in nearly 3,000 exhibitions, screenings, performances, and works of public art, and played a key role in establishing Los Angeles as an international center for the arts.
Contents |
In the mid-1970s, artists began living in large, inexpensive lofts built into the empty warehouses of Downtown Los Angeles. LACE was initially located in the same area on Broadway, later moving to an industrial neighborhood near the Los Angeles River, and finally to Hollywood.[1]
Founded in 1978 by a group of thirteen artists and based upon principles of grassroots community organizing and social change, LACE committed from the start to presenting experimental works of art in all media, including the then-experimental media of performance art and video. LACE provided an early venue for artists like Laurie Anderson, Nancy Buchanan, Chris Burden, Gronk, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Mike Kelley, Martin Kersels, Linda Nishio, Paper Tiger TV, Adrian Piper, Johanna Went, David Wojnarowicz, and Bruce and Norman Yonemoto. The presence of performance art and video in major museums suggest that these experimental media are now part of the artistic canon and testifies to the success of LACE to promote these media to a wider audience.
Originally located in Downtown Los Angeles, LACE moved to Hollywood in 1994. The Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) recognized the contribution LACE would make to the economic and cultural redevelopment of Hollywood. The CRA was an instrumental partner in locating a facility and making the move. LACE has since put down deep roots in Hollywood, providing free and low-cost programming for the neighborhood and establishing partnerships with local businesses and organizations, including the YMCA, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, My Friend's Place, and Woodbury University. LACE also partners with other organizations to bring audiences to Hollywood, including the Getty Museum, the Fellows of Contemporary Art, the California Institute of the Arts, the California College of the Arts in Oakland, Washington University in St. Louis, Kent State University, Atlanta College of Art, and Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia.
In 1998, LACE inaugurated Contemporary Editions LA, a fine-art publishing venture featuring Los Angeles-based artists, with editions in its first year by Paul McCarthy, Martin Kersels, and Sharon Lockhart. The following year, LACE published three new editions by artists Kevin Appel, Evan Holloway, and James Welling. In 2002, LACE published Contemporary Editions by John Baldessari, Laura Owens, and Raymond Pettibon.
LACE was invited to participate in the prestigious national Warhol Initiative of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in 2003, including a major award for new equipment, marketing, and a cash reserve. That same year, LACE published editions with artists Chris Burden and Jim Isermann. LACE also received a vital grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to preserve and improve access to its archives, a rich history of contemporary art-making in Los Angeles since 1978.
LACE inaugurated a new education and outreach initiative in 2004, formalizing existing offerings and adding a new program specifically for homeless youth in Hollywood, ArtWorks, which provides artist-led, hands-on artmaking workshops in partnership with social services organizations.
In 2005, LACE published new editions with artists Amy Adler, Jeff Burton, and the 2006 Whitney Biennial artist, Monica Majoli.
LACE began Civic Matters in 2006, an international residency and exchange program, bringing together curatorial teams with artists and collectives from Sweden, Finland and Los Angeles to explore the complex roles of art, craft, design, architecture, and community in contemporary society.
1999 - The exhibition Amy Adler Curates Joni Mitchell draws popular audience response and critical acclaim.
2000 - Renowned artist Matt Mullican presents new work at LACE, his first exhibition in Los Angeles in over 10 years.
2001 - LACE presents a major exhibition by artist Michael Brewster and publishes a catalogue with funding from the Fellows of Contemporary Art.
2002 - LACE presents "Democracy When? Activist Strategizing in Los Angeles", a project by Danish curator Tone O. Nielsen that brings together artists, activists, and community organizations from all over the city to explore challenges to activism, through displayed artworks and projects, weekly talks, and actions.
2003 - International artist Chris Burden, in collaboration with TK Architects, mounted the Small Skyscraper exhibition in LACE’s newly-renovated Rear Gallery to critical acclaim.
2004 - LACE mounts a retrospective exhibition of artist Yvonne Rainer and her 30-year career and engages in multiple cross-programming partnerships with The Getty, MoCA, and RedCat.
2005 - LACE partners with Nike to present the US premiere of "White Dunk," a touring exhibition featuring 26 renowned Japanese artists. 3000 visitors pass through LACE's galleries in just three weeks. LACE also exhibits the critically acclaimed "Marking Time," presented in collaboration with the Getty, that examines different ways artists have depicted time and its passage internationally from the 1960s to the present. Later LACE hosted the reunion of the seminal Los Angeles performance art collective, Shrimps, for three sold-out performances, their first time together in ten years.