Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE)

LACE is pleased to present GUTTED: LACE’S ANNUAL WINTER BENEFIT. This year, LACE has teamed up with Los Angeles-based curator Dino Dinco, who brings his own passions and experience to this annual fundraising event. Inspired by Los Angeles’ history of performance art and LACE’s role as an open platform for artistic expression, Dinco has reached out to a range of artists, both established and emerging, to present an unrestrained evening of contemporary performance.

GUTTED showcases a daring ensemble of live performance, texts and objects speaking of, from and to the body. With a roster of creative talent spanning thirty years of live performance, GUTTED illustrates an array of ways artists have addressed the human form, spanning issues of domesticity and labor, AIDS, race, social activism, queerness, straightness, bodybuilding, body destruction, fantasy & grotesquerie.  

Participating artists include: Benjamin Weissman, Raquel Gutierrez, Xuanito Carlos Espinoza Cuellar, Sheree Rose, Monica Duncan, Alice Cunt, Lucas Michael, Elle Mehrmand and Micha Cardenas/Azdel Slade, Marcus Civin, Ryan Heffington, Dawn Kasper, Rafael Esparza, Gronk, Oscar "Sister Mantos" Santos, Josseline Black, Brian Getnick/THE BALLET, Hi Fashion $9.99, Julie Tolentino and Pigpen, Taisha Ciara Paggett, Heather Cassils, Mariel Carranza, Dorian Wood, Samuel Vasquez, Bela Messex, Juan Martin del Campo Jr., and Joseph Shahadi.

The impetus for GUTTED stems from my love for performance as well as my ongoing interest in the work of French philosopher and social critic Jean-Luc Nancy, particularly his work Corpus.  In this work, Nancy articulates that there is no ontology of the body, but rather, the body is ontology itself.  The body is a familiar subject of discourse in the arts, as we have and will always already work from the body.  A body of work.  A body of knowledge. Through Nancy, I view LACE – the space – as a body that will fill with bodies, where the ongoing conversation about our / their / your bodies will continue. –Dino Dinco

All proceeds benefit LACE programs.

JULIE TOLENTINO creates intimate movement-based installations involving solo, time-based performances, sculptural endurance events and audio soundscapes. She has worked and toured with David Rousseve/REALITY Dance Theater, Ron Athey, Ibrahim Quarishi, Helen Paris and Leslie Hill, Margarita Guergue, Amy Pivar, Ori Flomin and others. She is currently touring the following live works internationally: CRY OF LOVE-A Labyrinth; THE SKY REMAINS THE SAME-The Archive Project; and A TRUE STORY ABOUT TWO PEOPLE (a 24-hour performance). She is also currently building an off-grid home and artists' space in Joshua Tree and is the co-director of PRAXIS MOHAVE BOOTCAMP for Performance Artists.
http://web.mac.com/thejulietolentino/Tolentino_Projects/Welcome.html

SAMUEL VASQUEZ currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He received his undergraduate degree from UCLA and attended the Independent Arts Research Program at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (2004-2005). Vasquez’s work explores temporal experiences that investigate into the unconsciousness and absurdities of everyday life. He has exhibited his performatance works and film projects nationally at Conflux City, New York; The Company Gallery, Los Angeles; Highways Performance Space, Los Angeles; Homoagogo, San Francisco; and Rosa Centro de Arte/Medios, Mexicali, among others.
www.samuelvasquezstudio.com

BENJAMIN WEISSMAN is the author of two books of fiction, most recently Headless. His writing about art, books and skiing have appeared in Freize, Freeze, Artforum, Parkett, and the L.A. Times. Weissman also curates New American Writing at the UCLA Hammer Museum and teaches a variety of literary courses at Art Center College of Design and Otis Collage of Art.
Read his work on LA Times: http://articles.latimes.com/2007/aug/19/books/bk-weissman19.

DORIAN WOOD is an artist/singer/composer who is born in Echo Park. His debut album, BOLKA (Bulgarian for “pain”) brought forth his songwriting and vocal strengths in a whirlwind of horns, harps, accordions and a Bulgarian women’s choir. His live performances are equally epic: from street corners to concert halls in Los Angeles, New York, Mexico and the UK, Dorian is often accompanied by several-to-all members of the avant-garde orchestra, Killsonic (of which he is also a vocalist, composer and accordionist). Additionally, Dorian has curated several cultural events: the folk music festivals ORGANIKA I and ORGANIKA II; KILLSONIC PRESENTS, an ongoing monthly series presenting debuted works by those within (and without) the Killsonic collective; and the upcoming REPULSIONS: CELEBRATING 55 YEARS OF CINEMA". Dorian's most recent recording, Black Pig Suite, is a 4-song EP, and everyone will die of a horrible, inescapable plague.
www.dorianwood.com

ABOUT THE CURATOR

DINO DINCO was raised by a family of fighting chickens in rural Pennsylvania before moving to Los Angeles as a child. He is a photographer, filmmaker and artist. His photographic work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions in Paris (2005, 2001), Los Angeles (2001), and San Francisco (2009, 2004), as well as in group shows in London, Paris, Antwerp, Hasselt (Belgium), New York and Hamburg. Selections from his series “Chico” were featured at Salon Paris Photo at The Louvre, Paris (2001 - 2002). His work has appeared in publications such as surface (US), i-D (UK), Dutch (France), Revista Espacio (Mexico), V (US), Vogue Brasil (Brazil), Tokion (Japan), BIG (US), Studio Voice (Japan), Zoo (France) and BUTT (Holland). His short film, “El Abuelo,” premiered at the Tate Modern in London, May 2008, and has since screened at the 2008 Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival and the 2008 Three Rivers Film Festival, where it won in the Top 3 in the Short Film Competition.
www.dinodinco.com


Drinks will be provided by Bear Flag.