COURTNEYMALICK

9800 S. Sepulveda Blvd. Los Angeles

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

9800

Presented by 501(c)(3) Foundation

October 29 - November 15, 2015 

9800 transforms the entirety of the vacant, historically emblematic 9800 S. Sepulveda building into a generative space of multiple exhibitions and events, all of which take the particular location as their orienting force, their impetus. The show, massive in scale, is neither a biennial, symposium nor performance space, but somewhere in between, perhaps more in the realm of the experimental, temperamental, fleeting, emerging.

Six curators, each occupying a different floor of the building, will present the work of nearly 100 artists from over 15 countries, many works having been created specifically for this exhibition. Each curator has been tasked with maintaining a sensitivity to the (past) functions of the building, to consider the site not only at a contextual, historical or microscopic level, but also through a rich and dense scale of connectivity. By way of various means, material, layers, or strata, constellations of ideas and levels of enframement, the goal at hand has been to create a heterogeneous set of discourses activated by this particular site, all of which bear witness to the question of how can we experiment with or theorize different rates of connectivity on different chronological scales, in different parts of the world, all the while informed by a conception of the global in terms of its unevenness and ungraspability.

CURATORIAL DIVISIONS

If I Did It

Curated by J. Shyan Rahimi (Bank Floor and Basement)

Taking its title from OJ Simpson’s hypothetical confessional and revolving around ideas of deception, J. Shyan Rahimi’s show, If I Did It explores notions of entrapment, mystification, subterfuge, and acts to propagate certain beliefs. These include types of communication that serve to distort or veil, such as propaganda, counterfeiting, distraction, camouflage, or concealment. Treating the bank as a sort of operative mask that conceals certain ulterior motives and the basement as the darker, more vulnerable underbelly where all is unveiled and intentions are complicated, Rahimi considers the tension between these two floors, between what is seen and what remains hidden. Of a more kitsch or frivolous aesthetic, works in the bank recall the sovereignty of finance or the spectacle of Los Angeles and question the motives driving our manipulations. Underneath the bank in the underground basement are works that expose what lies beneath the masks, that which is kept concealed or has been forgotten.

Artists: Sarah Abu Abdallah, Brandon Andrew, AYR, York Chang, Zoe Crosher, Matthew Doyle, Encyclopedia Inc., Khalid Al Gharaballi + Fatima Al Qadiri, Anne Grauso, Brandon Drew Holmesitem, idemkukuchu, Natalie Labriola, Rachel Lord, Ren Macdonald, Todd McQuade, Nicolas Miller, Sean Monahan, Chris Moukarbel Rasmus Myrup, Simone C. Niquille Blaine O’Neill, Riley O’Neill, Carlye Packer, Sean Raspet, Doug RickardThomas James, Emily Jane Rosen, Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal, Mario Santizo, Laura Schawelka, Petra Szilagyi,Jeffrey Stuker, Abdi Taslimi, Witness 360 + Fitch + Trecartin Studio, Bruno Zhu

STAGE 2

Curated by Courtney Malick (2nd floor)

Entering this building is a time warp, a rabbit hole, a maze-like nightmare of activated sorts. Malick’s STAGE 2 attempts to simulate or at least accelerate just that type of pull – the shift in one's consciousness that takes place as the lights dim in the movie theater, the pensive slippage of one’s life into the vast screen ahead. STAGE 2 implores visitors to suspend their disbelief. Within that kind of mystified headspace, the exhibition aims to disorient viewers with works that punctuate the naturally occurring austerity of the building's uncanny interior.

STAGE 2 also includes a satellite, site-specific sound installation by sound artist and filmmaker, Matthew Doyle, that takes place on the roof deck of the 9800 and will involve several scheduled performances. 

Artists: Derek Paul Boyle, Zoe Crosher, Matthew Doyle, Joshua Hagler, Samantha Blake Goodman, Jos McKain, Mitra Saboury, Jasper Spicero, Jessica Williams, Yemenwed

IMAGES:

PLAYTIME

Curated by Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou (4th Floor)

Reading the building as a playful labyrinth, Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou asked each of their invited artists to create an invention, game, experiment, instruction, or non-classified activity invoking the mental labyrinths meticulously built by writers such as Raymond Roussel, Georges Perec or Jorge Luis Borges and by Jacques Tati in his 1967 film, Playtime.

Artists: Anna-Sophie Berger, Body by Body, Francisco Cordero, Oceguera Adam Cruces, Kate Durbin, Oscar Enberg, Olivia Erlanger, Cédric Fargues, Louisa Gagliard, item idem, Nik Jaffe & Luke Frith,-powell, Mattew Linde, Sam Lip, pTobias Madison, Emanuele Marcucci, oLuis Miguel Bendana, Joseph Mosconi, Mohamed Namou, Christian Odlham, Sarah Ortmeyer, Lydia Ourahmane, Emilie Pitoiset, Puppies Puppies, Phillip Reitsam, Martin Reynolds, Andrew Robert , Hodgson Halvor, RonningFabio Santacroce, Anna Solal, Jasper Spicero, Sstmrt, Philipp Timischl & Min Yoon Sinae, Yoo Seyoung Yoon

A Gateway to Tomorrow

Curated by Mara Mckevitt (5th Floor)

Without having set foot in the space, artists from Los Angeles, New York, Paris, and London have been assigned individual cubicles on the fifth floor of 9800 Sepulveda Blvd. Based on images of each room and a description of the space, every artist has been asked to submit a proposal via voice memo or voicemail explaining how they would approach the space: what they might fill it with, what they might do in it, or what they might do to it. This is an exercise in an effort to trap the plan, and stew in the phase of the creative process where we get sick on our own fantasy. Each artist's recording will be played on a loop in their respective rooms during the exhibition, creating a sound installation of different plans and possibilities.

Artists: Dylan Corbett, Grace Denis, Violet Denison, Rachel Libeskind, Brendan Lynch, Win McCarthy, Ian Markell, Felix Melia, Theo Mercier, Austin Meredith, Jane Moseley, Brandon Ndife, Daniel Peterson, Sara Powell, Bennet Schlesinger, Audrey Snyder, Gus Thompson

Inherent Risk

Curated by Ana Iwataki and Marion Vasseur Raluy (6th Floor)

...I walked from my house in Atwater Village to the beach the other day. I got up at 4 am and it took me 11 hours. 18 miles there. 18 miles back. Encountering more and more humanity as the day and I progressed. Letting people and germs and smells and sounds encroach in a way that hardly ever happens any more here.

Risking the proximity of strangers. Rather than a blur of rooftops and palm trees and graffiti from the freeway to be sped through as quickly as possible, neighborhoods are counted with steps and blocks and the sun hot as fuck moving overhead. You can smell someone’s perfume or sweat, rather than have quick glimpses of a parallel life being led by the person one car over.

Tell me sweet nothings. It’ll get me where I need to go...

Artists: Brian Scott Campbell, Corentin Cannesson, Rachel LaBine, Michael Parker, Louise Sartor

LAND

Curated by Mebrak Tareke (7th Floor)

Los Angeles is an urban sprawl that has seen an influx of people trying to enter the United States through Mexico. With so much dismal media coverage on the ‘migrant’ crisis in the Mediterranean, these stories have become stifling. Meanwhile, those affected have rarely been given the opportunity to re-imagine their future. By curating three lightweight space-blanket-shrines that are intercepted with poignant neon light (Brandon Andrew) and field recordings of water (Jacob Kirkegaard), Mebrak Tareke uses LAND to help us imagine a more transgressive experience of movement by human beings. Treating the building and its history as an emblem of the endless obsession with what might or could be, Tareke constructs the narrative of a new, boundless migrant, one that parachutes into the future to transcend the shackles of squalor.

Artists: Brandon Andrew, Jacob Kirkegaard + others

Instagram @9800sepulveda

For further information contact: 501c3foundation@gmail.com

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ABOUT 

9800 is the inaugural exhibition of the 501(c)(3) Foundation, a non-profit organization set to commission, curate and produce projects and works by contemporary artists across mediums, in a range of different sites and situations started by J. Shyan Rahimi. Examining site-specificity as a complex relationship between location and identity, context and production, progress and ruination, the Foundation seeks, without prescription, to present unexpected, unrepeatable forms of artistic activity beyond the parameters of convention.

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BRIEF HISTORY OF 9800 S. SEPULVEDA

Designed by the prominent LA-based architect Welton Becket, noted for his jet age-themed buildings, this commercial structure was once active as the financial headquarters for Ford Motors at the height of the U.S. automotive industry. It also served as a branch of the California Federal Bank at the emergence of Los Angeles as a multi-billion dollar international economy. In more recent history, it has been used as a Hollywood filming location, an LAPD special operations/ shooting range, and a host for transient individuals. It is the only structure other than The Encounter to be built under Becket’s “Los Angeles Jet Age Terminal Construction Project.”The publicized motto of the project was, “A Gateway to Tomorrow.”

Press:

LA Times

Hyperallergic

Art Viewer