This week: watch a documentary about a temple for human levitation on a mountain in China, celebrate gender fluidity at LA State Historic Park, stay up late enjoying art and music at the Music Center, create a personal map of Los Angeles, and see an artist’s sculptures made of rough and salvaged materials.
1) Built In, Chapter 3: Flying Monks Temple
As part of the BUILT-IN series, NAVEL presents the screening of “Flying Monks Temple” by Žanete Skarule, a creative documentary about the creation of The Shaolin Flying Monks Theatre located in the sacred Songshan mountain in China.
The film focuses on the complicated relationship of its creators, a young Latvian architect, Austris Mailitis, and a Chinese businessman, Quanqi Zhu, who navigate cultural differences, language barriers, conventions and personal ambitions to realize the most ambitious project of their lives: the world’s first structure for human levitation.
When: Thursday, July 26 at 7:30 pm
Where: NAVEL, 1611 S Hope St, Los Angeles, California 90015
Tickets: $5 sliding scale with a free baijiu drink. Get tickets here.
2) Freewaves Presents: Ain’t I A Womxn
Ain’t I A Womxn? is a genders promenade bringing together audiences, artists and activists to stretch gender expressions in new directions. Featuring twenty independent artists, such as Nao Bustamante and Jennifer Moon and ten art collectives, including KCHUNG and Las Fotos, the outdoor participatory event will unfold in Los Angeles State Historic Park next to Chinatown to explore intersectional identities under a full moon.
From an audio tunnel to voguing to group scream to the launch of the Zanja Madre Fan Club, participants will present performance art, spoken word, sonic art, media projections and zines. Aint I A Womxn? is the next phase of Dis..Miss, a public art series that investigates current artists’ and audiences’ views on gender. It is an evening of seeing, hearing, finding connections, and mingling. The event’s title refers to freed slave Sojourner Truth’s Ain’t I A Woman speech to an 1851 feminist convocation comparing respect afforded black versus white women and black women versus black men.
When: Saturday, July 28, 8 – 11 pm
Where: L.A. State Historic Park. Go Metro and take the Gold Line to Chinatown Station, then walk a quick five minutes to LA State Historic Park. Plan your best route using the Trip Planner below or call 323.GO.METRO
Tickets: Free. More information here.
3) SLEEPLESS|The Music Center After Hours Presents Free Radicals: Art + Science + Culture
Who says nothing good for you happens after midnight? When the princess turns into a pumpkin, all good things art and science converge at the Music Center After Hours. Free Radicals: Art + Science + Culture explores the intersection of art and science, taking you on a magical mystery tour of music, sci-fi, VR, molecular gastronomy, light refraction, anatomy, field recordings, techno-beats and identity art. You just may have more energy when you go home than when you arrive. Detailed line ups and more information here.
When: Friday, July 27, 11:30 pm – 3 am
Where: The Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Tickets: $20 in advance / $30 at the door. You can get tickets here starting Monday July 23.
4) A Personal Cartography of Los Angeles: A Memory Workshop
A map can show us where everything is, but can it also show us what is really there? Main Museum artist-in-residence Beatriz Cortez, along with Yansi Perez, Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature at Carleton College, will lead a workshop where participants are invited to create a map of Los Angeles using their own subjective experiences of the city.
This event is part of a larger project by Perez on the construction of memory in the City of Los Angeles by Central American immigrants titled “Los Angeles: A Cartography of Material Memory of the Central America Diaspora.” This workshop is in English and Spanish, and open to all.
When: Sunday, July 29, 2 – 4 pm
Where: Main Museum, 114 W. 4th St., Los Angeles, CA 90013
Tickets: Free. More information here.
5) Artist Talk: Sharon Louise Barnes
Sharon Louise Barnes uses rough and salvaged materials, such as roofing paper, conduit, and plywood, in her paintings and sculptures to explore “subjects of marginalization, social class and willpower.”
“By using industrial materials that might normally be held in a laborer’s hands, as well as an array of discarded materials that can be found on city streets, my abstract works are both conceptual and aesthetic,” explains Barnes.
Barnes is an American artist of African American and Cape Verdean descent, and draws inspiration from the artists of the Black Arts Movement. She will speak about her solo exhibition, “Process and Materials” at Band of Vices Art Gallery. The show features over a dozen new abstract sculptures and multimedia works on canvas.
When: Saturday, July 28 from 4-6 pm
Where: Band of Vices Art Gallery, 5376 W. Adams Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90016
Tickets: Free. More information here.