Jose Dávila: Sense of Place

Please join LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division), Jose Dávila and Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA on Saturday, September 16, 2017 from 2–5pm in celebrating the opening of Sense of Place, a public art exhibition at West Hollywood Park. To celebrate the opening reception, artist Jose Dávila and Shamim M. Momin, Director/Curator of LAND, will be on site and available for questions. Free ice cream will be provided by Carmela Ice Cream Co. The six ton concrete sculpture will be on view to the public in the park from sunrise to sunset through November 2017 when it will begin to disassemble into 40 individual sculpture pieces and then journey throughout the city to be reinstalled in approximately 20 different public sites. Public programming will be announced throughout the exhibition to celebrate the sculpture’s migration.

LAND has commissioned Guadalajara-based artist Jose Dávila to create Sense of Place, a multi-site, large-scale, public sculpture exhibition migrating through, and integrating into, the diverse urban landscape of Los Angeles to draw a portrait of the city’s many experiences, geographies and histories. Sense of Place was derived from Davila’s “Joint Effort” sculpture series which expands the concepts of balance and equilibrium using basic construction materials such as concrete blocks and stones.

In continuation of this exploration, Sense of Place consists of a seven-foot nine-inch square cube sculpture comprised of 40 unique concrete conjunctional forms. Initially installed in West Hollywood Park, over the course of nine months the sculpture will slowly disassemble its various pieces, migrating to far reaching locales of the city such as landmarks, significant architectural sites, community hubs, shopping malls, bus stops, etc., taking on different functional forms at each location. In this sense the pieces become a social platform promoting interaction with the public, who will ultimately decide on the final function of the artwork.

Sense of Place is built in six layers and will transition in three movements in November, January and March, positioning the modular pieces in their temporary surroundings for a period of two to six months, after which the piece will reassemble in West Hollywood Park. As part of the first movement in November 2017, the sculpture pieces will migrate to the Brand Library and Art Center (Glendale), Plummer Park (West Hollywood), Grand Central Market (Downtown LA), the Fitzpatrick Leland House at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture (Hollywood Hills), Langer’s Delicatessen-Restaurant (Westlake), and the Santa Monica Pier (Santa Monica). Sites for the second and third movements will be announced in the upcoming months. In its final iteration, the sculpture will return to its original whole cube re-installed at West Hollywood Park in May 2018, holding its travel histories in its reunited form. Sense of Place is Dávila’s largest public undertaking to date and his first major exhibition in Los Angeles.

LAND will present various programs throughout the run of the exhibition, including screenings, panel discussion, and performances, all created in collaboration with the sculpture host sites and inspired by the surrounding community. A post-exhibition catalogue will document the various stages of transformation and include 20 thematic essays by different Mexican and Los Angeles-based authors.
 

About Jose Dávila
Guadalajara-based artist Jose Dávila (b. 1974) creates sculptures, installations, collages, and photographic works that use reproduction, homage, and imitation as a means to explore and dismantle the legacies of twentieth century avant-garde art and architecture. A self-taught artist, with a heightened interest in Western culture and art history, Dávila plays with elements of modernist architecture and art in his artistic practice. Using different reproduction strategies, Dávila’s work references artists and architects ranging from Luis Barragán and Mathias Goeritz to Donald Judd, and explores how the modernist movement has been translated, appropriated, and reinvented in the current discourse of contemporary art. Dávila’s interest in Modernist architecture and use of everyday materials to create sculptures and installations evokes a sense of familiarity for the viewer. Most recently, Dávila has shown a particular interest in the occupation of space through gestures of social practice inspired by public structures which allude to the evolution of urban landscapes.

About LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) 
Established in 2009, LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) is a non-profit organization dedicated to curating site-specific public art exhibitions. Through commissions of site-specific works with national and international contemporary artists, collaborations with art institutions and organizations, and a wide variety of programming, LAND supports dynamic and untraditional artistic practices. Large-scale, multi-site, multi-artist and monographic exhibitions as well as one night ephemeral performances and durational events are all part of LAND’s programming repertoire. LAND believes that everyone deserves the opportunity to experience innovative contemporary art in their day-to-day lives. In turn, artists deserve the opportunity to realize projects, otherwise unsupported, at unique sites in the public realm.

About Pacific Standard Time
Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA is a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles taking place from September 2017 through January 2018. Led by the Getty, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA is a collaboration of arts institutions across Southern California. Through a series of thematically linked exhibitions and programs, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA highlights different aspects of Latin American and Latino art from the ancient world to the present day. With topics such as luxury arts in the pre-Columbian Americas, 20th century Afro- Brazilian art, alternative spaces in Mexico City, and boundary-crossing practices of Latino artists, exhibitions range from monographic studies of individual artists to broad surveys that cut across numerous countries. Supported by more than USD 16 million in grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA involves more than 70 cultural institutions from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, and from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor is Bank of America. 

Major support for this exhibition is provided through grants by:
The Getty Foundation; Grupo Napresa; The Offield Family Foundation

Additional support for this exhibition is provided by:
VIA Art Fund; The City of West Hollywood; Los Angeles Country Arts Commission; Artist Sponsor Maurice Marciano; Artist Sponsor Brenda R. Potter; LAND Nomadic Council