“Is there a line between architecture and art?” Sylvia Lavin, the influential architecture critic and scholar, asked Jimenez Lai, the architect-cum-artist, during a “Pillowtalk” reopening of his ongoing exhibit at Jai & Jai Gallery in Los Angeles. It’s a question that hovers over the rest of their open conversation, documented in videos posted below, as well as the show itself.
Beachside Lonelyhearts is the name of Lai’s immersive art installation, but it also encompasses what could be considered a durational performance or an architectural intervention. In fact, it’s a show that seems to inevitably precipitate such reflections about the status and relevance of genre distinctions – in no small part because of the distinction-defying oeuvres of both the artist and the gallery.
On the other hand, it’s an installation that has the capacity to grip you in its dizzying embrace, initiating a momentary lapse into a near-fugue state as you’re overcome by its byzantine array of black lines and shapes.
For the exhibition, the entirety of the gallery space was covered in white canvas. Over the course of several weeks, Lai drew careful architectural notations on every surface of the room. Scattered about are custom-stretched canvases that form an “archipelago of extruded shapes.”
On the show’s accompanying text, Beachside Lonelyhearts is described as “a story remembered incorrectly, with thought fragments scattered over the walls, floor and ceiling in a desperate attempt to piece back together the fondest and most idyllic sense of warmth.”
When the show opened almost two months ago, on May 9th, the walls were blank except for the extruded canvases. “It had an almost clinical feeling,” remembers Jomjai Srisomburananont, one of the gallery owners. During the busy opening, visitors had to put disposable covers over their shoes in order to preserve the immaculate white walls.
After this, Lai’s work began in force: a Michelangelesque feat that included drawing upside down. When he had finished this second round of work, the galley had a reopening for Beachside Lonelyhearts with the “Pillowtalk” conversation between Lavin and Lai.
Such additional programming is a proclivity of this small but ambitious gallery perched on the periphery of Chinatown. Dedicating to fostering rigorously experimental work, Jai & Jai provides an above-average amount of time to realizing their artists’ ambitions. Run by two sisters, the gallery is at the forefront of an emerging scene of young architects/artists actively pushing against the division of a backslash.
Actually (and in keeping with this spirit), Jai & Jai decided to keep the show open for another week so that more people could see its full state before the individual wall panels are sliced up. Don’t miss Beachside Lonelyhearts at Jai & Jai Gallery, open until July 18, 2015.
Jai & Jai Gallery is located at 648 N. Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA. For more information call 1 (818) 807-6098 or visit www.jainjai.com.
4 Comments
JL: I was interested in the idea that you can flip the building around and treat elevations like plans. Without gravity, all surfaces can be occupied as plans. In essence, the distinctions between orthographic drawings become obsolete.
from; Student Works: Jimenez Lai
Sylvia Lavin could read this Mason White interview with JL. She was trying to critique it as if piece of minimalist or conceptual art via Judd or Weiner, etc. Can I buy the quotation mark only?.. Perhaps semi successfully ejecting the physical space from the work.. Likening it to frameless object was a bit interesting a la Rosalind Krauss describing the Mondrian's grid way., except she never managed to bring it in. Maybe she is most interesting when launching a fully fragmented gambit at least she has got a good energetic tone and fantastic hand gestures.
I should go see it myself if it really rotates with all the narratives.
Agree with 18x32. Yawn.
Also "... thought fragments scattered over the walls, floor and ceiling in a desperate attempt to piece back together the fondest and most idyllic sense of warmth.”
If squiggly black marker on a bright white canvas gives you a sense of warmth, it's time to put down the sketchbook, get outside, and go to the park.
So Lai finished all the drawing(s) in two months, all done by hand? Just by him or with assistants?
Going to some of Sylvia's question it still isn't clear to me are just the canvases the art or also the walls/ceilings etc, for sale?
He convinced (subtly manipulated?) a bunch of academics and students to sit around on the floor of a white box covered in scribblings while discussing architecture... I am convinced Jiminez is undertaking a long-term trolling of the architecture profession. This is awesome and terrible and everything in between. Good for him.
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