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PAST EVENTS 2014

Friday, March 28, 2014
at the Hyperion Tavern, doors at 7:30 pm
1941 Hyperion Avenue, LA CA 90027
Free. Cash bar.

The Unfinished
(an intermission with skits and face paint)

Whereupon the pharaoh Hatshepsut, the artist Michael Parker, and their respective obelisk laborers quit digging, compare notes, and let loose, ancient-style.


Last month we achieved time-travel between two artists from different centuries. Now we're turning the dials on our time machine to 11 to cleave open a multi-millennial wormhole for an inter-obelisk block party.

First, let's jump back 3500 years to the granite quarries of Aswan, Egypt. Hatshepsut runs a tight ship. As pharaoh, she commissions a record-breaking obelisk; a monument to divine powers and earthly engineering. Workers carve deep into bedrock, many moons pass, but one day a fissure appears across the 137-foot monument; the project is ditched, the obelisk left supine, the workers left heartbroken.

Meanwhile in 2014, Michael Parker (creator of the steam egg, cold storage, lineman) finds himself walking across the LA River and thinking of the complexity of present and historic power struggles. Wouldn't it be grand if we had our own horizontal monument? In a cosmic tumble of seeming impossibilities, forces align and suddenly he and friends are excavating a 137-foot obelisk into the asphalt alongside our concretized river.

Read about the creation of The Unfinished here and here.

Now to this week. While one can never complete a sculpture called The Unfinished, one can certainly celebrate the achievement of its unfinishing. Join us for a playful night of unfinished business with Michael Parker, Hatshepsut, re-enactment skits by The Unfinished Players, face painting, ancient beer, work songs, a screening of Sun Ra's Space is the Place, and the pharaonic beats of MC Hymnal. There will be cake.

Doors at 7:30
Face-painting all night
Performances start at 9.
A pre-Pills sunset walk at the site of The Unfinished is highly recommended.
(It's near the Tavern—map HERE.)


Photos from the event:

The cake.

Chris Wang and Wesley Hicks making things.

Papier mache accoutrements.

Photos of The Unfinished site by Alexis Chanes.

Obelisk and Alyse Emdur.

Brianna Allen and Jeanette Viveros.

MC Hymnal.

Egyptologist Maggie Geoga on Skype, telling the stories of the Festival of Drunkenness and Setna and the Mummies.

Skit: The Eloquent Peasant.

Skit: Hatshepsut Meets Michael Parker.

Skit: Hatshepsut Meets Michael Parker.

Skit: Bey Boss. Hey Boss.

Rehearsing The Eloquent Peasant.

.


The mini-mini-excavator.
Video from the event:

Egyptologist Maggie Geoga tells the story of the Festival of Drunkenness.

Maggie tells the story of Setna and the Mummies.

Ahsen Nadeem, Brianna Allen, and Wesley Hicks in the skit The Eloquent Peasant.

Nick Gaby, Matthew Williams, and Michael Parker in the skit Hey Boss. Hey Boss.

Amber Morse and Michael Parker in the skit Hatshepsut Meets Michael Parker.

Super Secret Late Skit B Sides.






Friday, February 28, 2014
Doors open at 7 p.m., program at 8:30 p.m.
Hyperion Tavern. Free. Cash bar.

Aunt Grace's Dirty Plates
The Discovery and Scrubbing of RJ Arnold's Lost Photographs

The artist Anthony Lepore breathes new life into a cache of salvaged plate-glass negatives.

Recently, an abandoned trove of over one thousand 19th-century plate-glass negatives was unearthed in Central California and turned over to the artist Anthony Lepore. As volunteers at the El Paso de Robles Historical Society engaged in a painstaking restoration, Lepore grew increasingly captivated by the mysterious photographer and his haunting subjects who seem as vividly present as they are gone. The few others who have seen the work have also been awestruck by its almost-breathing humanity. Little is known about the portraitist RJ Arnold, though certainly, had Lepore not intervened, a distinctive eye would remain forgotten. More than just a discovery, this is a time-travel story of one artist resuscitating the vision of another.

Join us at the Tavern for a unique installation and tour of RJ Arnold's glass plates presented and curated by the always electric Anthony Lepore.

Sepia sounds straight from the furnace by MC Hymnal.

Photos from the event:

The night's cake.

Installation of the glass-plate negatives within the law library.

Installation of the large-sized prints made from a selection of the negatives.



Michael Henry Hayden and Anthony Lepore installing negatives.



Deli waiting for the show.

Anthony tells the story of finding and restoring the collection.


A prime piece of cake.

Friday, January 24, 2014.
Doors open at 7 p.m., program at 8:30 p.m.
Hyperion Tavern. Free. Cash bar.



   Cameron Crone | David Gilbert | Samantha Roth

Cameron Crone, David Gilbert, and Samantha Roth have held regular meetings about humor and its influence on their work since 2012. For String Walks into a Bar the artists will trot out some of the findings of these sessions.

With MC Hymnal, to rock your four humors...

This night is presented in conjunction with the exhibition A Frayed Knot: Cameron Crone, David Gilbert, Samantha Roth, on view at Jancar Jones Gallery in Chinatown in Downtown Los Angeles from January 11 to February 15.



Cameron Crone, Scratcher A3, 2013

David Gilbert, Three-Way Mirror, 2012

Samantha Roth, Bad with Boundaries, 2014
Photos from the event:

Cameron Crone, reading his artist's statement backwards, which was recorded and played in reverse later in the evening.


Samantha Roth on "Doing it Wrong."


David Gilbert as drag puppets Mona Gemini and her sister, the poet Lisa Gemini, through a hole in the mens' room door.


Mona Gemini introducing Lisa Gemini.


MC Hymnal in the DJ booth.

The night's art cake.
Video from the event:

Cameron Crone reads his artist's statement backwards, Samantha Roth talks about "Doing it Wrong," and David Gilbert introduces us to Mona Gemini and her sister, poet Lisa Gemini (Gilbert's video is taken from rehearsals).


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