West Hollywood

As an outsider to Los Angeles, what does one imagine in reference to the word ‘Hollywood’? Pictures of rolling hills where America’s dreams are manufactured. In contrast to this insipid description, the artists presented in West Hollywood reconsider the relationship between perceived fantasy and personal experience. Candid images of the city’s landscape are paired with objects of intimate encounters. The works challenge the understanding of the city as a producer of spectacles, subverting the dominant legacy of its urban mythology.        

While Hollywood seeks to perpetuate itself eternally, its physical geography attests to a deeper uncertain future. The impending cataclysm of the ‘Big One’ is a metaphor for the toppling of previously held cultural systems of power. Underneath the veneer of a superficial wonderland that rests between dystopia and utopia, Los Angeles is a rhizomatic suburban metropolis — one that instructs the non-hierarchal structure of its cultural production. 

‘LA sprawls:
Gangs, cars, palm trees, beaches, strip malls, 7-11s, smog, beaches,
Secret hideaways in the hills above sunset,

There are four square blocks downtown, around Los Angeles Blvd. and 4th
That are nothing but crack addicts.

Hollywood is an idea.
I want to get into the thick of it.

Movies won’t be around forever.’

-James Franco (excerpt from “Los Angeles Proverb”)

PRESS:
"Overview: Los Angeles Reflections," Art in America. 
"purple ART," PURPLE.FR. 

Artists:
Lauren Alice Avery, Coley Brown, Aria Dean, Cali Thornhill DeWitt, Clare Gillen, Rob Kulisek, Jim Mangan

Contributors for FAULTS organized by Aria Dean:
Nicolas Bermeo & Jon Weisburst, Hannah Black, Brandon Drew Holmes, Encyclopedia Inc., Nikita Gale, Nilo Goldfarb
Jos Howard Demme, Jasmine Nyende, Bogosi Sekhukhuni, Casey Silverstein