Women in the City is a viral public art exhibition throughout the streets of Los Angeles that starts today. Timed to coincide with the opening of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Women in the City is on view at over 50 locations from Venice Beach to Pasadena. The project activates the relationship between art and the urban experience while investigating trends in consumerism and the language of popular culture.
The work of four seminal women artists, who began to emerge on the international art scene at the beginning of the ’80s within the feminist movement, will penetrate the urban and social geography of the city. Art21 artists Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger, along with Louise Lawler and Cindy Sherman, disseminate their work in various locations in on-the-road billboards, video screens, storefronts, a movie theater and even propagation through widely distributed stickers.
Today, Women in the City debuts Barbara Kruger’s new video Plenty (2008). The work appropriates advertisements and stereotypes commenting on consumerism. Presented on a temporary video billboard at LACMA, Plenty screens daily on continuous loop through mid-March. It is also presented on video billboards on the Sunset Strip, across from the Hyatt Hotel (8410 Sunset Boulevard) and at the Key Club (9039 Sunset Boulevard), where it is screened daily and fragmented between advertisements.
Because of its developing areas, its unique sprawl, and the diverse cultures that inhabit it, contemporary Los Angeles serves as a site for the recontextualization of Jenny Holzer’s political language within the social framework of the city. Beginning tomorrow, Holzer‚Äôs Inflammatory Essays (1979-82/2008) will be dispersed in both English and Spanish throughout all areas of the city. Posters will be placed in storefronts, alongside advertisement billboards, and in pedestrian areas. Her famous Truisms (1977-79/2008) occupy citywide LED screens, banners, and marquees. The Survival Series (1983-85/2008) is a set of aggressive phrases meant to propel the passive viewer into an act of questioning. They are distributed as stickers throughout Los Angeles clubs, shops, and will also be inserted into the LA Weekly on February 14.
Barbara Kruger’s Plenty video billboard sites
- Top tier of LACMA West, visible from Fairfax Ave at 6th St.
- 8410 W. Sunset (opposite Hyatt Hotel), West Hollywood
- 9039 Sunset Blvd (Key Club), West Hollywood
Jenny Holzer works
Inflammatory Essays:
- Posters in Silver Lake, Melrose, Hollywood, and Venice Beach
- Posters at construction sites in the City of Pasadena
- Posters at the Standard Hotel Downtown, 550 S. Flower at 6th Street
- Stickers in the LA Weekly. Coming out February 14, 2008
- (with Survival Series): Theaters, clubs, concert venues, retail stores, music stores, hotels, metro stations, and cafes
Truisms:
- Zipscreen at Hollywood Blvd and Highland Avenue
- Jumbotron at Hollywood & Highland Plaza
- Marquee at the Roosevelt Hotel, 7000 Hollywood Blvd, LA (Hollywood Blvd and N. Orange Dr.)
See videos of Holzer‚Äôs and Kruger‚Äôs installations on the project’s YouTube page here.