Summary

From September 1 - December 31 2005, the backroom occupied a space in Culver City, an area of Los Angeles that is undergoing rapid growth in the development of commercial galleries. The project was open weekly as an informal reading, meeting and viewing room, presenting an evolving line-up of contributions from artists as well as hosting one-time events.

#1

From Friday, September 2nd
Contributions by Olivier Debroise, William Jones, Jesse Lerner, Michelle O'Marah, Ari Marcopoulos, Miguel Ventura and Bruce Yonemoto. These include found photographs of Eisenstein in Mexico; documentation of The Smiths/Morissey fans in Southern California; a documentary from the 1950s on concepts of primitivism in relation to modern-day advancements; conceptions of revolution through Pamela Anderson Lee in Barb Wire and Huey P. Newton interviewed on Front Line; scanned images of personal items; a collection of official souvenir plates from the Yosemite National Park; news clippings on sex offenders and recordings of Hitler Youth marching songs.

#2

From Friday, September 16th
Contributions by Vince Fecteau, Sam Green, Mark Verabioff and Carl Michael von Hausswolff. These include archived pages from magazines; documents on forensic anthropology at burial sites; background research into large-scale utopian projects; 1980’s experimental videotapes featuring futuristic gazes on political life and contemporary urban environment; A compilation of tracks from Friedrich Jurgenson’s audio recordings of voices of the Dead.

Jesse Lerner - Ruins

From Jesse Lerner’s contribution Treasure of the sacred well (1961)

Saturday September 17th, 5PM
As an introduction to his contribution to the backroom, Independent filmmaker Jesse Lerner will present Ruins (1999), a fake documentary dealing with archival practice, historiography, Eurocentrism and forgery. Using footage, newsreel and animated sequences in a reading of Mexican pre-Columbian archeology, Ruins accounts for the manipulation of cultural artifacts from early excavation processes, through the biases of interpretation, to their display in major artistic institutions. The screening will be followed by a discussion.

Mark Verabioff - video screening

Still image from Max Almy’s Leaving the 20th Century

Saturday October 1st, 5PM
Los Angeles artist Mark Verabioff will be screening three videotapes from his private collection. The short program of single channel tapes are: Max Almy’s Leaving the 20th Century & Perfect Leader and Kathy Tanney’s Spin Off. While Tanney’s work employs conventions of mainstream film and television to create a site where TV fiction approaches private life, Almy’s videos portray critical realities of the century past, inquire about the possibilities of the future, and bring into question the subject of political image making.

#3

From Friday, October 7th
Contributions by Walead Beshty, Erlea Maneros and Paul Ramrez Jonas. These Include The 1968 Life Magazine issues; narratives on the living dead; Clippings and Photocopies of science fiction books, engravings and photographs depicting arcades, shopping malls and other urban ruins; an incident at the 2002 Daniel Buren show in Paris; post stamps commemorating space programs (1960s-1980s), featuring among other countries, Grenada, Haute-Volta, Nicaragua, Mongolia, Mozambique, Togo (None of these countries have a space program).

#4

From Friday, October 21st
Contributions by Dennis Crompton (Archigram), Kota Ezawa, David Hatcher, Stephen Kaltenbach and Thomas Lawson. These Include film footage from the Archigram archives that reveal the influence of technological advances, fairground culture and mass media imagery at a time of increasing social and political discontent in 1960s Great Britain; videos of anti-nuclear protests, the 1994 Intel World chess Grand Prix and a history of American Assassins; research into potential remixes of the history of photography; drawings by Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer and others sampled from printed pages of the philosophical canon; the unpublished manuscript of a pulp fiction novel; casts of hands; all the back issues of Real Life magazine (1979-92) and related correspondence, notes, unpublished texts and photographs.

#5

From Friday, November 4th
Contributions by Akasegawa Genpei (compiled by Reiko Tomii), Vaginal Davis, Henrik Plenge Jakobsen, and Julian Myers. These Include documentation of the Model 1000 Yen Note Incident (1963-74); a collection of queer 'zines from New York, Los Angeles, Toronto and Vancouver; research material on NASDAQ and the spectacle economy; a 1960’s proposal for a happening that was to be realized in three countries; and live recordings of audience 'interventions' at rock concerts.

Julian Myers - Riot Show

After the Guns n' Roses concert in Philadelphia, 1989

Saturday November 5th, 7pm
San Francisco-based writer and historian Julian Myers will present live recordings of moments in rock concerts when audience intervention forces the band to end the show. The presentation will include disrupted performances by Suicide, Morrissey, Public Image Ltd., and Guns n' Roses, and will incorporate brief descriptions of the circumstances and particularities of each event.

#6

From Friday, November 18th
Contributions by Anthony Auerbach, Adria Julia, Marko Lulic, John Menick and Tercerunquinto are accessible. These include a visual bibliography in the form of photographs of the spines of stored books; documentation of the transformation of the Basque Country cultural practices from Spain to Vernon, California; monuments and memorials in former Yugoslavia contrasted to its modernist architecture through an insight into the prestigious Haludovo Hotel (opened in 1971) which was co-financed by the publisher of Penthouse magazine; photographs tracking the decay of La Maladrerie, a housing project in the uprising Parisian suburb of Aubervilliers; sketches and architectural drawings made on a cafeteria’s table-mats produced during a series of meetings.

William Jones "Is it really so strange?"

Saturday November 19th, 5 pm
As an introduction to his contribution to the backroom, Los Angeles-based artist and filmmaker William Jones will present Is it really so strange? (2005). The film was initiated out of Jones’ surprise discovery that his passion for band The Smiths was shared by hundreds of teenage Latinos in southern California. What started off as a mission to document the scene around the LA club 'London is Dead', became a journey into the lives of the newest generation of Morrissey fans, meeting people through the fan website, at the annual Smiths and Morrissey Convention and the concerts of the tribute band, the Sweet and Tender Hooligans.

Marko Lulic / Hugo Hopping

Saturday November 26th, 5 pm

Marko Lulic
As an introduction to his contribution, Vienna based artist Marko Lulic will speak about his research into the former Yugoslavia’s monuments and memorials, as well as the development of its modernist architecture in relation to the West, making connections between ideology, architecture and public space.

Hugo Hopping: P.I.E. 100 Bakery Boxes
P.I.E is the first part of a series of exercises and actions that will constitute research into dormant economic, social, cultural and political forms. These events will be occurring throughout Los Angeles area over the next year.

Apple pie and coffee will be provided by the artist.