ArtAttack in LA: 3 Favourite Shows from our Recent Visit to Lalaland

After two weeks being spoiled by the LA sunshine, ArtAttack is back in London and back on the blog! For those who haven’t traveled to the City of Angels lately, I’m happy to report that the art scene is booming. To give you an idea of the diversity and depth of LA’s art world, here are three of our favourite shows from this most recent visit.

1) Otis College of Art & Design, MA Graduate Show

As you’ve probably noticed already, uni shows are a soft spot for me. I find few things as exciting as discovering emerging talent, and school exhibitions are of course some of the best places to do so. This particular show took place in the Otis College graduate students’ own studios, so the vibe was casual — works in progress mingling with completed pieces, and tables filled with candy, food and drink lining the hallways. Like any show, I did not love everything I saw, but the thing is, the pieces that did stand out to me, are still at the forefront of my mind almost 2 weeks later — that’s definitely a testament to the talent in the room. Here are a few of these works:

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Pop Art Party at mumok, Vienna!

You know those artworks you always read about but are somewhat convinced you’ll never actually see in person, or in other words, to remix The Bard, that art that dreams are made of? For me two of those bucket list pieces are any colour of Andy Warhol‘s ‘Race Riot‘ and ‘Car Crash’ screenprints. Both works, as part of his series originally themed ‘Death in America,’ and now known as the ‘Death and Disaster’ paintings, are quite a bit more disturbing than the Marilyns, Liz Taylors, flowers and soup cans many of us have come to associate with the Pop Artist. The former depicts infamous police violence being inflicted on civil rights protestors in Birmingham, Alabama and the latter, a fateful car crash brought on by a Chicago car chase, in which the victim being pursued by police lost control of his car and died. (Fun fact, Silver Car Crash, the artist’s silver print of this series, holds the record for Warhol’s highest price at Auction, $105,000,000.)

Anyway, as I boarded my flight to Vienna last Wednesday for a two-day, post-birthday trip courtesy of my lovely boyfriend, in no reality was I expecting to see not one, but both of these great works during my visit. But then again, at the time, I didn’t yet know about ‘Ludwig Goes Pop.‘

Entrance to ‘Ludwig Goes Pop’ at mumok, Vienna. Note Andy Warhol’s ‘White Brillo Boxes’ (1964) and ‘Campbell’s Boxes’ (1964) through the glass.