LOS ANGELES — stARTup Art Fair will present its third Los Angeles edition opening on Friday, Jan. 26, with a new location at The Kinney Hotel – Venice Beach. The fair will run through Sunday, Jan. 28, with a kickoff celebration on the opening night from 7 to 10 p.m. featuring hotel room exhibitions, performance art and music.
Fifty-two hotel rooms and the entire hotel grounds will be transformed by 67 independent artists into a contemporary art experience. In addition to its core programming stARTup Art Fair is also host to a parallel program of performance, installation, panel discussions and video work woven throughout the hotel. At every turn, viewers gain access to an intimate experience with art. In addition, stARTup will be providing a free shuttle to Santa Monica Art Studios and Art Contemporary Los Angeles all weekend.
stARTup Art Fair kicks off with an inclusive opening night celebration that is open to anyone who purchases a general admission ticket on Friday. This year stARTup presents DJ Panda Bear engaging performance art, cocktails and food.
In room 232 veteran exhibitor Mikey Kelly will create a floor-to-ceiling installation out of 30 honeycomb cardboard panels. Each panel is made by taking a two-word affirmation, running it through a Vigenère cipher to create a numerical program that directs the angle for each painted line. Room 207 artist Matthew Floriani will show his large-scale homes with a continued examination of the ways in which humans use shelters to create a sense of order out of chaos and grapple with the illusion of control. Addressing the gendered complexity of our current moment, Dana DeKalb and Jane Fisher, both figurative painters, will show portraits of first wives from around the world to contemplate line between complicity and coercion. In addition, Fisher will exhibit two large-scale paintings of muscle men as an homage to the iconic Venice Beach subculture.
Saturday evening at stARTup will celebrate featured artist Parker Day with a book signing and evening event hosted by Ariel Brickman with sounds by Senay Kenfe of Boiler Room. Day will transform one of the hotel suites into a freaky art paradise that brings audiences into the sets of her recent series ICONS, a portrait-based exploration of identity and masks. Through vibrant colors and rich textures, Day presents her body of work within a site-specific installation that differentiates from traditional all-white exhibition spaces.
Guta Galli performs The Minotaur and Us, a 3-hour durational performance that activates the main research in her art practice within the public context of the fair. The monumental red yarn entity she works with carries the memories, hair, blood and sweat of 30 different performances and 31 different women, including herself. Friday noon-3 and 7-10 pm. Friday afternoon presents Daniel T. Gaitor-Lomack uses the outside space as a platform for a continuing conceptual performance installation where he will be embodying cultural legacies while turning conversation into ceremony. To Be Held begins Friday, Jan 26, 5 p.m. Former stARTup exhibitor Doni Silver Simons performs In Transit, which takes place on the shuttle that transports visitors between Art Contemporary Los Angeles and stARTup Art Fair throughout the weekend. Transit memorializes movement, time and duration.
Video works will be on view over the course of the fair including Italy-based Ilaria Bochicchio’s Who Run the World, a highly personal take on the contemporary moment through video montage. Repeat stARTup exhibitor Jenifer Yeuroukis presents deconstructing through manifestation one, a work about the complexity and subjective nature of words and their power to expand and restrict notions of the female body and identity.
General admission is $20 or $15 in advance.
For more information visit www.startupartfair.com .