Results tagged “bergamotstation”

By Gareen Darakjian, Special to LAist

     

As part of the opening weekend festivities for the Robert Berman Gallery’s Rock, Paper, Scissor exhibit, Bergamot Station hosted a benefit for the Santa Monica Museum of Art on Sunday, March 1. Where the exhibit focused on visual art by famous musicians (Daniel Johnston, the Butthole Surfers’ Gibby Haynes and most of Sonic Youth are among the contributors), the benefit turned the tables, featuring musical performances by some famous artists: Ron English and Raymond Pettibon, along with Pettibon’s pal and collaborator Mike Watt with his all-Pedro trio the Secondmen.

The Santa Monica Daily Press digs into city council minutes from 1989 finding that Bergamot Station, now a large art gallery complex and cultural center, was bought by the city of Santa Monica to be a future rail storage and maintenance yard for the Expo Line, which is now under construction in its first phase from downtown to Culver City. "Expo officials examined more than 40 sites from Downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica where the line is proposed to terminate, assessing properties such as Bergamot but opting against the station partly because of its identity as a cultural resource, said Monica Born, the project director for Expo Phase II," found the newspaper. Instead, Bergamot, which was originally a Red Line trolley stop beginning in 1875, is one of the proposed stops for the light rail's second phase.

If you want to do something else tonight besides the mind-numbing seventh season opener of American Idol, here are a few options:

Who is brave or foolish enough to go out tonight? No, seriously. Why do you want to leave the house? There are some things to do if you are so inclined (queue writer's raised eyebrow).

Have a taste for deliciously scary eye candy? Check out Christopher Ulrich's phantasmagorical paintings: Demoneater Series One in Santa Monica!

As a send off to photographer, Ann Summa's Los Angelesshow, bands/performers from the bad old days of early L.A. punk played in the gallery. Dude, it was both awesome and bitchin.

I almost didn’t go to see Ann Summa’s Los Angeles punk photo exhibition at Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica. No offense to the once, raw obscure photographers who happened to be at the right place at the right time 30 years ago, snapping amazing images of once, raw obscure bands. Your recognition is well past due. It’s just that there’s been a plethora of punk picture/art/flyer/book exhibitions in the past few years and I’ve seen most of them and on the night in question, I was running late from an earlier art opening and thought, “maybe I’ll just skip this one.” Thankfully, I came to my senses and hauled my lazy ass over to Bergamot Station. On the way in, I was greeted by the nostalgic sight of a drunk-off-her-butt teenager being half carried through the parking lot by friends. I took it as a sign from the gods of punk rock.

Saturday night the Copro Nason gallery hosted the Talking Board exhibit (more popularly known as Ouija boards - how do I do the little TM trademark symbol on this keyboard?). The show was held in Bergamot Station, a really cool grouping of galleries in Santa Monica, known for great art spaces (and great parties). The talking boards were unbelievable, even down to the creative pointers, which ran the gamut from a crow skull to a bloodied knife. I wanted to buy every single talking board there.

"Vive l'independance!" Sure, we just hoisted back a few brews, grilled up some meat eats, and set off our own rockets' red glare on the 4th of July, but for the French--or merely fans of--today is the day of celebration: Bastille Day, which commemorates France's national uprising and storming of the Bastille prison. (We love history, but we'd rather talk parties, so if you've an inquiring mind, hop on over here and we'll continue with...

Photo of an Altadena Sunset by sfPhotocraft via Flickr.

The Donnas, Kinky, Rooney, Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs, John Doe, Johnette Napolitano, Agent Orange, Josie Cotton, many others @ Bergamot Station

A couple of very cool local artists have an opening this weekend. You might recoginize his work from graffiti and stickers around Echo Park/Silver Lake as well as Spin Magazine, Vans shoes, the hallway at Little Joy and album covers for Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Get Up Kids, New Amsterdams, etc. You might recognize her work from album covers by the Silversun Pickups, Irving and/or hanging on the walls of the Mustard Seed in Los Feliz.

Dave, Mathias and Austin fight for the betterment of Los Angeles on a number of fronts. In addition to their work with the Fallen Fruit Project, the collaborators submitted a proposal for an Endless Orchard to the Grand Intervention Grand Avenue park design competition organized by the Norman Lear Project and the Los Angeles Times.

With promises of Italian food, wine and new works by everyone from Wim Wenders to Matthew Barney, we went to the opening of Dark Places at the Santa Monica Museum of Art on Friday. Open from now until April 22, the exhibit, curated by New York-based critic (and video art fan) Joshua Decter explores "the subtle interconnectedness between memory and social space - and the possibility that traces of events are scripted into the fabric of our physical and psycholgical environment." Whatever that means.

FRIDAY

The forty five works in different mediums by nineteen contemporary American artists interpret political and philosophical connections among people of color, pop culture, and urban life.

) is at LACMA through August 8. As described by the museum, this extensive exhibition "explores the complex process of mestizaje, or racial mixing, that has shaped life in the Americas." Works featured in the exhibition date back hundreds of years and yield fascinating insights about the construction of race. Quite relevant to current-day Los Angeles.