UNEASY ANGEL / IMAGINE LOS ANGELES Artists from Los Angeles addressing intersections between reality and fiction
Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers, Munich and Sprüth Magers Projekte, Munich
curated by Johannes Fricke Waldthausen
"Once Upon a time there were the mass media, and they were wicked, of course, and there was a guilty party. Then there were the virtuous voices that accused the criminals. And Art (ah, what Luck!) offered alternatives, for those who were not prisoners of the mass media. Well, it‘s all over. We have to start again from the beginning, asking one another what´s going on" Umberto Eco: The Multiplication of the Media, in: Travels in Hyperreality, 1986.
The thematic exhibition Uneasy Angel / Imagine Los Angeles juxtaposes works by contemporary artists, writers and filmmakers of several generations living and working in Los Angeles. Focussing on intersections between fiction and reality and following Umberto Eco’s and Jean Beaudrillard´s notion of hyperreality, Uneasy Angel / Imagine Los Angeles considers Los Angeles as hyper real place with unclear boundaries, tracing an underlying code to the city’s topography. No matter whether original, authentic duplicate, copy or imitation; in the Los Angeles landscape, there seems no cultural distinction between the authentic, the reproduction and the falsehood.
A characteristic of this place is that the notion of historical reality is absolutely democratized: fictional environments seem to be a cultural foundation where both, originals and copies serve as historical reference points. Being a global hub and epicentre of the international media and entertainment industry, the logic of coexisting domains defines both the myth and the concrete reality of Los Angeles. What then might it mean to address the cultural production of this multi-layered city?
The exhibition Uneasy Angel / Imagine Los Angeles will take place at both galleries in Munich: Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers, Munich and Sprueth Magers Projekte, Munich.
