“It’s not that what is past casts its light on what is present, or what is present its light on what is past, rather, image is that wherein what has been comes together in a flash with the now to form a constellation” —Walter Benjamin
The first version of Lost in the Stars I heard is the instrumental by Carla Bley and Phil Woods on Hal Wilner’s Kurt Weill tribute album. This album was my introduction to Kurt Weill and while I knew the band Bauhaus, it’s this album that got me on the path to the Weimar Republic and so many other important things.
Jacques Deval was a French playwright who collaborated with Kurt Weill on the play Marie Galante in 1934. It’s based on the novel of the same name written by Deval a few years earlier.
Deval came to Los Angeles in the late 1930’s, like many Europeans, to get away from the war and to earn some money in Hollywood.
Deval is listed in the 1940 census at 1401 Stone Canyon Road. By late 1952 he had moved out and my Grandparents, father and aunts had moved in. By 2010 the house had been torn down and the lot was absorbed by 1421.
This is as close as I get to Kurt Weill.
Martin Luther King Blvd used to be called Santa Barbara Avenue. It intersects with Figueroa in the Exposition Park neighborhood. Exposition Park is home to the Memorial Colisuem, the Natural History Museum, the Rose Garden and USC. The Rose Garden is where an agricultural fairground and market once stood and fronts the original location of the County Museum of Art before it moved to the Miracle Mile. My grandfather graduated from USC and later had a pharmacy at Santa Barbara and Figueroa, part of the Fox Figueroa Theater, with an adjoining apartment where he lived with his wife and their first two children. His parents and their two youngest children lived nearby; they all worked at the pharmacy. Dick Whittington lived close by, as did Jackson Pollock and Philip Guston. John Cage lived a few blocks south and Eric Dolphy lived a few blocks to the west. All of this happened over many years.
To get from Adorno to Brecht head south on Kenter, cross San Vicente staying on Bundy, right on Montana, left on 26th.
Henry Hancock (George’s father), a lawyer and surveyor, purchased Rancho La Brea after his client, the Rocha family, went bankrupt proving their claim to the property as required by the Land Act of 1851.
Hancock Park was acquired in 1916 by the County of Los Angeles through a donation by George Allen Hancock, after discoveries of prehistoric fossils were made in the early 1900s on what was Hancock Ranch. Recognizing the site as scientifically valuable, it was agreed that the County would develop the park as a scientific monument known as the La Brea Tar Pits. The newly named Natural History Museum (NHM) La Brea Tar Pits & Museum continues to administer the site’s paleontological research and education programs. Hancock Park is registered as a National Natural Landmark and California Historical Landmark No. 170.
In 1960, a portion of the land within Hancock Park was entrusted to the creation, development and maintenance of the LACMA Campus. Originally part of the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art, which opened in 1910 in Exposition Park, LACMA was established in 1961 as a separate, art-focused institution.
Bio
Born 1969, Los Angeles.
1987 – 1995: Studied Photography at San Francisco State University, San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), Intermedia and Photography, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design (NSCAD) and Photography and Critical Writing, California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).
EXHIBITIONS/AWARDS
2008
MoCA Bake Sale, Los Angeles, CA
Action/Performance with Angie Lee consisting of various baked goods and confections representing items from the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art sold on the sidewalk.
2004
Antai Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Photographs – Group Show
Postartum, Long Beach, CA
Girlfriends, Wives & Lovers.
Photographs– Group Show
London Street Projects, Los Angeles, CA
Photographs – Group Show
2003
Recipient of an Avery Adventure in China travel grant, traveled throughout China photographing Classical Gardens
1998
Austellungsraum, Frankfurt, Germany
Photographs of empty lots in Los Angeles
2-person show with Angie Lee
1997
Lecturer in Photography, UCLA
1996
Etwas besseres als den Tod findest du überall, Frankfurt, Germany.
Curated by Thomas Erdelmeir, Brigitte Franzen and Manfred Schneider.
A set of photographs with unrelated text – Group Show
Windegg, an installation of painted eggs and chicken wishbones followed by an Easter egg hunt.
Three Day Weekend, Los Angeles, CA
Made in collaboration with Angie Lee, Florian Haas and Martin Schmidl.
1995
“You Have the Eyes of a Stranger” an essay on Ralph Eugene Meatyard and Edgar Allen Poe, published in Camera Austria, issue 50
Three Day Weekend Takes an Extended Working Vacation, DiverseWorks, Houston, Texas
Three sets of three photographs depicting superstitions – Group Show
1994
Errant Bodies #2, Los Angeles, CA.
Essay and photographs of backyards in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Los Angeles
1993
The Los Angeles Festival: Crossing L.A
Documentary/Installation made with Diane Bromberg, Benjamin Craig, Josh Hartley, Laura Owens and Colin Zaug about the history and intersectional politics of the area surrounding the exhibition site.
1992
FAR Bazaar. The Old Federal Reserve Building, L.A., CA.
News World Order, exhibited New York Times book project – Group Show
FAR Bazaar. The Old Federal Reserve Building, L.A., CA.
On Location, collaborative project with Diane Bromberg, Tsia Carson, Benjamin Craig, Josh Hartley, Douglas Lloyd, Laura Owens and Colin Zaug. We phoned random people in the phone directory and asked what was their favorite place in Los Angeles, then photographed it. The installation consisted of a hand drawn map of Los Angeles on the floor, made with pages from the phone directory, and photographs of all the places placed around the map. – Group Show
Four (More) Years Of… Handmade books collecting all the photographs of the presidential candidates as published on the front page of the New York Times.
The Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies, Los Angeles, CA. – Group Show