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LETTERS FROM LA AT THE LA ART SHOW

2,416 views · Published 12 January 2013 · 7:37 · Indexed 22 October 2026

Channel: ERIC MINH SWENSON ART FILMS · 2013 · Howto & Style

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Film by Eric Minh Swenson. Music by Sam Webster

The 2013 LA ART SHOW is proud to present its Special Featured Exhibition - a provocative and revelatory survey, "Letters from Los Angeles: Text in Southern California Art" curated by Jack Rutberg.
 
 The LA Art Show will present an expansive high-profile exhibition highlighting more than thirty LA artists who incorporate elements of words and letters in their work. Taking place January 23 -- 27, 2013 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Letters from Los Angeles: Text in Southern California Art focuses on LA's unique affiliation with typography. More than any other city in the world, Los Angeles is defined by text, from the legendary Hollywood sign to the logos of Beverly Hills, MGM, 20 Century Fox & Paramount studios, this city's identity has long been reflected in word. Conceived and curated by Jack Rutberg, in association with Aldis Browne, Letters from Los Angeles: Text in Southern California Art puts a spotlight on this unique aspect of L.A. art, and may well be the first time this theme is addressed in an art exhibition.
 
The artists featured in Letters from Los Angeles: Text in Southern California Art have used text in extraordinarily diverse ways: immortalizing L.A.'s signs, streets and gas stations, using comic book captions to convey dramatic angst, juxtaposing text with appropriated images, framing collages with wry observations and titles, employing the power of language to pose disquieting comments in conceptual works; surrealist re-configuring of old prints and clippings with snatches of verse and prose. The range of approaches is as individual as the artists themselves. The vast and diverse ways Southern California artists incorporate words, numerals and text into their compositions reflects an aesthetic that might be seen as a logical antecedent to the current spotlight on contemporary-graffiti and tattoo art.
 
Text in art in L.A., is generally regarded as having been most popularized by Edward Ruscha since the 1960s. This exhibition however, will also include the artist whose works in the 1960s were most ubiquitous on the scene - Corita Kent, who will be the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the Tang Museum at Skidmore College in New York, through the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation.
 
Quoting the Warhol Foundation: ".....Sister Corita, who achieved fame in the 1960s as a liberal activist artist nun, ...incorporated text borrowed from a wide variety of sources, from advertising to literature to scripture. ... their ingenious textual amalgams exhort viewers to create a better society, and mix secular and religious, pop culture and fine art, suffering and joy. As such they are a vibrant expression of the contradictions and enthusiasms of sixties culture.
 
Letters from Los Angeles: Text in Southern California Art will also be the subject of a panel discussion January 26, at noon, with Mark Steven Greenfield, Bruce Richards, Alexis Smith, moderated by Jack Rutberg
 
 For more info on Eric Minh Swenson or project inquiries visit his website : www.thuvanarts.com

ART FILM SERIES: www.thuvanarts.com/take1

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