August 6 is our innagural Society of Interested Persons Salon

As a new programming feature here at the museum we are going to host a bi-monthly salon which will begin August 6 at 8:00. Each salon will feature 4 presenters: a visual artist, a musician/band, a literary reader curated by the awesome Nikki Darling, and a lecturer. Each presenter will be given 15 minutes to present and answer any questions the audeince might have. This is a great opportunity to be exposed to art, literature, music, and other disciplines or information that you were not exposed to before. It is free.

Our presenters this month will be:

Los Angeles abstract painter/sculptor Andy Kolar (http://www.carlberggallery/ for more images).

Orange County musician Barrett Johnson (www.myspace.com/barrettjohnson and Portland OR based musician Annie Bethancourt (www.myspace.com/anniebethancourt) will play a set together.

Kate Wolf is a fiction writer and journalist. She is the recipient ofa 2008 MFA in writing from the California Institute of the Arts. Hernonfiction has appeared in the LA Weekly, Swingset Magazine, Bidoun,and Dossier Journal. She currently lives on Mt. Washington in LosAngeles where she is at work on a collection of short stories.

And prominent Los Angeles based art collector Judith Spence (http://www.spence.net/) will give us a lecture about her work on the psychology of thinking about art.

Please come and join us for this casual and stimulating evening out on the sculpture deck here at the Torrance Art Museum.

FIIIIIIIIIIIIIILM NIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!!! July 17th.

Yes folks, it is that time of month again. This month the film night will be held in our outside sculpture garden and snowcones, popcorn, and soda's will be served. Bring a lawn chair, a blanket, and some friends and watch some video art with us under the Torrance stars.

Los Angeles artist and curator Kristi Lippire presents "Narration, Animation, Provocation. Video Screening Pt. 2", which brings us a group of video pieces by artists from Los Angeles and New York, who make killer work and have shown extensively nationally and internationally.

The artists include:

Timothy Hutchings www.timothyhutchings.com

Stephanie Hutin www.stephaniehutin.com

Jennifer Levonian www.jenniferlevonian.com

Julie Orser www.julieorser.com

Kelly Sears www.kellysears.com

and Jennifer the Leopard www.myspace.com/jennifertheleopard

We are very excited to see what she has in store for us.

Kristi has shown her work at D.E.N. Contemporary, ACE Gallery, Raid Projects, and recently had a solo show at the Riverside Art Museum.

Doors open at 8 and of course it's free.

Jaime Scholnick installation shots

Here are installation shots from Jaime Scholnick, who was the last featured artist of our 12 Gauge series. This summer the galleries will be occupied by the work of local artists groups with the exception of Museum programming so stay tuned for more announcments.

Susan Collis to be 2010 Armory Show commisioned artist

Susan Collis, who will have a show at TAM in gallery 2 next spring has just been announced the Armory Show's commisioned artist for 2010. Collis joins past commissionee's such as Mary Heilmann, John Wesley, John Waters, and many more who are invited to create a small edition work for one of the most important art fairs in the world.

Collis' work turns every day mundane objects into spectacular moments of beauty. The above pictured pieces are comprised of coral, black onyx, 18 carrot white gold, diamond, silver, opals, turqoise, garnets, seed pearls, mother of pearls, fresh water pearl, marcacite, and of course, a wooden broom.

To see more work by Collis, visit http://www.seventeengallery.com/ who represents her work in London.

The Society of Interested Persons Salon @ TAM welcomes Nikki Darling as our literary curator

Beginning on August 6th TAM will host a bi-monthly salon where we will invite a visual artist, a literary person, a lecturer, and a musician/band to present their work to us, the interested persons. These evening will be hosted out on our patio, under the setting sun. I will announce our participants as the event draws nearer, but TAM is excited to have as our Salon literary curator, Nikki Darling.

Nikki Darling's work explores rock and roll from the feminist
perspective. Using pop as a microcosm of how women are treated in a
larger context her writing attempts to expose inequalities in
expectation and product.
She hosts the Five Points reading at Workspace Gallery in Lincoln
Heights with Kate Wolf.
http://www.workspace2601.com/five-points-readings/
http://www.workspace2601.com/five-points-readings/
She is currently enrolled in the Cal Art's, Critical Studies
department where she is working toward her MFA in writing. She works
on staff at Black Clock, the Cal Arts literary journal and is the
former Interviews Editor at LA Record. She currently works on staff in
the LA Weekly music department.

Nikki will choose the reader for the evening and will be a welcome addition to the TAM team.

This weeks final 12 Gauger: Jaime Scholnick

TAM is proud to present Los Angeles artist Jaime Scholnick in our final week of our 12 Gauge series. The exhibition will run from June 25-June 27, 11-5P, with a reception and artists talk on Saturday afternoon. For more information of Jaime's work visit http://www.anglesgallery.com/.

Film night @ TAM

The first Art House/Art Garden film night, which I will note, did not happen in our garden this time, went off splendidly on Friday. Lee Lynch and Doug Harvey brought their killer installation and film and performance of "Ned's Draw" which really made the crowd go wild. It was funny, interactive, and included a lot of interesting objects that provoked many audience questions. It was a true account of an old California legend of the last remnents of Natives that held out in Northern California, and an ambiguously gay bounty hunter who eventually gets killed by his servant Ned. "Passing", which Doug brought, by English artists Eric Wright & Cathy Ward, was visually haunting 8mm footage of Vegas and other Western outpost towns, and the narration by L.M. Kit Carson added to the tone of the piece.

And Spencer Douglas and Gustavo Herrera (pictured above) gave a small introduction before screening their stop motion piece, "Buffalo Mierde" which was also a definate crowd pleaser. Our next installment will be held, this time in our sculpture garden, on July 17th. More details to come.