The premiere episode of Artbound features the pop art of Coachella Valley artists the Date Farmers, the world of Muslim American fashion, an exploration of the Morongo Desert's "jackrabbit" homesteads, the history of steel houses in Palm Springs, and a musical performance by Cut Chemist.
This episode of "Artbound" features artwork inspired by the life and death of Kelly Thomas, an exhibition of origami influenced by scientific and mathematical techniques, a collaborative art project done by day laborers, Steve Roden's quixotic video art, Riverside's Tio's Tacos' folk art, and a musical performance by Lila Downs.
This episode of "Artbound" features Danny Heller's modern midcentury paintings, Tanya Aguiñiga's "performance crafting," Shari Elf's Joshua Tree gallery of art from discarded and found objects, an all-women artist performance collective from Santa Ana, Olga Koumoundouros' occupation of foreclosed homes with art, and a musical performance by D. Lee Waggoner.
Artbound showcases a draw-in at the 29 Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, an investigation into the music of the California Missions, the progressive fashion of Victor Wilde, Michael Miller's L.A. Hip-Hop Photography, and a musical performance by Carly Ritter.
Artbound features the portrait work of bi-cultural artist Shizu Saldamando who uses her portraits to explore a specific subculture of Los Angeles, Nery Gabriel Lemus' artwork inspired by his experiences as a social worker and his experiences encountering domestic abuse, the history of L.A's street art culture featuring a history of the Melrose graffiti scene that blossomed in the late 1980s.
Artbound features a collaborative project by artist Alexandra Grant and philosopher Hélène Cixous where visitors are invited to paint and draw on the walls of a gallery what they imagine as they encounter Cixous’ work Philippines, visual art inspired by the realities of the U.S. prison system, from reflections on landscapes to intimate portraits of inmates, a community radio station, and more.
Artbound's one-hour special looks at Lauren Bon and the Metabolic Studio's "AgH2O" project, which connects the elements mined from the Owens Valley, silver and water, to the emergence of the film industry. Silver mined from the Owens Valley was shipped to Rochester, New York, where it was used to make film.
Songs in the Key of L.A. is a multi-platform collaboration between the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Public Library, and USC professor Josh Kun that brings to life the Library's extraordinary Southern California Sheet Music Collection. Consisting of pieces that range from the 1840s through the 1950s, the Collection offers a singular portrait of Los Angeles history.
Chicano Batman is an East L.A.-based four-piece band that fuses funk, R&B, Latin soul, bossa nova, psychedelia and pop. Hear the range of their grooves and see its response from a multicultural audience, from grab-the-one-you-love slow jams to allegro samba interludes and cumbia breakdowns. They played that feel-good music we all want to hear at a good party.
This episode features Paul Turounet, a photographer whose site-specific photographic retablo-like portraits explore the various migrants found traveling along the U.S.-Mexico Border. Then Artbound visits the Watts Towers to catch up on how scientists and community activists are seeking to preserve the Towers against the elements. Artbound reflects on Gary Baseman's mid-career retrospective.
In this episode Artbound provides an exclusive look at the avant-garde opera, "Invisible Cities." Then, Artbound explores Ted Meyer's "Scarred for Life" art project, which has helped individuals accept and even embrace their scars. In East L.A., Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre's mobile "Duck Truck" brings site-specific performances to the East LA Civic Center for a unique performance.
Artbound presents a one hour special focused on the avant-garde opera, "Invisible Cities." Produced by The Industry, L.A.'s experimental opera company, in partnership with the L.A. Dance Project, "Invisible Cities" depicts the meeting between emperor Kublai Khan at the end of his life and the explorer Marco Polo, as told in Italo Calvino's fantastical book.
In this episode, Artbound heads to San Bernardino to explore the tubular sandbagging construction techniques of the California Institute of Earth Architecture, whose handmade structures are redefining sustainable housing. In Boyle Heights, the group Public Matters’ Market Makeover project is addressing the "grocery gap" in "food deserts," areas that have limited access to quality, healthy food.
Machine Project recently invited and filmed over 20 artists to create performances that respond to notable architectural sites throughout Los Angeles, collectively creating The Machine Project Field Guide to L.A. Architecture. The project was part of the larger Getty initiative, Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L. A., celebrating California’s modern architectural heritage.
In this episode, Artbound investigates arts practices from communities East of Los Angeles, venturing from Lincoln Heights to San Bernardino. Meet the group Metralleta de Oro, who specialize in Sonidero, a sub-genre of the Mexican cumbia in Lincoln Heights. In Boyle Heights, the group Public Matters’ Market Makeover project addresses the “grocery gap” in food deserts.
Artbound presents an hour-long special featuring short, vibrant videos from MOCAtv, the art video channel developed as a digital extension of the education and exhibition programming of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA). Featuring an eclectic mix of videos profiling artworks like Barry Le Va's "Shatterscatter" and prolific artists such as Sterling Ruby, Nan Goldin, and more.
"Artbound" travels with Lauren Bon and the Metabolic Studio as they perform "One Hundred Mules Walking the Los Angeles Aqueduct," a commemorative artist action to reconnect Los Angeles to its water supply by walking the entire 240-mile route of the Los Angeles Aqueduct with a team of 100 hundred mules. The action marked the 100-year anniversary of the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct.
Artbound’s fifth season kicks off with an exciting collaboration with MOCAtv, featuring all original pieces including Wildflowering L.A., a Los Angeles county-wide public initiative by artist Fritz Haeg; a performance art video featuring the movement group WIFE; painter John Knuth’s unusual practice of getting flies to “paint” on canvas; and more.
To commemorate KCET's 50th anniversary, "Artbound" dives into the vaults to uncover groundbreaking arts programming that aired during the 1980s and 1990s, featuring land art from environmental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Lita Albuquerque, and Rachel Rosenthal.
Artbound visits Kathy Kobayashi who discusses the Shades of L.A. photography archive at the Downtown L.A. Library, which explores community based photos illuminating diversity in Southern California. Then, Ana Serrano shows us her cardboard-constructed pieces based on her cultural explorations around Los Angeles. Next, we travel to Mexicali Rose, an artist organization in Mexicali.
To commemorate KCET's 50th anniversary, Artbound dives into the vaults to uncover groundbreaking arts programming that aired during the 1980s and 1990s. In this episode, host Mary Woronov, a former "Warhol superstar," reflects on the cultural discourse of the Los Angeles arts scene of the 60s, and how it contributed to a renewed cultural arts movement in the 90s.
In this episode of Artbound, we visit the Zorthian Ranch artist community in Altadena. We also view some of the current art installations at LAX airport. Micol Hebron confronts gender inequality in the art world through her project Gallery Tally. Alan Nakagawa gives an eclectic musical performance utilizing ambient sounds collected from the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and the Watts Towers in L.A.
Artbound digs into the KCET vaults to uncover a gem from the early 1970s. Iconoclast writer and poet Charles Bukowski reads from his work to a live audience. Also featuring candid behind the scenes footage.
Artbound explores Social Practice arts, featuring: Olga Koumoundouros' occupation of foreclosed homes in Los Angeles; The Workers' Rug/La Alfombra Del Trabajador, an art project by day laborers, organizers affiliated with IDEPSCA, artist Katie Bachler, and Jade Thacker, and the Craft and Folk Art Museum; Public Matters’ Market Makeover project addressing the "grocery gap" in "food deserts."
Artbound travels to Southern California’s desert regions. Featuring the landscape painting and video art of visual artist Diane Best whose work personifies the creative spirit found throughout the Joshua Tree region; the Coachella artists the Date Farmers who infuse abstract expressionism with a politically charged, pop culture update; a draw-in with Hillary Mushkin’s Incendiary Traces and more.
Artbound explores the paintings of Marc Trujillo who brings the techniques of the Dutch Masters to the subject of commercial architecture and fast-food in Southern California; Kim Stringfellow’ s Mojave Project discovering the eclectic desert communities of the Mojave Desert; Dave Lefner’s colored wood block prints of neon signs in Los Angeles; and the subculture of Brazilian cholos.
Artbound explores art along the U.S.-Mexico border. Featuring Mexicali Rose, an artist organization in Mexicali, where locals are encouraged to create art to galvanize community involvement; Drones as art, where multiple projects re-appropriating military drones play with the idea of surveillance and mobility; Paul Turounet’s photographs of undocumented border-crossers printed on galvanized metal.
Artbound explores the architectural past and present in Southern California. Featuring Danny Heller’s paintings of mid-century modern architecture in Palm Springs; the superadobe construction techniques of Cal-Earth whose experimental designs are challenging the ubiquitous cookie-cutter suburban communities in the urbanized southwestern Mojave Desert and more.
A series of short documentary films in partnership with USC Libraries profiles four "L.A. as Subject" collectors who have obsessively focused on a narrow slice of Southern California history. Featuring Carol Wells, Founder of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics; David Boule, private collector and author of "The Orange and the Dream of California," and more.
An Artbound special episode on the Otis Report on the Creative Economy: Using key data from the newest issue of the report, the documentary explores the vibrant network of creativity in Southern California, examining how creative businesses are investing in community building and driving economic activity in Boyle Heights; the network of industries involved in the denim manufacturing; and more.
This "Artbound" special episode, in partnership with MOCAtv, features The Museum of Contemporary Art's current programming, including an Elaine Sturtevant retrospective and exhibition "William Pope.L's Trinket." The episode also features Martine Syms, Jeffrey Vallance, Jasmin Shokrian, and music videos by Devin Kenny and Teengirl Fantasy.
A new framework for black diasporic art production is taking shape in contemporary Los Angeles. This documentary profiles 5 emerging artists whose work explores the intersection of race, class, identity, and aesthetics.
Artbound explores the Museum of Contemporary Arts’ permanent collection and contemporary exhibitions, including works by George Herms and Betye Saar, the Abstract Expressionist collection with works by Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline, the works of Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Gabriel Orozco, Senga Nengudi, and a look at the museum s current exhibition.
Artbound explores art created amidst social upheaval, including artists Andrea Bowers and Noe Gaytan, whose work engages with the struggle for wage equity and unionization; the desert assemblage sculptures of Noah Purifoy, whose practice was transformed by the Watts Rebellion; Michael Maltzan's Star Apartments, a unique approach to addressing homelessness; and the muralism of artist El Mac.
Artbound celebrates Black History Month with a special episode featuring the work of African American artists in Southern California, including the assemblage sculptures of Noah Purifoy; William Pope.L's large-scale installation "Trinket;" Candacy Taylor's photography; a collection of images by African-American photographers; and Aloe Blacc's cover of "When The Girl You Love Lives in California."
In this new season, Artbound travels back to pre-industrial Los Angeles to explore one of its key and most controversial figures – Charles Lummis. Writer and editor of the LA Times, avid collector and preservationist, Indian rights activist, and founder of LA’s first museum, – The Southwest – Lummis’s genius and idiosyncratic personality captured the ethos of an era and a region.
The highly skilled labor of artisans migrating from Mexico and Latin America are the backbone of high-end design and retail in Los Angeles, producing some of the most exquisite furniture, textiles, and design goods. Artbound uncovers their stories and their role in making Los Angeles and Southern California the creative capital of the world.
U.S. Marine Sergeant Christian Ellis was a machine gunner in Iraq, whose platoon was ambushed, leaving him with a broken back and only one of a few survivors. Ellis returned home to join millions of Americans who struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder and inspired the first opera about the Iraq war -- "Fallujah" -- a production by the Long Beach Opera.
Artbound explores the programming of the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, investigating new programming and curatorial approaches that are redefining what it means to be a 21st century museum. This episode features three new programs by The Underground Museum, Wolvesmouth, and Public Fiction.
Architectural critic Christopher Hawthorne partners with Artbound to look at the future of Los Angeles by examining its architecture, urban planning, transportation and changing demographics, giving us a glimpse of Los Angeles as a model of urban renewal for the nation and the world.
Artbound explores the groundbreaking opera Hopscotch, which unfolded in cars throughout Los Angeles, telling a single story of a disappearance across time. Audiences experienced the work in both the intimacy of a car, where artists and audiences shared a confined space, or in a larger central hub, where all the journeys were live streamed to create a dizzying panorama of life in Los Angeles.
An Artbound special episode in partnership with the Grand Central Art Center. “Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch’s Accuser” considers the usage of “female Hysteria” throughout the decades in operatic form. Vireo is the brainchild of long-time collaborators, composer Lisa Bielawa and librettist Erik Ehn.
During his time spent in Southern California in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Frank Lloyd Wright accelerated the search for L.A.'s authentic architecture that was suitable to the city's culture and landscape. Writer/Director Chris Hawthorne, architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times, explores the houses the legendary architect built in Los Angeles. The documentary also delves into the critic's provocative theory that these homes were also a means of artistic catharsis for Wright, who was recovering from a violent tragic episode in his life.
The vast, strange, sometimes contradictory world of the urban desert and its people are explored in 11 public art exhibits and their respective locations scattered throughout Coachella Valley. Art includes Will Boone’s “Monument,” an underground bunker off Ramon Road in Rancho Mirage and Phillip K. Smith III’s “Circle of Land and Sky” in Palm Desert. Desert X is a site-specific biennial exhibition that first took place in the spring of 2017 where artists from different parts of the world were invited to create work in response to the unique conditions of the Coachella Valley.
This episode profiles prominent artist Doug Aitken who for more than 20 years has shifted the perception and location of images and narratives. His multichannel video installations, sculptures, photographs, publications, happenings and architectural works demonstrate the nature and structure of our ever-mobile, ever-changing, image-based contemporary condition. In his newest piece, “Underwater Pavilions,” he creates a conversation with the viewer to become fully present and immersed in the sea. The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA housed the exhibit “Doug Aitken: Electric Earth” in 2016 that ran through 2017.
This look at Los Angeles’ Olvera Street is part-history lesson and part-immersion in stereotype of the birthplace of Los Angeles. Emmy® award-winning journalist, author and musician Rubén Martínez, explores the sometimes-violent, 200-year struggle for the political and symbolic control of the city as told in “Variedades” — an interdisciplinary performance series that brings together music, spoken word, theater, comedy and the visual arts, loosely based on the Mexican vaudeville shows of early-20th century Los Angeles.
In East Los Angeles during the late 1960s and 1970s, a group of young activists used creative tools like writing and photography as a means for community organizing, providing a platform for the Chicano Movement in the form of the bilingual newspaper/magazine La Raza. In the process, the young activists became artists themselves and articulated a visual language that shed light on the daily life, concerns and struggles of the Mexican-American experience in Southern California and provided a voice to the Chicano Rights Movement.
Throughout its history, the natural beauty of California has inspired artists from around the world from 19th-century plein air painting of pastoral valleys and coasts to early 20th-century photography of the wilderness (embodied famously in the work of Ansel Adams) and the birth of the light and space movement in the 1960s. Today, as artists continue to engage with California’s environment, they echo and critique earlier art practices that represent nature in “The Golden State” in a particular way. Featuring artists Richard Misrach and Hillary Mushkin.
This episode profiles four California artists who make motherhood a part of their art: Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Andrea Chung, Rebecca Campbell and Tanya Aguiñiga. There's a persisting assumption in contemporary art circles that you can't be a good artist and good mother both. But these artists are working to shatter this cliché, juggling demands of career and family and finding inspiring ways to explore the maternal in their art.
Native American basketry has long been viewed as a community craft, yet the artistic quality and value of these baskets are on par with other fine art. Now Native peoples across the country are revitalizing basketry traditions and the country looks to California as a leader in basket weaving revitalization. There has been a revival in traditional basket weaving, thanks to the work of the California Indian Basketweavers Association (CIBA), which was founded in 1992 under the slogan “keeping the tradition alive.” This episode was made in partnership with the Autry Museum of the American West and CIBA.
From the iconic typeface of “The Godfather” book cover to Herman Miller’s Noguchi table, the influence of Japanese American artists and designers in postwar American art and design is unparalleled. While this second generation of Japanese American artists have been celebrated in various publications and exhibitions with their iconic work, less-discussed are the effects of the WWII incarceration.
"Artbound" looks at the dinnerware of Heath Ceramics and a design that has stood the test of time since the company began in the late 1940’s. Through the writings of Edith Heath, the founder and designer of Heath Ceramics and voiced by renowned chef Nancy Silverton, this episode explores the groundbreaking work of a woman who created a classic of American design.
Día de los Muertos has been adapted for centuries from its pre-colonial roots to the popular depictions in mass media today. Inspired by Oaxacan traditions, it was brought to East Los Angeles in the 1970’s as a way to enrich and reclaim Chicano identity through a small celebration at Self Help Graphics and Art. Since then, the celebration has grown in proportions with renditions enacted globally.
Gospel music would not be what it is today if not for the impact left by Los Angeles in the late 60’s and early 70’s, a time defined by political movements across the country. Artists like James Cleveland and Aretha Franklin captured live recordings of the church experience of South Central and the voices and sentiment of the people coming together to give birth to a new gospel sound.
The charming, unusual and at times polarizing Jeffrey Deitch left Los Angeles in 2013 after a tumultuous run as the director of MOCA ending in his resignation. He makes his return with a new gallery opening with the first LA exhibit of renowned Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei. A behind-the-scenes look at the contemporary art world through the eyes of a legendary art dealer and curator.
In a world filled with noise, distractions and chaos, a number of artists seek to push the boundaries of perception and experience. The Light and Space movement of the 1960s explored minimalism with a uniquely Californian spin — with a keen attention to the interaction of light and space.
Growing up amongst jazz legends within the deep musical traditions of Leimert Park, drummer Mekala Session and his peers grapple with how to preserve this rich legacy—striving to carry forward the tenets that took root in the work of Horace Tapscott and his Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra. This is the story of Los Angeles’ emerging generation of community-focused black musicians.
This 2019 L.A.-wide exhibition of public art and events based around the theme of food. Each artist interpreted a different aspect or issue surrounding food or food systems in the city. Activating public parks throughout the city, artists created works to spark conversation about what it means to live in Los Angeles and how to work together for a sustainable and hopeful future.
The Watts Towers Arts Center was founded by artists and educators in the 1960s and has been a beacon of art and culture in the community for decades. This episode features the work of artists including Noah Purifoy, John Outterbridge, Betye Saar, Charles White and Mark Steven Greenfield.
A pioneer of Chicano rock 'n' roll, Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara recounts his life in music, performance art and activism — from his time as lead singer of the doo-wop band The Apollo Brothers, his collaborations with Frank Zappa and Cheech Marin, and his crossover into the Chicano performance art world of the 1960s and 1970s — all of which shaped Mexican American culture.
Renowned ceramist and educator Helen Jean Taylor has not only crafted timeless artworks inspired by colors found in home gardens, but also helped her students improve their mental health through the art of throwing clay.
See how the opera "Sweet Land" recasts the origin story of the United States through the eyes of Native Americans and immigrants.
The desert is both a place and idea. Learn how the recurring site-specific, international art exhibition "Desert X" in 2021 explored issues such as land ownership, water scarcity and overlooked histories. Desert X includes newly commissioned works by 12 participating artists from eight countries.
Southern California's Autry Museum of the American West is working to recontextualize a large mural, dating from the Disney Imagineers-designed museum's opening in the 1980s. The mural depicts a widely accepted mythology of the West.
See how a roving LGBTQ night club event in Los Angeles called “Mustache Mondays” became a creative incubator for today’s leading edge contemporary artists. This film examines the history of these spaces and how they shaped the Queer cultural fabric unique to Southern California.
In 1981, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez wrote "Love and Rockets #1," a self-published comic book edited by their brother Mario. They sold that first issue at conventions for a dollar apiece and submitted it to be reviewed at The Comics Journal. Instead, Gary Groth, offered to republish it through Fantagaphics Books. The brothers accepted and made graphic novel publishing history.
In 1963, Marcel Duchamp, considered by many to be the father of conceptual art, held his first-ever career retrospective in Los Angeles. The exhibition’s opening night became a defining moment for generations of artists who would go on to revolutionize the contemporary art world.
Latinx artists have been taking center stage at international art fairs, high-end art galleries, and established museums. This episode follows noted artists rafa esparza, Beatriz Cortez, Patrick Martinez, Guadalupe Rosales, Gabriella Sanchez and Gabriela Ruiz working in Los Angeles, exploring notions of identity, language, immigration, queerness, religious and Aztec iconography, and capitalism.
When FDR created the New Deal, also known as the Works Progress Administration (WPA), as a way to provide paying jobs to millions of unemployed Americans recovering from The Great Depression. Over 140 projects were completed by the WPA in Los Angeles. This episode highlights many of these works still standing and asks the question what would a WPA look like if it still existed today.
Giant Robot was a bimonthly magazine that created an appetite for Asian and Asian American pop culture, exploring Sawtelle Boulevard as a Japanese American enclave. Founded in 1994 and driven by Eric Nakamura and Martin Wong, it resulted in a legacy of Asian American artists that achieved worldwide recognition such as David Choe and James Jean.
Since the early-80s, artist Rubén Ortiz-Torres has been working as a photographer, painter, sculptor, writer, filmmaker and video producer. Often associated with the development of a Mexican form of postmodernism, Ortiz-Torres's life is a collage that explores the social and aesthetic transformations related to cross-cultural exchange and globalization.
In the late 1970s, two Chinese restaurants became the unlikely epicenter of L.A.’s burgeoning punk scene. The emerging music form featured fast-paced songs and hard-edged melodies with anti-capitalist messaging. As told through interviews with John Doe (X), Alice Bag (The Bags), Keith Morris (Circle Jerks, Black Flag, OFF!), and Martin Wong (Save Music in Chinatown).
Mexican social realist painter David Alfaro Siqueiros created Olvera Street’s popular “América Tropical” mural introducing an innovative and unprecedented technique to muralism that required revolutionary techniques and materials. “America Tropical” is considered the most studied, white-washed mural in the United States, and in fact has inspired many contemporary muralists working today.
Following the Watts Uprising, UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television enacted affirmative action policies to increase enrollment of students of color in its film program—a group historically underrepresented in the student population. The “ethno-communications” initiative to recruit students from Black, Asian, Chicano and Native American communities became a movement known as "LA Rebellion."
Artists-In-Residence programs provide opportunities to artists like Céline Brunko, Christine Lee and Carol Zou to have time and space to create new work, engage with different communities and cultures while growing as artists and people. This film explores the meaning, value and experience of artist-in-residence programs, as seen through the first-person perspectives of three disparate artists.
Angel City Press has been a publisher of distinctly high-quality nonfiction books about Southern California for over 30 years. Founded in 1992 by wife-and-husband team Paddy Calistro and Scott McAuley, they shaped and influenced the public’s understanding and appreciation of Los Angeles, publishing award-winning books advocating for the region’s arts, architecture, food, music, and sports.
East West Players theatre company has been a home for Asian American artists such as George Takei, John Cho, Daniel Dae Kim, James Hong and many others featured in this documentary. Through candid conversations about the creative process, the film chronicles the 58-year history of the longest running ethnic theatre in the United States, founded 1965 by a group of rebellious Asian American actors.
