LA LA LAND

B+B, David Blamey, Kathrin Böhm, Jaime Gili, Liam Gillick, Lothar Götz, Anthony Gross, Ronan McCrea, Amy Plant and Jeanne van Heeswijk (Valley Vibes)
Curated by Paul O’Neill

Project commissioned Paul O’Neill to curate the exhibition ‘La La Land‘ which brought together a range of international contemporary practice. La La Land was an exhibition without a theme, a show about being out of it, beyond the exhibition as a unifying structure.

I’m going down to La la land
I hope to see you soon in La la land
I got to find a way to fill the space in time
I got to find a way to fill the space in time…
La la land
Is where I need to be
La la land
Is the place that, oh, sets me free*

La La Land was an exhibition without a theme, a show about being out of it, beyond the exhibition as a unifying structure. The works have there own internal logic and where selected not for their similarities but for their differences so that each takes on a particular role within the spectrum of the whole. While they are situated in the gallery and carefully designed for the different planes of the space, they exit the white cube by consciously referring to an elsewhere.

FLOOR
Liam Gillick’s ‘Discussion Island Preparation Zone‘ consisted of a mixture of glitter, vodka and water used to wash down the gallery space in preparation for the exhibition. It conjured up the atmosphere of déclassé glamour and sociability of a disco.

WALLS
Ronan McCrea’s temporary street architecture ‘Hoarding‘ was placed into the white cube and became the replacement wall for Jaime Gili’s selection of artists’ fly-posters. Lothar Götz’s bright geometric wall paintings mimic the ambitious scale of public murals; and the array of pin heads stuck into David Blamey’s mounted ‘Celestial Notice Boards‘ read like the starry sky at night.

CEILING
Meanwhile up above, the ceiling was turned into an area of free form pattern and decoration by Kathrin Böhm’s pasted up posters. From her on-going project ‘millions and millions‘, Böhm select posters from her enormous archive of prints to produce a slight intervention in the gallery that is both pictorial collage and spatial transformation.

ARCHIVE
Other works in the exhibition exit the space via the detailed cataloguing of an ‘elsewhere’ that forms the subject of archive. So, the curatorial duo, B&B, presented an extensive compendium of practice, a cumulative library of artist material displayed within an unusual structure. Valley Vibes, a recording and broadcasting device conceived by Jeanna van Heeswijk, operated by Amy Plant and containing years of audio material, was be available in the gallery potentially to perform both functions.

FILMS
Nearby Anthony Gross’s animated films are virtualised dystopic narratives, produced using 3D game software and digital props purchased from on-line communities.

*Selected lyrics from ‘La La Land‘ by Green Velvet