![\"Don't-Look-Back-Install-75\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Dont-Look-Back-Install-75.jpg\")
Barbara Kruger, Untitled (It’s our pleasure to disgust you), 1991, courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Angeles, photo by Brian Forrest<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Barbara Kruger, Untitled (It’s our pleasure to disgust you), 1991, courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Angeles, photo by Brian Forrest<\/p>\n
The 1990s have been referred to as the \u201cgolden age of LA\u201d, an expression which was also in the title of lecture examining these years, organized by Z\u00f3calo Public Square and MOCA. In this decade\u2019s social issues galvanized people and artists to express discontent in a way that is yet to be seen again. However, recent developments might indicate that best years are yet to come. Los Angeles today is a magnet for artists and galleries. However, none of this would have happened had the ’90s not been so memorable, for the good and also bad<\/p>","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":32601,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[4695,4696,4697,3238,3202,1984,2607,4698,2337,4699,4700,4701,4702],"class_list":["post-32582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-aids-crisis","tag-d-a-pennebaker","tag-dont-look-back-the-1990s-at-moca","tag-felix-gonzalez-torres","tag-jack-pierson","tag-los-angeles","tag-moca","tag-nayland-blake","tag-paul-mccarthy","tag-renee-green","tag-rodney-king","tag-sarah-sze","tag-sue-williams"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\n
\nBy 1990 Los Angeles had become internationally known for its glitzy affiliation with beach culture, the movie and porn industries and of course West Coast hip-hop. But in the following years, stories of a different nature made headlines across the world, including mass homicides, rioting, and the AIDS crisis. These events might have sobered the idea of LA in the public conscience but they have also inspired myriad artists who in turn contributed with powerful art that would transform the city into a contemporary art centre in its own right.
\nOne of the turning points happened in 1991, when African American taxi driver Rodney King was brutally beaten up by the LAPD while being caught on tape. The case came to highlight nationwide the unfair treatment of minorities and when some of the guilty policemen were acquitted of use of excessive force it caused a public outcry which lead to the 1992 LA riots<\/a>. The unrest that included these\u00a0riots\u2014as well as looting and arson\u2014were broadcast across the world painting the rioters as rebels without a cause. Ren\u00e9e Green was one of the first artists to explore this pre-internet form of entropy with \u201cImport\/Export Funk Office\u201d (1992-93). The installation\u2014which is currently on view at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Los Angeles\u2014consists of a room replete with books by renowned black theorists, newspapers with coverage of the riots, hip-hop records and magazines, and a catalogue with black lexicon. But it\u2019s the videos showing interviews with white German rap enthusiasts that give away the superficial transfer of black American culture the artist wants to highlight.
\n <\/p>\n![\"Don't-Look-Back-Install-77\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Dont-Look-Back-Install-77.jpg\")
Ren\u00e9e Green, Import\/Export Funk Office (1992-93), courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Angeles, photo by Brian Forrest<\/p>\n
\nThe installation is part of the group exhibition \u201cDon\u2019t Look Back: The 1990s at MOCA\u201d, which featured works from MOCA\u2019s permanent collection that reflected that decade\u2019s burning concerns. Split between the sections: Installation; The Outmoded; Noir America; Place and Identity; Touch, Intimacy, and Queerness; and Space, Place, and Scale; the exhibition revealed how the City of Angels worked as a backdrop for artists including Sarah Sze and Paul McCarthy.
\n <\/p>\n![\"Don't-Look-Back-Install-54\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Dont-Look-Back-Install-54.jpg\")
Paul McCarthy\u2019s Tokyo Santa, Santa\u2019s Trees (1996\/98), courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Angeles, photo by Brian Forrest<\/p>\n![\"Don't-Look-Back-Install-49\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Dont-Look-Back-Install-49-1.jpg\")
Paul McCarthy\u2019s Tokyo Santa, Santa\u2019s Trees (1996\/98), courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Angeles, photo by Brian Forrest<\/p>\n![\"Don't-Look-Back-Install-51\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Dont-Look-Back-Install-51.jpg\")
Paul McCarthy\u2019s Tokyo Santa, Santa\u2019s Trees (1996\/98), courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Angeles, photo by Brian Forrest<\/p>\n
\nTaking its name from D. A. Pennebaker\u2019s documentary that surveys Bob Dylan\u2019s creative struggles within a spectacle industry, \u201cDon\u2019t Look Back\u201d frames the subversive artworks in the context of an increasingly market-driven art world. Paul McCarthy\u2019s \u201cTokyo Santa, Santa\u2019s Trees\u201d (1996\/98) addresses that, while crossing over two themes, touching upon the dark side of America in the form of a large-scale installation. The work comprises of crooked pre-decorated plastic Christmas trees and photos of the artist dressed as Santa. Initially part of a performance in Tokyo, remnants of it are present here as drawings. The whole scene is nightmarish with ketchup, paint, and other bodily fluids on view with a messed-up, and at times naked, Father Christmas in the background. The harrowing piece also likens an artist\u2019s studio with a Santa\u2019s workshop, commenting on the nature of consumerism and capitalism in society and among artists.
\nThe early 1990s were troubled times in many parts of the world and many of the artists presented here responded by creating works imbued with criticism and defiance. Sue Williams\u2019 \u201cThe Art World Can Suck My Proverbial Dick\u201d (1992) takes a stand against sexism head on for instance. This painting is raw and it bites with scenes that comment on art world hypocrisy: \u201cWhy don\u2019t we just move on?\u201d she asks in the work, \u201cIt\u2019ll be better for everybody\u201d. The artist borrows from comics to illustrate her frustration and anger, with sharp feminist criticism and humour to boot, nodding to the \u201criot grrrl\u201d movement that shaped the decade.<\/p>\n![\"Sue](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/WEBSue-Williams\u2019-\u201cThe-Art-World-Can-Suck-My-Proverbial-Dick\u201d-.jpg\")
Sue Williams, The Art World Can Suck My Proverbial Dick, 1992<\/p>\n
\nAnother test of bravery for the residents and artists of LA was the AIDS epidemic, whose devastation was not left unaddressed. In 1991 Queer Nation raised awareness to queer issues and civil rights by protesting with a kiss-in outside the Academy Awards, while artists started infusing intimacy, touch and the body into their works. Jack Pierson\u2019s \u201cYou Are Allowed to Touch Things\u201d (1991) is a work that puts a bold yet considered statement in three-dimensional mismatched lettering. Maximizing the impact of the visual language, in the years prior to rocketing popularity of the internet, the sculpture makes reference to a community that was still being ostracized, especially by a government that refused to acknowledge its suffering.
\n <\/p>\n![\"dont](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/WEBDont-Look-Back-Install-89.jpg\")
Left: Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (A corner of Baci), 1990. Centre: Jack Pierson, You Are Allowed to Touch Things, 1991. Right: Nayland Blake, Untitled, 1990, courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Angeles, photo by Brian Forrest<\/p>\n![\"Sarah](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Dont-Look-Back-Install-43.jpg\")
Sarah Sze, courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Angeles, photo by Brian Forrest<\/p>\n
\nA couple of miles south of the Geffen lies the Skid Row, a neighborhood, home to as many as 6,000 of America\u2019s homeless. The scenes on the street are straight out of a film with dozens of people living in camping tents, a few blocks away from the APC and Aesop shops. It\u2019s hard to ignore and yet there\u2019s a sense of neglect around it. But an art project to open in six months is set draw more attention to it with a new nine-hole golf course scheduled. This collaboration between local artist Rosten Woo and the Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD), a performance art and activist group based in the area is only one aspect of the change.
\nLos Angeles today is also a magnet for established artists and art graduates,<\/a> and galleries. In the last months multiple blue-chip galleries have moved<\/a> here where art is finally being produced, exhibited and sold like never before. However, none of this would have happened so soon had the ’90s not been so memorable, for the good and also bad.
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