Graffiti the Ghost

Altered states

Maybe it's because I've been enjoying far fewer of these nowadays that I was able to get such a contact buzz from Ecstasy: In and About Altered States, the show currently featured at the MOCA. Ranu had taken a group of her students from CCAC down to see the show (and believe me, this one puts the "trip" in field trip) and had raved about it, so Babs and I knew we had to make it out for this one.

Most of the installations here are straight off the playa- pure interactive trip toys. Pete Hudson's swimmers would have been right at home. Unfortunately, with stern-faced docents at every turn they were strictly no touch. Kind of surreal. Like a toy museum, or a sacred cow- something put on display and treasured for it's fuctionality, but then preserved in such a way that it's function is stripped from it completely. Not that I didn't enjoy the show, but it felt kind of strange to enter a room in which a strobe light illuminates a rainshower, or a whole space filled with LED lights at carefully placed intervals, without being able to strip naked and run through them while coated in playa dust. Guess I'm spoiled that way.

The first pieces we saw were from an artist whose work I had seen previously in SF, Takeshi Murakami. I'm not sure why I love the Japanese artists so much, but there's something about how they embrace pop culture instead of looking down their noses at it. Some Western artists credited with "pop art" seem to be more than a bit condescending towards their subjects- like they were condemning them to this hot pink, garish existence- their ultimate aim being to expose them for the fatally flawed beings they were. But artists like Murakami obviously fall in love with their subjects. They live with one foot in the world of these mythical cartoon characters, and you definitely get the feeling that these beings are alive...somewhere... and that they are having way more fun than you are. You leave feeling indebted to the artist for letting you visit.

Even more so with Chiho Aoshima, an artist I previously fell in love with when I saw pictures of her exhibit titled Asleep, dreaming of reptilian glory. We were almost to the end of the show (which we later found out was the beginning, since we went backwards) when we wandered into a darkened room precisely at the beginning of her video installation "City Glow." The short animated piece begins with the artist's rendering of a Tokyoesque city skyline where the phallic skyscrapers are transformed into gently smiling female obelisks that stare at the viewer with a calm, curious gaze that frankly reminded us of Sadie Mae (my cat). The "camera," as it were, slowly pans out to reveal jewel- toned alternate worlds which morph in mood from delight to terror with such mellow flow that you completely lose your attachment to such feelings as delight and terror.

I won't say too much about the other pieces, only that there were enough giant mushrooms and rainbow colored pills to keep even the most jaded raver giggling. Come see for yourself- the show runs until late February and is a great excuse to come down to LA. Do it. I know some hot chicks that'll put you up for the weekend.

posted by Jess @ 6:28 PM