Los Angeles Photography Exhibit Opens Nov. 18
October 28, 2005
The Irvine Valley College Art Gallery will present an exhibition of new work by Andrew Sears entitled Sunset Rising (?), an exhibition of digital photographs that document Sunset Boulevard as it passes through the cities of Silver Lake and Echo Park.
The exhibit runs November 18 – January 13. Hours: Wed. – Fri., 12 noon to 6 p.m., or by appointment. The IVC Art Gallery is located in Room B-112, admission and parking are free.
The public is invited to attend an opening reception on Sat., November 19, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The digitally enhanced photographs, narrow bands of images mounted on aluminum plates, immediately call to mind Ed Ruscha’s famous 1966 conceptual work, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, a pioneering work in photo-text art which painstakingly documents Los Angeles’s most famous boulevard using black and white photography.
Sunset Rising (?)—as an historical update of Ruscha’s project—is a Los Angeles streetscape that uses digital imaging technology that did not exist in the 1960s. In creating his seamless color panoramas, Sears uses over 1,500 digital photographs and Adobe Photoshop software to document another 2.5 miles of Sunset Boulevard.
While Ruscha described his work as “simply a collection of facts,” Sears has more environmental concerns in mind.
The idea for the project came about while Sears was riding an elevator in Los Angeles City Hall. Having just attended a planning commission meeting that re-zoned the area—effectively rendering all of the existing buildings and vacant lots “under-built”—Sears decided it was important to document the street in its current state, before investors could move in and redevelop it.
Sears’ interest in the portion of Sunset Boulevard he has photographed stems from the rapid change and potential loss he observed, a need to preserve a moment in time and to create a documentary record. He summarizes the area as “shifting—from multi-cultured, established Angelinos in the east to newly emigrating middle class Jetta-ites in the west.” Like Ruscha, Sears documents the common existence of this famous Los Angeles street by routine and serial methodology.
Sears is one of a new generation of image-makers who share similarities with the work of Catherine Opie or Andreas Gursky, and who are critical of the faceless machine of redevelopment and urbanization. To Sears, a street is “an active, living place where all buildings have value through history of layered human memory.” Sunset Rising (?) honors not only the city street, but all of the people for whom it is home.
For exhibit or gallery information, contact Thomas Folland, Gallery Director, at (949) 451-5452 Ext. 8074, or at tfolland@ivc.edu.