Category: Arts & Events

Author’s memoir helps to normalize sexuality By Srianthi Perera A therapy cult encouraged Natascia Mallin to erase her personal history. But, to the advantage of those who would benefit from a scintillating and honest read into female sexuality, she did not. She came out of the cult, named The Intimacy Project, after four years. It also initiated just the opposite effect: rather than forgetting her history, she dug into it. The result is her memoir, “The First 50: A Saga of Backseats, Bedrooms, Lookout Points, and Dive Bars,” published by Rare Bird Books and available on Amazon. Mallin, a Jewish Italian-American born and raised on the Westside of Los Angeles who is now a resident of Mexico City, pulls no punches in her debut. It outlines 50 erotic encounters that took place between the ages of 13 and 33. She’s 36. Her writing is daring, engaging and passionate, just like her adventures. The chapters delve into her lovers in chronological order, painting them in broad brushstrokes but containing just enough color to understand them. In chapter one, Mallin describes a foray into a steam shower with her first lover: “Engulfed in clandestine embrace, flexing in discovery, 14-year-old Natascia dissipated into expensive vapor and the newness of passion. There was no age. No time. No law. There was only Ricky and the beating rapture of zest. Hours went by. A...

By Kamala Kirk The city of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs released its 2022-23 Cultural Grants Program Guidelines for nonprofit organizations and festival producers seeking grant support for free and/or low-cost cultural events to take place between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023. All proposed cultural activities should be easily accessible for targeted communities or general audiences of city of Los Angeles residents, visitors and tourists. Eligibility and scoring are described for proposals in various art disciplines with a special emphasis this year on projects in culture/history, design/visual arts, literary arts, media arts, outdoor festivals/parades, traditional/folk arts, and field advocacy and sector learning. With this request for proposals, the department seeks to invest in a variety of expertly produced, creatively disbursed and socially relevant projects that may take the form of participatory workshops and/or engaged demonstrations; include full-time, part-time, seasonal or occasional jobs for artists and art-event coordinators; and have both broad marketing and measurable impacts. The proposed projects should be aligned with the applicant’s mission, history and a defined public purpose. Project budgets should be estimated as public/private partnerships for which applicants should forecast matching funds of at least 1:1. Examples of eligible projects include: arts business/networking activities; culture/history presentations; dance concerts or classes; design/visual art exhibitions or museum projects; literature or publishing projects; media activities or presentations; music concerts or classes; outdoor festivals or parades...

Movie Club releases new EP and music video By Katie Lulla Venice Beach psych rock band duo Movie Club has collaborated with David Ralicke of Dengue Fever and bass guitarist Tim Lefebvre to create an extended play called “Fangtooth.” In the EP’s single music video “Trap Door,” the guitarist drummer duo of Jessamyn Violet and Vince Cuneo combines impressive views of the Salton Sea and with a new take on the 1956 short film “The Red Balloon.” Violet began her musical journey by learning piano as a child. This developed into a love for drumming, where she has spent the last 10 years working on multiple projects in San Francisco and Los Angeles. On the flip side, Cuneo started playing drums but moved on to the guitar. The pair met in 2017 and bonded over their love of music. They played their first show in 2018. “We love playing instrumental music. It’s awesome because it’s universal and international,” Cuneo said. “No matter where you’re from or where you live, you can listen to us and hopefully get something out of it. It’s just me and her playing together so it was definitely a challenge and made me really nervous, but it’s definitely made me grow more than any other project I’ve been in.” The Venice Beach-based duo pulls their inspiration from the neighborhood. Four of their five albums mirror...

Gallery owner honors wave of light-based photographers By Bridgette M. Redman Douglas Marshall opened his own gallery in a commercial area of Downtown Venice because he wanted to display the works of innovative photographic artists working with experimental images. Marshall Contemporary is exhibiting the work of seven photographers from now until August 22. These artists — Matthew Brandt, John Chiara, Scott B. Davis, Nadezda Nikolova-Kratzer, Chris McCaw, Meghann Riepenhoff and Rodrigo Valenzuela — are members of what Marshall sees as a golden generation of California experimental photographic artists who are building on the work of those who came before them. Active in other people’s galleries for 10 years, Marshall said he developed a vision for his own program, one that was not being shown in Los Angeles. He wanted to show the experimental side of photography in his 400-square-foot gallery. “There was a lot of representation of classical and vintage material and things people traditionally think of as image work, which is about the image rather than the physical process of printmaking and experimentation,” Marshall said. “I recognized that a lot of artists who were actively exploring new spaces were falling in a gap between traditional photography and traditional fine art.” He opened Marshall Contemporary to focus on process-based photography, something he feels is an answer to the quick disposable bombardment of images prevalent in today’s social media world....

Otis College Board of Governors welcomes Enrique Martínez Celaya By Kamala Kirk Artist, author, former scientist and Otis College Honorary Degree recipient Enrique Martínez Celaya recently joined the Otis College Board of Governors. Celaya holds the position of provost professor of humanities and arts at the University of Southern California and his monumental and multifaceted work connects art to literature, philosophy and science. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in applied physics and a minor in electrical engineering from Cornell University, as well as a Master of Science with a specialization in quantum electronics from the University of California, Berkeley. Celaya has also earned a Master in Fine Arts with the department’s highest distinction from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was also a regents fellow and junior fellow of Interdisciplinary Humanities Center. He has worked on major exhibitions, projects, interventions, and social and intellectual interactions not confined to museums and galleries, including with the Berliner Philharmonie, the State Hermitage Museum, and many others. His work is held in over 50 public collections internationally, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Celaya also has an extensive list of upcoming 2021-2022 exhibitions, including at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens; and Fisher Museum of Art, University of Southern California. “I’m thrilled that my friend, Enrique, has joined the...