| LACA

5/12/2023 to 6/12/2023

Raw, Cooked, and Leftover

Opening: May 12, 7-10 pm
May 12-June 12

From The Cremation of Care – Nick Angelo’s Models, Scott Benzel

“What does it mean for a painter to think?” – Hubert Damish

The hedge is perfectly manicured, the expensive-looking wood planters a shade somewhere between bourgeois respectability and denuded avant-garde. The finishes, materials, and layout suggest refinement, a mashup of ozempaic Hollywood Regency and clear-cut mid-century Modern – this is the lobby of a luxury building. The penthouse, having slashed through all of that intervening “immaterial” matter (the floors separating the lobby from the penthouse significant only in their elevatory capacity), sits directly atop the lobby, floor-to-ceiling windows framing a fiery sunset cresting the megapolis. Next door – another aberration in the heartland of this real – a destroyed room, twisted furniture smashed into its center as if spontaneously sucked into one of the pocket black holes that scientists have recently warned permeate our universe.

5/12/2023 to 6/12/2023

In 1980, Darby Crash, lead singer of the Los Angeles punk band, the Germs, died from an intentional overdose at the age of 22. In his suicide note, Crash confessed his love for fellow bandmate, David 'Bosco' Danford.

Later, Crash’s friend, Casey Cola, with whom he’d made his death pact with (she survived) recalled their last night together— “...He wrote a note, which he didn't show me, but which I think said, 'My life, my leather, my love goes to Bosco.’ … He held me up for a second... laid himself against the wall and pulled me to him… And then he kissed me and said, 'Well, 'bye.’”

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From May 12th to June 12th, the public is invited to share mementos and ephemera relating to experiences of addiction, harm reduction, and/or grief within the enclosed bulletin board outside of LACA. These items will be collected and archived in an ongoing collection dedicated to harm reduction practices.

Please feel free to mail your materials to:

Los Angeles Contemporary Archive (LACA)
709 N Hill Street
Suite 104/8 (upstairs)
LA, CA 90012

Checking In is a collection of art ephemera and personal mementos that share ways we use art to inform each other about harm reduction during moments of rest, leisure, stress and joy. These include visual materials related to rave care artist books, ticket stubs, Fentanyl test strip brochures, doodles on Narcan packaging, text messages, venmo request collateral, lost and found items, oral histories and journaling related to overdose, loss, and grief, and other materials that offers insights into how we take care of each other on and off of the dance floor.

Checking In was informed by artists who have contributed to this conversation about harm reduction with materials from Nacho Nava Jr’s of memorial (Mustache Monday), items from the alley, and artist books about Jewels Catch One. We have now organized an open call inviting people to grow the conversation and contribute their ephemera related to overdose prevention and the ways we take care of each other.