PACIFIC NON-STANDARD TIME: THE FOUNDATION FOR ART RESOURCES 1977-PRESENT
Autonomie is proud to host Pacific Non-Standard Time: Foundation for Art Resources 1977-Present on Saturday, March 10th from 7-10pm. This exhibition provides both an errant survey of the critical art practices supported by FAR and an evening of performance pieces that engage with sound, image and the contemporary paradoxes of performativity.
Pacific Non-Standard Time: Foundation for Art Resources 1977-Present
Featuring works by:
Aaron Drake
The Friendly Falcons
Performances:
Helga Fassonaki
Maya Gurantz
Fatima Hoang & Janice Gomez
Anna Oxygen
As an artist-run non-profit organization FAR has a thirty year history of supporting non-institutional projects, including the early works of John Baldassari, Judy Pfaff, Jack Goldstein, Jenny Holzer, Richard Prince, Matt Mullican, Dan Graham and many others. Working well beyond the confines of the white cube, the non-standard history of art production promoted by FAR has been an important supplement to the dominant conventions of the Los Angeles art world. By promoting disparate models of art production and unconventional modes of exhibition, FAR’s valorization of marginalized practices continues to question the norms of the present in order to open up new avenues of artistic experience. Continuing its commitment to an anti-institutional ethos, this Pacific Non-Standard Time event is a response to the large-scale survey format, the privileging of certain narratives of production over others, and the desire to separate the past from the present.
In contrast to other PST events, the historical dimension of PSNT highlights some of FAR’s lost moments in a discrepant genealogy that resists the urge to create a coherent meta-narrative or a teleological progression of sorts. If there is a minor theme or subtext for the evenings events, it can be seen in some of the archival selections that draw on FAR’s extensive involvement with sound art and/or musically-driven performance, such as the works of Glen Branca, Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw, Sonic Youth and the Swans. With the above in mind, PNST aims to extend, challenge and/or re-invigorate the trajectory of these historical forerunners through the work of 4 contemporary performances that de-standardize our ideas about authorship, performance and spectatorship in the expanded field aesthetic inquiry. Morgan Thomas, a founding member of the organization, described the early activities of FAR and its rampant experimentation as being in search of “an appropriate production model.” While FAR has been through a myriad of configurations since the 70s, the artists included in this exhibition continue the drive toward new horizons of thought, feeling and experience through a consistent re-tooling of standard practices that is anything but.