Universe City
CSULA Fine Arts Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
February 2011.

Universe City featured 38 video works by 40 professional artists from Los Angeles and beyond, demonstrates the artistic variety possible within the “New Genres” art movement. The exhibition was organized by Jim Ovelmen, an assistant professor within the College of Arts and Letters at CSULA, and Barry Markowitz, an art lecturer.

The CSULA Fine Arts Gallery will host an opening reception for Universe City on Saturday, Jan. 29, from 6 to 9 p.m. The exhibit will be open to the public from Jan. 29 through Feb. 26.

From the press release (full text here):

“The artists selected—whose approach, subject matter, and aesthetics vary widely—become an aggregate of current contemporary thought,” said Fine Arts Gallery Director Karin Lanzoni. “The installation enables the artists and patrons to think about this installation as a vision of ‘institutions of higher education’ in the 21st century.”

Lanzoni continued, “The viewers’ perceptions of the cardboard model of the campus are [formally and conceptually] transformed by the video-projected artworks, while the students, through their distinct interpretations and culturally complex perspectives, absorb and transform knowledge within the University itself.”

As a stimulating, interactive exhibition, Universe City also points to the amalgam of the new 21st Century metropolis—a collection of understandings, approaches, and technologies as well as an inclusive and complete demographic.