I like to make a unique work for each show and so I don’t just have stock pieces that I just plug into wherever. I really study the location, I study the space, and I do a lot of research on the history and on the local architecture.
-Kim Schoenstadt
With this collaboration with The Lapis Press, Kim Schoenstadt explores the question “what constitutes an edition?” Her Sightline Series: Inglewood/Malibu/Los Angeles 1 - 9 are unique works made up of mid-century modern and contemporary architecture and sculptural forms as components for mash-ups springing from historic views of Los Angeles. These elements are combined as collage built up through two sheets of Museum Glass to create a sort of exploded view over each quaint scene. Sealing the framed work within 2 sheets of Museum Glass adds depth to the composition while preserving the original print from the intervention of the mash-ups (honoring the art conservation principal of reversible intervention.) While the antique views of Los Angeles are unique, the intervention that is repeated throughout the series has been manipulated to conform to each print. How replication and singularity are interpreted in the realization of an edition is playfully considered with these works.
Schoenstadt pulls together a spacial narrative of Los Angeles inspired from her research for her design of the LA METRO train station at Fairview Heights. Unrealized architecture (John Lautner’s 1961 Malibu Akers residence, Thom Mayne’s 2009 Children’s Museum Los Angeles, and Richard Neutra’s Prefabricated Model House circa 1930) and existing Inglewood architecture (1967 Broadway Federal Bank, 1961 Jet car wash, and Victor Miller’s Brolly Hut from 1968) emerge from 1880‘s chalk lithographs (once upon a time bound in a book entitled History of Los Angeles County California with Illustrations Descriptive of Its Scenery, Residences, Fine Blocks and Manufactories published by Thompson and West.) The orange sticker outline is based on the construction qualification practice called “Story Poles” used in Malibu to allow neighbors to see a full scale 3 dimensional outline of the proposed project and how it would affect their view. This element weaves between architectural massing and sculptural massing, the past and present, real and imaginary.
Sightline Series: Inglewood/Malibu/Los Angeles numbers 1 - 9 is a series of 9 works incorporating 19th century prints of Los Angeles with her distinct architectural mash-ups.