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The Torrance Art Museum proudly presents

In Case We Don’t Die (ICWDD)
Curated by Bibi Katholm

Opening reception
March 30, 2013 from 6 – 9 p.m.
On view until May 16th, 2013

Exhibition catalog for both ICWDD and Software available for on-demand printing here!

These days potential catastrophes are everywhere you look. You can’t go outside or turn on the TV without reports of the world coming to an ‘End’ - global climate collapsing or terrorists planning new attacks. The world is so full of danger, threats, stress, overload and insecurity. Assuming that we, against all odds, survive the terrifying pitfalls of the future, is creativity going to be the thing that saves us? Will our imagination become an escape route, a place where we can hide, or will it be the one thing that forcefully confronts us with the truth and gives us the strength needed to make a change? What kind of art would a generation of unlikely survivors produce and where would they find their inspiration? What influence would surviving a catastrophe have on our values, ethics and our perception of truth and how might this situation visualize itself in the art of the future? This pressure coming from a hyper tense society of doom is having a massive impact on the art being produced by the artists who manage to keep up their practice and it is forcing others to remain passive or paralyzed while waiting for a change of current that may never come.

One of the ways in which you can see contemporary art adjusting to the current circumstances is the merger between art and social politics, manifested in movements such as the Occupy movement. New media and the social networks have made it possible for spontaneous online societies to form, spread and organize themselves, and staging real life, long term protests that resemble cultural events or art performances, but also represent a new kind of radical democracy that aims to “occupy the future” and resurrect the hope that’s been lost.

The ICWDD Project was created to instigate a discussion about future creative spaces, temporary creative communities and networks, the current relationship between art and social politics and the potential of the shared creative process.

Bibi Katholm, Artist & Curator, ICWDD

Featured works by:
Andreas Emenius (SE), Jacob Kirkegaard (DK), Devin Troy Strother (US), Paco Pomet (ES), Mie Olise (DK), Ida Kvetny (DK), Theis Wendt (DK), Bibi Katholm (DK), Monique Prieto (US), Christine Gray (US), Frohawk Two Feathers (US), Chris Natrop (US), Per Hüttner (SE), Troels Carlsen (DK), Mamma Andersson (SE), Mai Hofstad Gunnes (NO), Asger Carlsen (DK)

From 8-9 p.m., on the night of the opening reception, there will be a live performance by Dreamers, who describe themselves as, “An electrical storm of punk rock and minimal techno.”

In Case We Don’t Die is sponsored in part by:

exhibition pics coming soon!

Software: 21st Century Ceramics from Los Angeles
Curated by Jason Ramos

Featuring works by:
Danny First, Mitsuko Ikeno, Nobuhito Nishigawara, Brian Rochefort, and Kim Tucker

Los Angeles’ place in the history of modern ceramics is well established. The development of artists such as Peter Voulkos, John Mason and Kenneth Price provide the rich background in LA for a continuing investigation in this ancient medium. There has been much re-visitation in recent years of the accomplishments and influence of those titans of the form, from Scripps College’s Pacific Standard Time exhibition Clay’s Tectonic Shift, to LACMA’s recent Ken Price retrospective.

In Software, a sampling of the current state of contemporary artists in LA who work with clay is brought to the foreground, with an emphasis on contemporary shifts with a more immediate relevancy in both form and subject. As a media choice, clay and it’s traditions are as old as civilization itself; as a contemporary form in Los Angeles, a voice was found for it that was modern, informed, and versatile. The five artists of Software offer a range of views that are simultaneously indebted to and break away from the craft traditions and the documented contemporary history of working with clay in southern California.