LADF Goes Out with a Bang; Extreme Ideas: Runway; Lebbeus Woods Revisited at SCI-Arc: MOCA Talks

The busy month of June — now LA’s de facto design month, due to the concentration of events taking place annually — is drawing to a close, with a bang not a whimper.…

The busy month of June — now LA’s de facto design month, due to the concentration of events taking place annually — is drawing to a close, with a bang not a whimper.

On June 27, a bunch of design stores around town will stay open late for Design Shopping Night; among them, A+R on La Brea will display Michael Schmidt’s 3D printed dress for Dita Von Teese (detail shown below left), and what the store describes as “the world’s first fully playable” 3D printed electric guitar, left, designed by New Zealand-based guitar designer Olaf Diegal.

On Friday, June 28, UCLA presents Extreme Ideas: Runway at the architecture school’s very cool new old space at Playa Vista, once occupied by Hughes Aircraft

Expect a rapid-fire presentation of future world scenarios, from Christian Moeller, Bobbye Tigerman, Paul Petrunia, Kimberli Meyerand many others (I’ll emcee) to a music set deejayed by Liza Richardson and interpretive dancing by some robots. The original point of Runway was to mark the end of Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A., though of course that series continues through the Fall (see MOCA panels, below).

Friday, June 28 (tonight), a few blocks from its campus in the Arts District in downtown, SCI-Arc will unveil Earthwave; a built rendition, right, of an “inhabitable drawing” that was originally designed, but never built, for the 2009 Biennale of Architecture and Art of the Mediterranean (BaaM), by the late visionary architectural designer Lebbeus Woods and Christoph a. Kumpusch in collaboration with Adam Orlinski.

The goal of the public artwork, assembled by a team including Hernan Diaz Alonso, Christoph A. Kumpusch, Dwayne Oyler and Alexis Rochas (who created the snaking, overhead form that carries the audio-visual at MOCA’s New Sculpturalism show), is to “demonstrate the fearless nature with which the late visionary architect and draftsman created.”

This public artwork is a prelude to SCI-Arc Gallery show opening this fall, on October 11, almost a year from Woods’ passing. It will include several original, rarely seen Woods drawings from private collections. Watch this blog for more on the influence of Lebbeus Woods.

This

Saturday, June 29, is

Chinatown Design Night,

a street party under the crimson glow of lanterns on Chung King Alley. Expect some kind of appearance by

Let There Be Dragons, a gallery show exploring “male beauty,” and a closing party for LADF at

Fifth Floor Gallery with California Home and Design.

Also, Saturday, June 29, in It’s Not Right – But It’s OK, performance artist Cliff Hengst “has his body taken over by the soul of Whitney Houston, and proceeds to lead a musical bus tour of Wilshire Boulevard from Beverly Hills to MacArthur Park.” The event is produced by Machine Project, also in conjunction with Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. Click for tickets for the 4pm and 6pm performances.

Then on Sunday, June 30, is The first-ever LA Downtown Modernism, a market featuring tons of vintage and midcentury furniture and accessories, and Andy Dick as emcee. Also don’t miss FleaPop’s pop-up installation which will be making an appearances all over LA in the next few months.

A week later marks the start of a summer of three panels, hosted by MOCA, discussing issues surrounding their “new sculpturalism” show. I’ll moderate and the first one, on July 7, features a stellar line-up of Ming Fung, Neil Denari and Michael Maltzan. Note: Neil Denari’s Guest DJ set will air on next Tuesday’s DnA; further note: Maltzan’s 6th Street bridge design is the backdrop for this blog.