Dear DnA Readers,

I hope you are doing well. In terms of Design Things to Do, we are in the calm before the deluge of PST Art: Art and Science Collide. More than seventy exhibitions will be officially launched next month, though a few are already on show. Read on for "Portable Wetland," plus other fun stuff like "Bowlarama" with Chris Nichols, the Asian comics show, Pet Peeves in House Design, and a tribute to Peggy Moffitt.

Meanwhile, if you’re following the presidential race, the policy part, you will know that VP Kamala Harris is emphasizing housing. She has released a plan that would help first-time homebuyers, stimulate the construction of three million new homes, and expand tax incentives for affordable rental housing. That all sounds good, says economist Paul Krugman, except that she can’t promise Federal help for the fundamental challenge of getting people into homes: state and local level “zoning and regulation that blocks construction of new housing units.”

That blockage plays out persistently in LA — evidenced in the exemption of R1 zones from the mayor’s ED1 directive aimed at expediting affordable housing, and in community fights over projects throughout the region.

Talent Switch at Venice Dell

This brings me to Venice Dell Community, an affordable and supportive housing complex designed with his usual singular flair by architect Eric Owen Moss for the nonprofit developers Venice Community Housing and Hollywood Community Housing Corporation. Recently this newsletter reported that after years tied up in neighborhood lawsuits and stalling at the city, the project had scaled another legal hurdle and was on the way forward.

Well, there's now another twist in the saga — Venice Dell is moving ahead but without Moss. This was not for lack of enthusiasm from the developers for the architect’s design, a sand-colored, linear building with listing walls and cantilevered upper stories over ground-level stores, cafes, and seating areas (see rendering, above).

Rather, explains Becky Dennison, co-Executive Director of VCH, the change was made because funds for subsidized housing have become scarce and the money will be sourced from LA County, which typically doesn’t invest in projects attached to architects untested in the design of affordable housing. Taxpayer-subsidized housing comes with a basket of regulations and constraints requiring specific expertise.  

In choosing Moss for the project, Dennison says, “We were taking a big leap, and we really wanted to do this. Then, with so many delays and changes in the funding environment during those years, we couldn’t do it here.” The pressures included intense opposition from Councilwoman Traci Parks, who ran on a promise to stall Venice Dell. Dennison adds, “It doesn't mean we wouldn't try again to bring new and creative architects into the field, but the system's just not built for it.”

VCH, operating in the Venice area since 1988, has a long record of emphasizing art and architecture in its 20 newly built or remodeled buildings. It recently completed the stunning Rose Apartments on Rose Avenue at Lincoln Boulevard, designed by Brooks + Scarpa, with glitter stuccoed wings enveloping a two-tiered central courtyard (see image, below). That project, featured in the New York Times, also faced years of local opposition.

Now Brooks + Scarpa have been tapped by the development team to advance the Dell project. Their long experience in affordable housing design means they are seasoned in the rules and the means to shave costs, which have risen thanks to all the delays and legal expenses. Lawrence Scarpa and Angela Brooks are longtime residents of Venice themselves. Scarpa says they "feel honored to be able to positively contribute to its unforgettable eclectic mix of art, architecture, interesting people, and unique places."

As for Moss, he remains sanguine about the fortunes of his design, saying, "It’s enduring. It’ll be built. Not in Venice." 

Rose Apartments, designed by Brooks + Scarpa. Photo by Jeff Durkin/Breadtruck Films

Design Things To Do

The Gossip Party
August 22nd, 7:00 PM
Steve Turner Gallery, 6830 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90038

The following event is not exactly about design, though it is about the glue that binds society: gossip.

Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek may not agree (“Gossip is the Devil’s telephone. Best to just hang up!”) but "Gossip" is the delightful sounding theme of the preview party for the latest issue of the LARB (LA Review of Books) Quarterly no. 42. It takes place in the Steve Turner art gallery in Hollywood, and four contributing writers — Ivanna Baranova, Summer Kim Lee, Michelle Latiolais, and Ruth Madievsky — will consider “group chats, petty grudges, campus drama, fake news,” and how writers “engage gossip to make sense of interactions both private and public, corporeal and online.” 

Free and open to the public: RSVP here. In the spirit of the event, spread the word.

Note: Should one need any reminder of the centrality of gossip to creative life, just remember the Lou Reed classic, "New York Telephone Conversation:"

Just a New York conversation, gossip all of the time… Did you hear who did what to whom? Happens all the time… Who has touched and who has dabbled here in the city of shows… Openings, closings, bad repartee, everybody knows…

Bowlarama!
Saturday, August 31st, 12:00 PM–4:00 PM
Bowlium Lanes, 4666 Holt Boulevard, Montclair, CA  91763

Chris Nichols is one of the premier chroniclers of midcentury LA at its most fun and future-forward. Now he has teamed up with Adriene Bondo and written Bowlarama: The Architecture of Mid-Century Bowling, about the “modern palaces” for the hugely popular post-war sport, where “companies constantly aimed to outdo each other, whether competing for the most spectacular architecture, the most luxurious lanes, the snazziest bowling balls.”

The book, published by Angel City Press, will be released on September 10th. But you can hear from Chris before that — and bowl with him — at a bowling plus book talk event at the iconic 1957 Bowlium Lanes in Montclair. It’s organized by Great Autos, which describes itself as “the largest LGBTQ+ car club on the West Coast.” Expect some fine autos to be on show in the parking lot sized for the 1950s.

Tickets are $42 per person (if you bowl or not). Click here to book.

Note: Find out more about the centrality of bowling to American life by watching Join or Die, a wonderful documentary about Bowling Alone, the book that argues that American democracy and personal well-being are suffering with the nationwide decline of social and civic clubs. Info about screenings, here. 

Cover of the new book, Bowlarama.

Asian Comics: Evolution of an Art Form
Bowers Museum, 2002 North Main Street, Santa Ana, CA 92706
Through September 8th, Tuesday–Sunday, 10 AM–4 PM

Catch this before it closes. Asian Comics: Evolution of an Art Form showcases the global comics phenomenon that has influenced film, fashion, art, gaming, and animation.

While Anime and manga originated in Japan, the art of comics and visual storytelling is popular across a vast region, with boundaries, per curator Paul Gravett, "no further west than Pakistan and no further north than Mongolia and the very top of Japan."

The ambitious show features more than 400 original artworks from Asian comics, including works by "Godfather of Manga" Osamu Tezuka and numerous other artists both established and less-known, including Zao Dao, Morel, Hur Young Man, Lat,  Abhishek Singh, and Miki Yamamoto. 

Gravett is concerned with the art form and its underpinnings. The show explores factors such as colonialism, Asian nationalism, postwar rebuilding, and each country’s cultural traditions. If you can’t make it to the exhibition, Gravett and Park Chan-Wook produced an accompanying book, Mangasia: The Definitive Guide to Asian Comics, reviewed here.

This is a ticketed show. Click here to book.

Ide Chikae's "Viva! Volleyball," published between 1968-71. Image courtesy of Bowers Museum, © Ide Chikae

Portable Wetland
Brackish Water Los Angeles
California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), University Art Gallery, La Corte Hall
Monday through Friday, 10:00 AM–5:00 PM; Saturday, 12:00 PM–5:00 PM

Wetlands, the marshy buffer between ocean and land, provide habitat for thousands of species of aquatic and terrestrial plants and animals as well as protection from floods, water quality improvement, and shoreline erosion control. Tragically, some 50% of US wetlands have been destroyed by urban development, though they are now protected by federal law.

So the environmental artist Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio created a conceptual artwork aimed at raising awareness of wetlands. Portable Wetland for Southern California has been installed in the Sculpture Garden at California State University, Dominguez Hills.

Her work is part of a large group exhibition, Brackish Water Los Angeles, for PST ART: Art & Science Collide, including artists Laura Aguilar, Judith Baca, Laddie John Dill, Mercedes Dorame, Catherine Opie, Emma Robbins, Alison Saar, and more. Organizers say the show explores the "ecosystems, infrastructures, and politics surrounding brackish water, which refers to the space where salt and fresh waters meet."

Bon's "portable wetland" is a version of an installation at her Metabolic Studio by the LA River downtown. It comprises three cells filled with scoria (crushed volcanic rock) and native wetland plants that filter and treat water from the university’s water supply, “mimicking how wetland streambeds naturally cleanse water.” 

Click here for details. Make a private appointment by writing to artgallery@csudh.edu.

Portable Wetland at CSUDH. Image courtesy Metabolic Studio.

Sarah Kaizar: Rare Air
Through September 8th, Daily through September 2nd; Open Tuesday through Sunday after Labor Day.
Catalina Museum for Art & History, Avalon, Catalina Island

If you happen to visit Catalina Island for its natural treasures, stop by the Catalina Museum and check out Rare Air: Endangered Birds, Bats, Butterflies, and Bees, an exhibition of artworks about nature’s gifts that are under threat. Sarah Kaizar, a Philadelphia-based avid hiker and designer/illustrator, captures birds and bees in precise detail, but her book and the show also emphasize “the importance of citizen science in their conservation efforts," using immersive installations with interactive elements to educate kids and adults about conserving 66 endangered species.

While at Catalina Museum, you can also catch Ann Weber: 26 Miles, an exhibition of the San Pedro-based artist's powerful sculptures created out of repurposed cardboard boxes.

Click here for details.

Atlantic Puffin, drawing by Sarah Kaizar, on show in Rare Air.

What I'm Digging 

Memories of Peggy Moffitt

LA recently lost one of its inimitable luminaries. Peggy Moffitt, who passed August 10th, at age 86, was the muse to the fashion designer Rudi Gernreich. Modeling came naturally to the LA native, she told me on the occasion of The Total Look, a 2012 show at the MOCA Pacific Design Center. "Ever since I was a child, I adored clothes and dressing up ... and running around the neighborhood screaming, 'I’m Snow White'." In partnership with her photographer husband William Claxton, Moffit developed an indelible, lifelong persona: tall, sinewy, invariably clad in stripey tops and bold slacks, topped off by a Sassoon bob and heavily made-up eyes. She famously posed in Gernreich’s topless monokini, an image that defined her, to a fault. "I still think it’s a beautiful photograph," she said, adding, "but oh, am I tired of talking about it!" RIP Peggy Moffitt. Hear from her and The Total Look curator Cameron Silver on this KCRW/DnA broadcast.

Cover image from The Rudi Gernreich Book, by Peggy Moffitt, published by Taschen

Burning Man’s Power Woman

Notwithstanding a drop in ticket sales, hundreds of artists are preparing installations to unveil at Burning Man 2024, taking place this weekend at Black Rock City in the Nevada desert, with a theme of “Curiouser and Curiouser.” The person in charge of selecting and placing them is Katie Hazard, the festival’s longtime associate director of art management. She explains what’s involved in a lively conversation with NOT REAL ART founder Scott “Sourdough” Power. Among the things she has to consider: “You have to get to know all of these projects and get a feel [for each one]. Is this a contemplative piece? Or does this have something where it's great to have a mutant vehicle pull up next to it because it has sound-reactive lights?"