PARTY PEOPLE
by Paula Mejía
Artist Lauren Halsey is organizing a grand show. (Allen Chen / SLH Studio)
In the aughts, when the multidisciplinary LA artist Lauren Halsey was a young woman, she tumbled down a transformative YouTube rabbit hole: Videos of Parliament-Funkadelic’s legendary late ‘70s Earth tour, following the release of their album Mothership Connection. The funk collective’s ecstatic shows unfolded as a space opus, featuring characters created by the band, that involved frontman George Clinton landing onstage in a full-tilt spacecraft dubbed the Mothership. The spectacle permanently altered rock music — the ship is now displayed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture — and constructed “an alternate universe that had no balance in terms of freedoms of thought” for its mostly Black audience, as the band’s archivist, Tim Kinley, told The New York Times.
Halsey, 39, became enchanted by the universes the band created; she dreamed of becoming part of the Funk Mob. While that didn’t end up happening, the artist, a self-described “high voltage funkateer,” has since carved out an expansive career featuring immersive, site-specific sculptures rooted in Black cultural touchstones and artistic traditions. As she said in an interview with The Guardian, her work is grounded in pieces that respond “to the context of funk…it’s another portal of possibility.”
Building immersive doorways, not unlike P-Funk’s, has long been the backbone of Halsey’s artistic oeuvre. At her first solo UK show, emajendat, in 2024, Halsey pulled from her South Central community to construct “funkmounds,” riotous color sculptures of strip mall signs, and a water fountain fabricated from outstretched hands with fresh acrylic nails. Earlier this year, she unveiled her long-gestating sculptural park on 76th and Western Avenue, sister dreamer, where viewers submerge themselves in the environs — feeling rather than observing from a distance. And on September 29th, Halsey is expanding on that idea for a sweeping installation and performance at one of LA’s most cherished institutions: The Hollywood Bowl.
DJ Pee .Wee (aka Anderson .Paak), will be among the performers. (Kohey Kanno)
That evening, she will reimagine the grounds of the amphitheater and public park with “funky” ping pong and basketball games, mini golf, an airbrush station, and rollerskating activations, done up in her hyperchromatic aesthetics. The festivities continue inside the bandshell, featuring performances by Erykah Badu and Alchemist, who recently released an album together; DJ Pee .Wee (the alias of musician Anderson .Paak); Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers; and the Charles Gaines Collective, featuring Black Nile and Devin Daniels, who will all perform on a Halsey-designed stage. Like everything Halsey does, the one-night-only event is part of something far bigger: “I wanted a night at the Bowl where I could present my first proof of concept for the musical festival I’ll have in Los Angeles called emajendat,” she said in a recent video.
As an artist, Halsey has long been interested in probing the relationship between pop culture, fine art, and the day-to-day issues of her community, says Gaines, a contemporary artist who taught Halsey at CalArts. “I've been a big supporter of her work, and for some reason, which I can't understand, she regards me as having a significant impact on the development of her career and her thinking about art,” Gaines says over the phone. Known for his meticulous numerical pieces, Gaines’ visual practice sometimes weaves musical composition into physical object-making — a nod to his training as a musician and composer. Before pursuing his own artistic studies, Gaines, a drummer, gigged almost nightly at clubs around his hometown of Newark, New Jersey, with a focus on jazz and R&B. So when Halsey asked Gaines if he would perform at her Bowl show, he said yes
Visual artist Charles Gaines, who is also a musicians, will appear in emajendat. (Brandon Hicks / Hauser & Wirth)
For emajendat, Gaines put together the Charles Gaines Collective — they’ve never played together as a unit before now — comprised of Gaines on drums; saxophonist and flautist Aaron Shaw and bass player Lawrence Shaw, a duo who go by Black Nile; saxophonist Devin Daniels; pianist Brian Hargrove; percussionist Carlos Niño; and Zevv Shearn-Nance on drums for one song. The group’s jazz set is part of the larger “funk opera” that acts as a conceptual reference point for the event. Funk will act “as a thread throughout the interstitials, throughout the changeovers,” a display of “Black music and the way we’re able to stretch it,” as Halsey has described.
The Bowl will be the biggest stage that Gaines will have ever played: “It's going to be quite an event. The Hollywood Bowl…” Gaines chuckles. He’s mum on details, instead offering: “They’ve never seen anything like this, I'll tell you that.”
🎵🎶🎵
emajendat will go down at the Hollywood Bowl on September 29th at 8 PM, tickets from $67; hollywoodbowl.com.
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If you enjoyed Halsey’s Bowl extravaganza, head over to her sculpture park, sister dreamer, whose title describes it as an “architectural ode to tha surge n splurge of south central los angeles.” Open Wednesday through Sunday, sunrise to sunset; laurenhalsey.fun.
Paula Mejía is a culture writer and editor based in LA. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Texas Monthly, The Atlantic, and GQ.
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