The myth that is Los Angeles - the entertainment industry, landscape, imagery and literature - seems to have overtaken the reality. It is impossible to distinguish between reality and fiction, light and darkness, tragedy and joy. In our exploration, we soon began to look at the novelists and writers, in addition to the visual artists, who have given the city its distinctive character.
The exhibition Los Angeles, a fiction presents the work of 34 artists from Los Angeles and 84 writers, of various ages, each of whom construct and deconstruct the city in their work: artists and authors participating in the creation of a Fiction.
Well-known artists (John Baldessari, Larry Bell, David Hockney...) can be seen alongside emerging artists (Ryan Trecartin/Lizzie Fitch, Alex Israel...). An important part of the exhibition is the eponymously-titled catalogue that brings together a subjective selection of authors, who over a period of 50 years, have contributed to constructing the city.
By combining text and images, the exhibition reinforces Los Angeles’ fi ctive quality. But isn’t this fictive dimension a part of its reality?
Curators: Thierry Raspail (MAC Lyon), Gunnar B. Kvaran (Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo) and Nicolas Garait-Leavenworth (literature).
Artistic advisors: Hans Ulrich Obrist (Serpentine Galleries, London), Ali Subotnick (Hammer Museum, Los Angeles) and artist, Alex Israel.