LAND — Los Angeles Nomadic Division

Anna Sew Hoy
Psychic Body Grotto

Opening: May 21, 4–7pm

Los Angeles State Historic Park
1245 N Spring St
Los Angeles, CA 90012
USA

www.nomadicdivision.org
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Please join Anna Sew Hoy and LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) in celebrating the opening of Psychic Body Grotto this Sunday. The free public opening event will include artist activations by Ethernet (Benjamin Boatright and Dylan Mira), Cirilo Domine & Tala Mateo, Corey Fogel, and LA Fog at the sculpture. Corey Fogel will turn Psychic Body Grotto into an instrument with an array of other percussive units. Cirilo Domine and Tala Mateo will live-write a text at their desk relocated near the sculpture. LA Fog will present a traditional acoustic performance of their music. Ethernet will contribute a ritual washing and tamping of the ground below Psychic Body Grotto. John Tain and Carol Cheh from KCHUNG radio will broadcast live during the performances, recording the music, sounds and interviews with the artists. The bronze sculpture will be on view thereafter to the public during park hours.

LAND commissioned Los Angeles-based artist Anna Sew Hoy to create the large-scale, bronze public sculpture Psychic Body Grotto installed at the newly developed 32 acre Los Angeles State Historic Park. Drawing on the artist’s previous explorations of materiality, spirituality and the relationships we forge with everyday objects as seen in exhibitions such as Invisible Tattoo at Koenig & Clinton, 2016, and FACE NO FACE at Various Small Fires, 2015, this will be Sew Hoy’s most ambitious sculpture to date. Psychic Body Grotto is a room-sized bronze sculpture or “figurative gazebo” for meetings and rituals that have yet to be invented. The sculpture evokes the illusion of being organically generated from the earth, creating a locus for contemplation and relaxation amidst the buzzing cityscape of Los Angeles.

Working in conjunction with the efforts of California State Parks to revitalize and create new spaces for cultural and civic dialogue, activity, leisure, and engagement, Psychic Body Grotto will function as an interactive work of public art, landscape design, and gathering spot for local residents and visitors of the park.

About Anna Sew Hoy
Los Angeles-based artist Anna Sew Hoy (born 1976, Auckland, New Zealand) received her MFA from Bard College in 2008. Sew Hoy’s work has been shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and solo presentations have been mounted at the Aspen Art Museum; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York; LAXART; Various Small Fires, Los Angeles; the San Jose Museum of Art; and the California Biennial 2008 at the Orange County Museum of Art. Her work is in the collections of the Hammer Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego. She was awarded a Creative Capital Award for Visual Art in 2015 to support her public sculpture Psychic Body Grotto. She was awarded the California Community Foundation Grant for Emerging Artists in 2013, and the United States Artists Broad Fellowship in 2006. Most recently Sew Hoy was the subject of a solo exhibition at Koenig & Clinton Gallery, NY in summer 2016. Sew Hoy is represented by Various Small Fires in Los Angeles and Koenig & Clinton Gallery in New York City.

About LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division)
Established in 2009, LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) is a non-profit organization dedicated to curating site-specific public art exhibitions. Through commissions of site-specific works with national and international contemporary artists, collaborations with arts institutions and organizations, and a wide variety of programming, LAND supports dynamic and untraditional artistic practices. Large-scale, multi-site, multi-artist and monographic exhibitions as well as one night ephemeral performances and durational events are all part of LAND’s programming repertoire. LAND believes that everyone deserves the opportunity to experience innovative contemporary art in their day-to-day lives. In turn, artists deserve the opportunity to realize projects, otherwise unsupported, at unique sites in the public realm.

Significant support for this exhibition is provided by:
Creative Capital

Additional support for this exhibition is provided by:
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Land Nomadic Council
Los Angeles County Arts Commission
Los Angeles State Historic Park