Kristin's List: A Guide to Cultivated Los Angeles

The DF2 Gallery is hosting the opening reception for Li Qing’s “Collision in the Air,” a new series of 8 quadriptychs that contemplate, construct and deconstruct daily events with different compositions.

Qing takes two analogous paintings, while still wet, and presses them face-to-face. When the works are pulled apart, two new mirror images are created. Emerging from this process are compositions that come from the artist’s conscious actions and the chance interactions of the painting’s physical elements.

Placing the series of images together, Qing invites the viewer to examine the shifts of time, physicality, space, and memory. The juxtaposition of the images is used to unveil the tension between the related yet divergent subjects.

In the end, viewers are rewarded with messages, often humorous and satirical, camouflaged in the subtle process of undoing and uniting. 



WHEN: 6pm-8pm Opening Reception
GALLERY HOURS: 10am-5:30 Tues-Fri, 11am-5:30 Sat
ADMISSION: Free
WHERE: DF2 Gallery
ADDRESS: 314 N. Crescent Heights Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90048
PHONE: (323) 782-9404
WEBSITE: www.df2gallery.com
ADDITIONAL INFO: The exhibit closes April 12, 2008

The Farmlab Public Salon series features critic, curator and art historian Joshua Decter to discuss the notion of ’situational’ art practices and curatorial projects, in relation to contradictions of place and placelessness, location and dislocation.

A contributor to Artforum and Afterall, Decter has been writing about art since the late 1980’s, and has curated exhibitions at PS1 in New York, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, The Santa Monica Museum of Art, and The Kunsthalle Vienna.

WHEN: 12noon
ADMISSION: Free
WHERE: Farmlab
ADDRESS: 1745 N. Spring St, Unit 4, Los Angeles, CA 90012
PHONE: (323) 226-1158
WEBSITE: www.farmlab.org

Award-winning journalist and commentator E.J. Dionne will discuss his new book “Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right,” which asserts that the era of the Religious Right, and the exploitation of faith for political advantage, is over.

Based on years of research, “Souled Out” proposes that millions of religious Americans are reclaiming faith from those who would abuse it for narrow, partisan, and ideological purposes. In addition, the end of the Religious Right doesn’t signal the decline of evangelical Christianity but rather its disentanglement from a political machine that sold it out to a narrow electoral agenda, like opposition to gay marriage and abortion.

Written in the tradition of Reinhold and H. Richard Niebuhr, “Souled Out” hopes to change how we think and talk about religion and politics in the post-Bush era.

Dionne will be speaking with Lisa Specht, and a book signing will follow the event.

WHEN: 7:30pm
ADMISSION: $20
PURCHASE TICKETS: www.townhall-la.org/programs/register/1149
WHERE: James Bridge Theater @ UCLA
ADDRESS: 1409 Melnitz Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095
PARKING: UCLA Lot #3 @ the corner of Hilgard & Sunset, Fee $8
ADDITIONAL INFO: www.townhall-la.org/programs/register/1149

The Descanso Garden’s flagship flower, the camellia, aka the Empress of Winter, will be celebrated this weekend at the Pacific Camellia Society Show. Stroll through the show to see the winning local varieties of camellias, and afterwards explore the Camellia Forest as well as the blooming tulips, irises, daffodils and hyacinth.

The show will last Saturday & Sunday but by arriving early on Saturday you can enter one of your own home grown camellias to be judged in the novice or intermediate categories.

Originally planted by E. Manchester Boddy in the 1930’s, the camellias of the Descanso Gardens have become North America’s largest camellia collection with more than 34,000 plants and 700 camellia taxa, some of which are more than 20 feet in height.

WHEN: 1pm-4pm Sat 8th, 9am-4pm Sun 9th
ADMISSION: $7 General Admission/$5 Seniors & Students/$2 Children (5-12)
WHERE: Descanso Gardens
ADDRESS: 1418 Descanso Drive, Canada Flintridge, CA 91011
PHONE: (818) 949-4200
WEBSITE: www.descansogardens.org
ADDITIONAL INFO: Entry to show is free with Garden admission

The Geffen Playhouse presents Neil LaBute’s “Some Girl(s),” which stars Mark Feuerstein as the ambiguous romantic lead, Guy, who before getting married decides to make amends with some girls he loved and left.

Traveling between non-descript hotel rooms in various cities, Guy tries to reconcile his past with the high school sweetheart that he dumped just before prom night in Seattle, the savvy yet scarred older woman in Boston, the free-spirited sexual plaything in Chicago, and the woman he really loved in Los Angeles.

Despite Guy’s attempts to right wrongs with his old flames, he keeps getting burned, and as often is the case, LaBute’s men refuse to learn from experience.

WHEN: 7:30pm
TICKET SPECIAL: Mention code ACT25 and get 2 tickets for $25, call box office at (310) 208-5454 for special promotion
REGULAR ADMISSION: $74 Fri/Sat evenings, $64 all other shows
TICKETS: Call (310) 208-5454, or visit www.ticketmaster.com
WHERE: Geffen Playhouse
ADDRESS: 10886 Le Conte Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90024
WEBSITE: www.geffenplayhouse.com
ADDITIONAL INFO: The play closes March 16, 2008