22/2/2007
Garden of Brokenness
Farmlab, Los Angeles
The show celebrates Los Angeles as a broken paradise. The main feature is a working carousel with repurposed objects and assemblages by artists George Herms and Lauren Bon, accompanied by music created for this proposal by composer Jeremy Mage.
Group show
Farmlab’s Garden of Brokenness celebrates Los Angeles as a broken paradise. The project is proposed for Confluence Park, a location that has been described as “one of the ugliest, most devastated spots on the Los Angeles River” (Dr. Jennifer Price), but which is also one of the more inspirational. For two fresh water rivers – the Arroyo Seco and the Los Angeles River – meet here year round and, for well over ten thousand years, their confluence sustained a hunter-gatherer culture that enjoyed abundant clean water, plentiful food, a sub-tropical climate, and lush rural surroundings.
Beginning in the post-industrial brokenness of this paradise lost, the Garden of Brokenness extends the gestalt of a ragamuffin site. The project is neither landscaped in a traditional sense nor arranged according to a tidy municipal geometry. Instead, as if the rivers have burst their concrete banks and then receded, leaving behind curious flotsam and fertile soil, the project elements are arranged to give the impression of random placement.
The distinct elements of the Garden of Brokenness are rich and poetic. The main feature is a working carousel with repurposed objects and assemblages by artists George Herms and Lauren Bon, accompanied by music created for this proposal by composer Jeremy Mage. The carousel is bordered by a number of ‘junker gardens’ – verdant plots cultivated inside of broken-down vehicles – and by eleven graffiti-covered columns salvaged from the recently demolished Hahamog-na Bridge. In the center of the carousel a camera obscura shows images of a river. But the question is: “which river?” Is this a real camera obscura that shows the actual meeting of the Arroyo Seco and the Los Angeles River? Is it a college of images concerning the archetype ‘River’? Is it a phantasm of the Los Angeles River – a river in potentia that is now alive only in the realm of perception? Or is it a vision for the future?
About the Artists
Garden of Brokenness, by Farmlab, is a collaboration between Farmlab team members including conceptual artist Lauren Bon, sculptor George Herms, gardener Jaime Lopez Wolters, and composer Jeremy Mage; with the creative input and technical expertise of Kate Balug, James Goodnight, Monica Henderson, Amy Linsenmayer and Alex Ward, the furniture selection and critical eye of Roxanne Steinberg, and special thanks to Valley Crest Landscape Development for technical support.
Opening Reception: Friday, February 23, 2007
Farmlab Exhibition Center
1745 N. Spring Street - Los Angeles