LOS ANGELES 2020 | LOS ANGELES 2021 | ITALY 2021 | BERLIN 2021
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About Suturo

suturo.com is a new dynamic and interactive website that reacts uniquely to each visitor as they navigate the site, allowing for exploration that fosters new formal and conceptual perspectives between the art, the poems, and the viewers.

Project Team
Steven Wolkoff
Alexandra Wiesenfeld
Eugene Ahn

Website
VAMA Creative

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Artists and Poems: Los Angeles 2020

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

Artwork
Anemone : Still. Life. 2020
8 x 10 inches
Tintype - quarantin-type series
Lara Porzak @laraporzak

Poem
Good Bones
Maggie Smith @maggiesmithpoet

Explore more in Artists and Poems

Artists and Poems: Los Angeles 2020

Presented with Durden and Ray

Exhibition Team
Steven Wolkoff
Alexandra Wiesenfeld
Jenny Hager

Artists
Eugene Ahn, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Carlos Beltran Arechiga, Arezoo Bharthania, Jorin Bossen, Debra Broz, Nancy Buchanan, Gavin Bunner, Ismael de Anda III, Jacci Den Hartog, Yasmine Diaz, Tomory Dodge, Tom Dunn, Roni Feldman, Yrneh Gabon, Bia Gayotto, Mark Steven Greenfield, Kio Griffith, Gronk, Jenny Hager, Katie Herzog, Geraldine Hudson, Phung Huynh, Carmine Iannaccone, Bryan Ida, Ichiro Irie, Ben Jackel, Monica Juarez, Alexander Kroll, David Leapman, Constance Mallinson, Dakota Noot, Sean Noyce, Claudia Parducci, Lara Porzak, Rebecca Ripple, Gabby Rosenberg, Christopher Russell, Liza Ryan, Roland Seto, Theodore Svenningsen, Holly Tempo, Doug Wichert, Alexandra Wiesenfeld, Steven Wolkoff, Torie Zalben

About Artists and Poems: Los Angeles 2020

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Curatorial statement

Early in the pandemic, several facebook friends posted that they were looking for poems to read at a funeral. Given the number of deaths around the world, this request was probably too common.

We often turn to poetry to mark big occasions, to help give these moments more meaning, to better convey the sentiments we feel but cannot express, or to help make sense of things we don’t fully understand.

In the middle of this pandemic, and all the other crises running alongside it, when so many moments are limited to words shared at a social distance, the need for poetry seems much greater.

In Artists and Poems we are inviting artists to pair their work with a poem that has meaning for them given the current state of their world. The pair of works – poem and visual art – are presented together.

Artists and Poems creates a platform for contemplation, responding to the turmoil of recent events through a lens of art and poetry. The juxtaposition of visual art and verse provides insight into both the artists’ work and the poems they have chosen.

The first show was a survey of Los Angeles artists in the months leading up to the 2020 presidential election. The second show, Artists and Poems: Los Angeles 2021, covers the period from Election Day until Inauguration Day. Future shows will explore other cities and other curatorial frameworks, and will include additional curators.

--- Steven Wolkoff, February 2021