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

It is the far end of twilight and I struggle to see where  
I am in the heavy blue shadowy. 
              The tide, coming in. 
Most of the beach has been swallowed already. 
                                        The air, chill and damp. 
My things are scattered all over—a balled-up towel and a half-buried
handbag, its contents strewn about. 
Poking up out of mounded sand, the top left corner of
my driver’s license. When I pick it up I am relieved to find it intact; its face 
looking blankly into the blank between us. 
Other possessions have suffered 
various sorts of violations: ripped, cracked, broken into pieces. 
I am dispersed.

A raven, I think. 
A comforting thought compared to the other things I think. 
The surf is approaching fast and rough at my back. Dark. 
Where are my sandals? 
              The wind gusts, 
              pushing me through the stinging cold gritty 
    toward a thick of trees ahead,
    the sky, heavy,
I suddenly remember the warm, clear, calm day that I dozed off in. 
               Careless of me to forget how quickly the weather can change.

Artwork
Memoirs (written by trees) 2020
20 x 20 inches
Archival Inkjet Print on 100% Cotton Rag
Bia Gayotto

Poem
Signal to Noise, January
Eve Luckring

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