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 2021

Summer's hem. The moon, a swelling. Too, bullfrog throats, vibrating
across the slick green bay. Full low like a plump lip jug pressing. At night,
this side of things is settled without the memory of ache. Even the
shallows are pregnant. Slow fish, the terrapin's slide. In the trees, a ladder
to nowhere. A fire for the color of it, the air warmer than smoke. A
cupping, an ease, a drifting you want to pocket.

Past midnight, the crescent of green water holds, tongue warm. The boat
green, the shore grass green. Flute green the swamp reeds. Green the
unseen frogs, the firefly pulse. Beneath the mouth of a moonbright sky,
sway. Split green, the moment before a song. A song, green, silt green in
the lungs.

Artwork
Uncle Joey R.I.T.ano 2021
35mm, Digital Collage
Mariquita “Micki” Davis @marimick
In memory of Joey Patrick Toves familian "Kotla". Beloved son, brother, uncle, friend and caregiver. 1/27/1960-8/7/2020

Poem
Low Mountain Lake Song 2018
Inside Me an Island
Lehua M. Taitano @lehua_m._taitano
Low Mountain Lake Song from Inside Me an Island by Lehua Taitano, published in 2018 by WordTech Imprint, Cincinnati, Ohio

Explore more in Artists and Poems: Los Angeles 2021

Artists and Poems: Los Angeles 2021

Curated by members of the Durden and Ray curatorial collective

Exhibition Team
Steven Wolkoff
Alexandra Wiesenfeld
Eugene Ahn

Artists
Nicole Belle, Gary Brewer, Gul Cagin, Joe Davidson, Mariquita “Micki” Davis, Danny Angel Escalante, Nancy Evans, Rebecca Farr, Leslie Foster, Christine Frerichs, Gajin Fujita, Iva Gueorguieva, Hasef, Mike Hazel, Regina Herod, Kiel Johnson, Aline Mare, Stephanie Mercado, Sandeep Mukherjee, Hung Viet Nguyen, Elizabeth Preger, Max Presneill, Bruce Richards, Colin Roberts, Karrie Ross, Orly Ruaimi, Debra Scacco, Sonja Schenk, Greg Schenk, Coleen Sterritt, Devon Tsuno, Rodrigo Valenzuela, Marnie Weber, Lisa Wedgeworth, Liat Yossifor, HK Zamani

About Artists and Poems: Los Angeles 2021

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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