What’s HAPPENING @ MOCA los angeles?
Opening this invitation was an experience unto itself.
Artist Doug Aitken, a California native and multi-media artist known for producing contemporary ‘happenings’, will adapt MOCA’s annual money-making Gala into a landscape of art.
MOCA director interviews Aitken, here, about the November 13 soiree.
Allusions to possible reasons for changing the name from Gala to Happening range from simple advertising: ‘happening’ just sounds much more hip and cool, to the thematic: positioning the Gala as a moment in history, something to be documented as art and not just another party of the élite.
Aitken plans to showcase Los Angeles artists of all kinds employing local “chefs, musicians, designers, architects, and performers.” According to the artist, the evening will unfurl in a series of layers, just as he takes viewers through his MOMA installation Sleepwalkers through a ‘suggested route’ in order to maximize their experience. Aitken pays special attention to the way those who visit his installations interact with their environment and it to them and to the way that visitors publicly and privately take in the same occurrence so that he can successfully push art’s limits.
