Life's a riot at 25
29 April - 24 June 2017
Life’s a riot at 25 celebrates 1301PE’s storied history through ephemera over the past 25 years. When 1301 was founded in 1992 the artist poster was central to the overall thinking of the gallery. Within this format the artist was free to extend the exhibition through ephemera.
Since its beginnings, 1301PE has been at the forefront of fostering the careers of Los Angeles based artists and introducing international artists to the LA art world. On April 29, 1992, the start of the LA Riots, Brian D. Butler opened 1301 in a Santa Monica townhouse – the “1301” referring to the house number. Following the inaugural presentation of Kate Ericson’s and Mel Ziegler’s work, 1301 presented seminal exhibitions and projects artists such as Jason Rhoades, Meg Cranston, Diana Thater, Jorge Pardo, Pae White, Angela Bulloch, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Lincoln Tobier or Sarah Seager. In 1996, 1301 became 1301PE, with “PE” referring to Projects and Editions and pointing to the notion of experimentation inherent to the gallery’s collaboration with artists.
Since 1998, 1301PE has been located at its current location on the Miracle Mile. It continues to work with many of the original artist and has mounted solo exhibitions by Fiona Banner, Paul Winstanley, General Idea, Jack Goldstein, Judy Ledgerwood, Ann Veronica Janssens, Liliana Moro, SUPERFLEX, Kirsten Everberg, Philippe Parreno, John Baldessari, Jessica Stockholder, Kerry Tribe, Jorge Mendez Blake, Uta Barth, Blake Rayne, Charline von Heyl, Fiona Connor, Jan Albers, Ana Prvacki, and Petra Cortright.
Life’s a riot at 25 provides unique insights into 1301PE’s exhibition history and the Los Angeles art scene at large. It explores the centrality of posters, prints and editions – an ongoing interest of 1301PE and the artists it collaborated with. Apart from producing exhibition posters with artists, 1301PE has mounted such critically acclaimed exhibitions as Together Again Like Never Before: The Complete Poster Work of Michael Asher and Martin Kippenberger (1999) or John Baldessari – Not Prints: Posters 1966 - 2010 (2010) which questioned the role of the poster as supplementary to the given artist’s output. As a survey exhibition, it also poses an interesting question regarding the role of ephemera and the notion of the archive.
