The Artist as Curator – Drew Heitzler: Golden State

For Golden State, Heitzler has brought together ten artists from Los Angeles into the Great Hall. Individually and in aggregate their work playfully, cryptically and sometimes menacingly puts one in mind of the characteristic sprit and aesthetic linked with that geographical and political entity formerly known as the El Dorado State. The artists are Samara Golden, Lucy Dodd, Kaari Upson, Lucy Raven, Amy Yao, Pentti Monkkonen, Liz Craft, Mungo Thomson, Scott Benzel and Theodora Allen. Though where they hail from is undoubtedly important, what really matters, in Heitzler’s words, is that, “the artists make work that presents, in the best way possible, the arguments that make contemporary art interesting, not in terms of a relationship with other disciplines or concerns, but through a rigorous pursuit of the means through which art is meaningful on its own.”

Images by Christian Ramirez.