COLA 20 Public Art Performance, 2017

Artist Edgar Fabián Frías paid homage to their artist mentors Erika Suderburg and Paul Outlaw as well as to the late feminist and environmentalist performer Rachel Rosenthal, in this site specific ritual performance which took place on June 11, 2017 at Barnsdall Art Park, home to the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery.

As part of their performance, Frías called in the directions outside of the museum and then traversed the interior space, stopping at the art pieces of their mentors and finishing within Rosenthal's installation, where they performed a dance number accompanied by a soundtrack created by Frías. The soundtrack featured songs inspired by the work of Suderburg, Outlaw, and Rosenthal and were played both within the installation as well as throughout rest of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery.

This program was a multimedia event paying tribute to past COLA fellows. Artists participated in layered and intermittent time slots within the COLA 20 exhibit responding to the artwork via sound, movement, ritual and text. In addition to Frías performing, the poet Claudia Rodriguez (COLA 2016 Fellow) read selections from her most recent work and musicians Emile Porée and Leisei Chen (former collaborator and widow of COLA 2013 fellow, Michael White) gave an immersive lyrical and musical performance as tribute to Michael White.

The landmark COLA 20 exhibition celebrated the first twenty years of the City of Los Angeles (COLA) Individual Artist Fellowship Program, recognizing the achievements of 271 design, literary, performing, and visual master artists and artist-duos who represent the creative legacy of Los Angeles. Through its thought-provoking content, COLA 20 illustrated the continued vitality of the Individual Artist Fellowship Program to highlight master artistry and foster the bold creative spirit of Los Angeles, a city where complexity and diversity intertwine.

The exhibition demonstrated how this annual fellowship program encourages local, master artists to follow and realize their dynamic visions from which we can broaden and redefine our individual and collective experience. COLA 20 memorialized this extraordinary assembly of creativity by bringing together past COLA fellows for dialogues about the great attributes of living and working in Los Angeles, special tributes to eleven former COLA fellows who are now deceased, a literary lounge that included literature from all literary fellows, and a roaming timeline that featured archival ephemera from each year. Awarded annually by the Department of Cultural Affairs, the COLA Fellowships support the creation of new works by a selection of the City’s most exemplary mid-career artists.

The COLA exhibition honors these creative visionaries and nurtures the symbiotic relationship between Los Angeles, its artists, its history, and its identity as an international arts capital. Featured artists included: Michael Brewster, Wanda Coleman, James Doolin, Ron George, Tony Gleaton, Arthur Jarvinen, Larry Karush, Willie Robert Middlebrook, Jr., Rachel Rosenthal, Michael White and Norman Yonemoto.