Downtown, Los Angeles
Group Exhibition
Rob Pruitt’s Flea Market
LANDJon Pylypchuk, James Franco, Michele O’Marah, Brendan Fowler, Pentti Monkonnen and Liz Craft, Bert Rodriguez, Kim Fisher, Matt Greene, Dean Spunt (of the band No Age), Mario Ybarra Jr., Joe Sola, Mark Verabioff, Bari Ziperstein, among many others. LAND will present the ninth iteration of Rob Pruitt’s Flea Market, a nomadic concept that has taken place across the globe. The premise is simple: Pruitt and LAND invite the top artists and tastemakers in Los Angeles to participate in a traditional-style flea market, making their wares available for sale to the public. Past examples of flea market offerings include Martha Stewart's grab bags, a slew of coffee mugs emblazoned with portraits of Aida from Alex Katz, Sylvia Miles’ boots she wore in Midnight Cowboy, Haim Steinbach's accouterments for a reptile tank, and a real William Wegman drawing from a New York museum curator for $20. There have also been fortune tellers, Rosy Brown’s homemade lemonade, and in the 2007 edition at Frieze London, Sam Taylor Wood shot portraits of visitors with Pruitt dressed in a panda costume. The vendors will be accompanied by food/drink, music, and performances for a weekend celebrating the vibrant artistic community of Los Angeles. A portion of the proceeds (at the discretion of the artists) will be donated to a charity for the homeless in Downtown Los Angeles. This exhibition is made possible with support from Creative Space, an integrated real estate company that transforms buildings and places into “housing” for the most innovative businesses, brands, and people. New York-based artist Rob Pruitt was born in 1964 in Washington, D.C. Pruitt is equal parts Pop artist and provocateur as he investigates the narcissistic shallows of contemporary visual culture. He has painted glittery canvases of panda bears, installed an interactive Cocaine Buffet at a gallery, and given the art world its own Hollywood-style awards ceremony. Pruitt has also gained acclaim for his consistent use of found objects and D.I.Y. techniques, such as his internationally presented Flea Markets, which bring an outsider spirit to works that might otherwise seem like inside jokes. His work has been exhibited internationally since the early 1990s, at venues including the Tate Modern, MoMA PS1, and the American Academy in Rome. In 2011, the Public Art Fund installed Pruitt's Andy Monument, a chrome-plated, seven-foot-tall statue of Warhol, near Union Square. Pruitt is represented by Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York and Air de Paris, Paris.