COLA 20
City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowships Anniversary Exhibition 1997 – 2017
April 27 – July 2, 2017

This painting by the artist James Doolin takes the shape of an arch with bright, gradient colors. The outer shape of the arch (from left to right) starts with warmer colors including pink, purple, orange and yellow, and then moves to shades of green, blue and purple again. In the middle of the arch is a smaller, narrower arch form with gradients of darker shades of green, orange and red.
James Doolin, Arch Series; #14, 1969, courtesy of Lauren Doolin Mcmillen
This video still of the installation by Bruce and Norman Yonemoto shows a black and white image of the bottom halves of two individuals. On the left is an individual wearing a flowing knee-length black dress, semi-translucent knee-high stockings, and lightly toned dancing boots. The legs seen here are bent inward and slanted slighty gesturing acts of dancing. On the right of the image is an individual wearing ankle-length black pants, angularly patterned socks, and white dress shoes containing a black diagonal stripe along the outter sides of the shoe. This individual is faced away from the other, knees bent forward, also gesturing dancing.
Bruce and Norman Yonemoto, Framed, 1989, courtesy of Bruce Yonemoto
This painting by the artist James Doolin features a desert landscape with a cloudy, blue sky overhead. The foreground features a mountainous valley with various sized rocks. The mountains on the left are depicted in the shade (from the dark clouds overhead), while the mountains on the right are depicted in warm, bright browns, golds and yellows where the sun and light falls on them.
James Doolin, Primal Landscape, 1993, courtesy of Lauren Doolin Mcmillen
This sculptural installation by the artist Michael Brewster consists of four seperate battery-opperated speakers emitting sound. Seen here is one of the four speakers. The speaker small, rounded, and mounted on the gallery wall. A multitude of holes on the face of the speaker are present and the speaker is of an oxidized white color.
Michael Brewster, Whistlers 2, 1994
In this black and white still of a performance by the artist Rachel Rosenthal, the artist is wearing camouflage print apparel bent forward and downward. She is clenching the top of her head with her right hand whilst standing over a bundled pile of plastic material. In the background, a blurred imagery of Mojave Desert landscape is shown.
Rachel Rosenthal, L.O.W. in Gaia, 1986, courtesy of Sabra Vickland
In this still of a performance by the artist Ron George, the artist is seen holding a pair of percussion instrument sticks and speaking into a microphone in the same hand while gesturing towards an assumed audience with the other hand. Beside the individual is a stand for the microphone. In the background, more indications of another percussion instrument and lighting pointed down at the individual and their performance space.
Ron George, Introduction to the American Gamelan and variations on a Butterfly, 1999, courtesy of American Composers Forum
In this photograph by the artist Tony Gleaton, a person of color is submerged in water. The person's head is only visible (from the top of his lip to the top of his head). There is also some foliage and a cloudy sky in the background.
Tony Gleaton, Installation image

This landmark 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 represented 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 DCA, 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.

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