LOS / LOSS / LOST

“Hoover Street running southwards from Hollywood to the University of Southern California, marks a threshold where the 90-degree grid system of West Los Angeles meets the 45-degree clustered streets of Downtown; manifesting the economic and social push-pull that shaped so much of the city since the 1920s. The high-modernity of Piet Mondrian’s perpendicular crushed next to Theo Doesburg’s diagonals. This collision of abstractions manifests in Bas Jan Ader’s film Broken Fall (Geometric) recorded in front of Mondrian’s lighthouse at Westkapelle. The artist stands upright, swaying in increasing motion with the breeze until his lean becomes a fall and Ader collapses across a propped wooden work-bench.”

The LA Conservancy is an independent nonprofit membership organization that works through education and advocacy to recognize, preserve, and revitalize the historic architectural and cultural resources of Los Angeles County. Buildings are categorized by their current preservation status. Listed architecture that has been demolished or modified are categorized as ‘Lost’. These thirteen LOST buildings are dotted around Los Angeles; from Hollywood in the north, Palos Verde in the south, Covina in the east and Ventura in the west. The publication documents the 13 LOST buildings and their current status in the city of Los Angeles. The accompanying text ponders the relationship between preservation and Bas Jan Ader’s ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, through an idea of ‘Lost’. The text is a meditation on the city, through economics, cinema, walking and artworks. The publication provides a parallel to the ongoing ‘Monuments to the German Democratic Republic’ project and as such attempts to pursue idiosyncratic moments when exploring cultural-historical sites.

WRITING CITIES: London – Los Angeles, Intellect Journal, Volume 10, Number 2, 1 May 2018, pp. 267-299

Platform Projects, Art Athina, Athens. Summer 2016

Thanks to Eastside International, Los Angeles and University for the Creative Arts.