Katrin Hornek / Group XXXVI, Apr 2013 - Sep 2013

SMILE

9/13/13 to 9/15/13

Mackey Apartments and Garages 1137 S. Cochran Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90019

The impact of water management on the landscape of the American Southwest was the topic of artist Katrin Hornek's film Upstream. Tracing the lower Colorado River from the Grand Canyon until it peters out at the Mexican border, Hornek's film reverses this flow. As if rewinding time and the contemporary doctrine of growth, the camera travels upstream, from the American Canal through the Imperial Valley, Salton Sea, Hoover Dam, and more. Typically drained for irrigation, urban water supply, and electricity, the Colorado is here seen in both natural and technological guises of the sublime. Hornek's views of cultural and natural landscapes are counterpointed with abstract and concrete soundscapes by Wilm Thoben. In her book project, Title Word on "Plastic*", Los Angeles Public Library / Central Library, 1906-2014, Hornek presented a chronological documentation of the title pages of the 564 books in L.A.'s downtown library with the word "plastic" in their titles. As the decades of the 20th century unfold, titles touch on mass production, war materials, multinational corporations, Tupperware, plastic surgery, plastic money, plastic art and recycling. These pages take on resonance from their setting, revealing a Los Angeles that is both a center for back-to-the-earth living and a key player in the heavy oil and plastics industries.