Saturday | JANUARY 27, 2018 | 6:00PM - 9:00PM

Opening Reception

Garden Variety

Brand Library & Art Center is pleased to present Garden Variety, a group exhibition that explores the systems and experiences that encapsulate notions of timekeeping.

Curated by Katie Bode, this exhibition includes work by Kristin Cammermeyer, Cameron Crone, Jenalee Harmon, Karen Kimmel, Bessie Kunath, Megan Mueller, Lydia Maria Pfeffer, Sam Scharf, Theresa Sterner, Arden Surdam, Sarah Ann Weber, Zach Trow, and John Zane Zappas.
The exhibition brings together works that engage the history of photographic production, with its scientific genesis and mechanical reproducibility; as well as those that speak to experiential time, of primitive mark making, poetic interpretation, and the wonder of the machine that is nature. Their varied approaches, across a spectrum of media, raise questions about perception, productivity, cycle, and longevity.

A garden is [physical] and physicalized time. It is a space to be planned, executed and maintained. It is a space to determine suitability to a climate, to propagate research, and to monitor long term [rustling]. It is a shared space for both expert and beginner. It is an attempt to control chaos [underfoot]. It is a space where the wills of Man and Nature meet, parry blows, and for brief moments find equilibrium [possum babies have nested in the trashcan]. A garden is a witness and participant, as it is a historian and time-keeper.

Much like a garden, contemporary art practices engage time-keeping in dynamic ways. Time-keeping manifests in the everyday in both natural and highly produced ways, through the embodied knowledge of humans understanding daylight & shadows as the passage of time, to the data visualizations of archives on our mobile devices. The artists presented in “Garden Variety” review their relationship with time as content, resulting in works that question archive, labor, accumulation, rhythm, and cycle.

About the Curator:
Katie Bode is an independent curator and writer who lives and works in Los Angeles. Through various roles as a gallerist, writer, and curator, Bode has developed a special affinity for building connective tissue between communities. Her projects frequently take place in non-traditional environments including private residences, bathrooms, and backyards. Usually, food is involved too. Bode’s various projects and exhibitions signify and champion the current energy among emerging artists in Los Angeles. Her writing can regularly be found in the Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles.

About Brand Library and Art Gallery:
Brand Library & Art Center has been a cornerstone for the arts in Southern California since 1956. This unique public library focuses on visual arts and music and provides free services and programs for a diverse community, including a collection of over 110,000 items, subject specialist librarians, exhibitions, concerts, dance performances, films, and craft programs for children and adults. Brand Library & Art Center is a branch of the City of Glendale Library, Arts & Culture Department.