Artist Alice Könitz Activates Institutional Structures with SCI-Arc Channel

SCI-Arc Channel visits artist Alice Könitz as she explores the interaction of institutional structures, systems of display, public participation, and the built and natural environments. In 2012, Könitz founded the Los Angeles Museum of Art (LAMOA), a nomadic sculpture and experimental exhibition space that began as an open-air pavilion outside her studio in Eagle Rock. An architectural display system that functions as a site for public engagement, LAMOA is a dynamic platform in which other artists are invited to participate and artistic dialogues are constructed. In this film, Könitz speaks about her exhibition Display Systems of the Los Angeles Museum of Art (2019) at Commonwealth and Council, a gallery that began as an artist-run space and has been located in Koreatown since 2010. Both LAMOA and Commonwealth and Council share a community-oriented sense of purpose and spirit of inclusivity. Here Könitz discusses works on view by artists represented by the gallery—including Carmen Argote, Clarissa Tossin, Jen Smith, Gala Porras-Kim, Beatriz Cortez, Katie Grinnan, and Olga Koumoundouros—and how utopic leanings tie them together.

Alice Könitz (born in Essen, Germany; lives and works in Los Angeles) has presented her work in numerous exhibitions including the 2008 Whitney Biennial (Whitney Museum of American Art, NY); the 2008 California Biennial and High Desert Test Sites; the 2014 Made in LA Biennial at the UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Main Museum, Los Angeles; Galerie Nächst St. Stephan, Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Vienna; the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena; Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles; LAXART, Los Angeles, CA; the MAK Center for Art and Architecture Los Angeles, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles and Berlin Projects; the Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg; Museum of the City of Mülheim an der Ruhr; Villa Arson, Nice; and the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery.

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