Sonja Gerdes

• VENUE Gas
• LOCATION Los Angeles, CA
• DATES August 11-September 28, 2019
• URL gas.gallery
• PUBLICATION gas.gallery

ARTIST
Sonja Gerdes

TITLE
Pie of Trouble. Stays Trouble. Belly on Belly. Let’s Hang. Breathe you infinite. Oxygenenergizer. Animal Creature Plant Breath Soul. The Energy Plan. Amorphous Hypersensibility. Do Ants Breathe? Nova. The Multiple Amorphous Us. Air For Free.

PRESS RELEASE

Sonja Gerdes’s practice investigates the relationship and interactions between the body, energy, and air and what it means to be human. Her starting point is a conceptual science fiction project called Oxygenenergizer (OE), which explores a future in which machines create energy from oxygen and “breathing” is recognized as the connecting force between all life and spirits on the planet. It speaks poetically about the contemporary human condition as an ongoing, infinite, fluid, adaptive movement despite the stark reality of climate change. Taking the form of a custom site-specific installation including textiles, sculpture, sound, and prints, the Gas truck gallery will be reconceived as a hub for the Oxygenenergizer. Visitors are invited to listen and mindfully breathe together within its structure, encouraging a sense of collectivity. This dimension is furthered by performances and interactive workshops that create meaningful dialogue around air and energy’s boundless potential. The exhibition creates a gathering place centered on the breath as a vital aspect of the human experience, while giving concrete shape to urgent conversations regarding the environment.

A limited edition reusable blue glass straw engraved with the words “oxygenenergizer.com Air for free” during the run of the exhibition for $20, both on-site and online at gas.gallery/editions.

Sonja Gerdes was born in Germany. She studied at the University of the Arts in Berlin, and from 2007-2013, co-ran the Berlin-based artist run space, Infernoesque. She lives and works in Los Angeles and Berlin. Recent exhibitions include Pie of Trouble. Stays Trouble. Let’s Hang. Breathe. Oxygenenergizer. Becoming With. Genderless Breath. Animal Creature Plant Breath Soul. Air For Free. Do spiders breathe? The Multiple Amorphous Us. Crown Chakra – Sahasrara Rising. Nova, Cloaca Projects, San Francisco; Direct Contact, D21, Leipzig; School for Endurance Work, Cal State La, Los Angeles; Pie of Trouble. Let’s Hang. Air for Free. Uncertainty. Absurdity. You look at it but it doesn’t exist. Anahata. Vishuda rising. Unpredictability, Cirrus Gallery, Los Angeles; When the sea looks back. A Serpent’s Tale. The Many Headed Hydra #02, District, Berlin; Pie of Trouble. Let’s Hang. You look at it but it doesn’t exist. Air for free and The Elegant Universe, The Pit, Los Angeles, CA; Unblinking Eye, Kavi Gupta Gallery, Berlin, Germany; and informell natur, Sabine Knust, Berlin, Germany. http://www.sonjagerdes.com/

Locations/Hours (Fall 2019)

In August and September, we’re pleased to partner with the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG) for a series of pop-ups and events in conjunction with Offal, a group exhibition conceived from the subject of offal (ˈôfəl,ˈäfəl) or the culture of consuming innards. Gas will park at LAMAG every Saturday from 4-7pm through the run of show, unless a pop-up is scheduled elsewhere. We would like to give special thanks to LAMAG for hosting us.

Opening, Sunday, August 11, 2019, 2-5pm
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG) in conjunction with the opening party for Offal.
4800 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027

Saturdays, August 15-September 28, 2019, 4-7pm (Open Hours)
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG) in conjunction with Offal.
4800 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027

Sunday, August 18, 2019, 3-8pm (Pop-up)
ARVIA in conjunction with the opening for Aubrey Ingmar Manson’s “Faster, Hammers…We’re Almost There!”
(For address please DM : https://www.instagram.com/arvia_la/ or email [email protected])

Saturday August 24, 6pm (Workshop)
“Oxygen as a Love Spell: Plant Telepathy and Ecstasy” with Eliza Swann

Location:
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG) in conjunction with Offal.
4800 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027

In this one hour guided meditation, we’ll learn to connect heart to heart and breath to breath with a plant, inviting a spike in oxytocin and blessings from the green magic of love that exists between our lungs and the plants.

Eliza Swann is an interdisciplinary artist, intuitive, writer, educator, and community organizer based in Los Angeles and New York. https://elizaswann.com

Monday August 26, 2019
FLAX’s Drive In Theater
Performance by Sonja Gerdes and a screening of Safe by Todd Haynes (119 min, Rated R)
Doors at 7pm, Performance at 8pm, Screening at 8:30pm

Location:
Tin Flats
1989 Blake Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90039
Free with RSVP, limited capacity

Can cars breathe? As her alter ego Pie of Trouble, Sonja Gerdes will engage in a communal meditation with the vehicles parked for the Drive-In Theater.

The Gas truck will also be on-site so visitors can experience Sonja Gerdes’s exhibition.

Trailer for Safe

Julianne Moore gives a breakthrough performance as Carol White, a Los Angeles housewife in the late 1980s who comes down with a debilitating illness. After the doctors she sees can give her no clear diagnosis, she comes to believe that she has frighteningly extreme environmental allergies. A profoundly unsettling work from the great American director Todd Haynes, Safe functions on multiple levels: as a prescient commentary on self-help culture, as a metaphor for the AIDS crisis, as a drama about class and social estrangement, and as a horror film about what you cannot see. This revelatory drama was named the best film of the 1990s in a Village Voice poll of more than fifty critics. (Criterion)

Saturday September 7th, 4pm (Workshop)
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG) in conjunction with Offal.
4800 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027

Taking her exhibition as a point of departure, specifically her ongoing conceptual science fiction project called Oxygenenergizer (OE), artist Sonja Gerdes will lead an interactive workshop about “Air in Art and Air as Air” that invites reflection on the human body, breathing and the evolving presence of pollution. The workshop will collaborate with Barnsdall Arts and an environmental organization on strategies on how to get more active in the movement to improve air quality in Los Angeles. The workshop starts with a breathing meditation session, which will then lead to a conversation concerning how we want to share space with and for each other in times of climate change. The session will end with banner making that we will use in a demonstration for a clean, renewable energy future in LA. Location to be announced.

Thursday, September 12, 2019, 6:30pm (Pop-up)
CalArts in conjunction with the Paul Brach Visiting Artist Lecture Series
24700 McBean Pkwy
Valencia, CA 91355

Saturday September 21, 2019, 12-4pm (Pop-up)
Closing party for Jared Baxter’s Todo en ti fue naufragio and Marcia Moore’s On the Brink

Angels Gate Cultural Center
3601 S. Gaffey St.
San Pedro, CA 90731

Saturday September 28th, 5pm (Performance)
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG) in conjunction with Offal.
4800 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027

As her alter ego “Pie of Trouble” Sonja Gerdes will perform a ritual that attempts to create spaces of collectivity through air and energy to tap into the interconnectedness between humans, plants and animals. We will see her perform in a new custom handmade costume. For her new site specific piece, Gerdes will give shape to an amorphous entity that operates as an interlocutor between the human condition, both present and future.

PRESS

Matt Stromberg, “Catch Live Performances and Screenings at This Drive-In Theater” in Hyperallergic, August 21, 2019