Press Release The Andy Warhol Museum to Present An Installation By Joseph La Piana in Los Angeles
Joseph La Piana, The Los Angeles Text Project 2 (detail), 2011, courtesy of the artist
For immediate release
Thursday, September 22, 2011
The Andy Warhol Museum is pleased to announce the presentation of Joseph La Piana’s The Los Angeles Text Project 2 in downtown Los Angeles, California. This site-specific installation is located in a warehouse at 120 South Santa Fe Avenue, the future home of Dilettante, and is curated by The Warhol Museum’s Director, Eric Shiner. The installation will be on view from September 30 to October 2, 2011 from 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. with a cocktail reception for the artist on Friday, September 30 from 5 – 8 p.m.
What started as two tower sculptures, coasts, mindsets, voices, personas, histories and countries that converged in a single gesture on San Servolo Island, Venice, Italy during the 2011 Venice Biennale has now resurfaced in Los Angeles as a deconstructive series of four sculptures titled The Los Angeles Text Project 2. This work evokes the fallen twin towers, as well as figures engaged in dialogue, exploring the potential for miscommunication, isolation, and the inability to distinguish perception over reality. New York City-based artist Joseph La Piana’s 10-foot-tall work continues the narrative initiated in Venice, Italy, by bringing together the poetry of Whitman and Ginsberg, and analyzing the American condition over time utilizing layered text. For La Piana, these sculptures become repositories of meaning and markers of both hope and despair.
Joseph La Piana was born in Brooklyn in 1966 and received his BA from Florida State University in 1988. He has been represented by the gallery since 2008. La Piana’s work is included in the collections of The Financial Security Service Assurance Holdings Corporation, the First National Bank of Arizona, and in numerous private collections.
Special thanks to Taylor Livingston, Dilettante, and Brice Projects.
The Warhol receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; and The Heinz Endowments. Further support is provided by the Allegheny Regional Asset District.
The Andy Warhol Museum
Located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the place of Andy Warhol’s birth, The Andy Warhol Museum holds the largest collection of Warhol’s artworks and archival materials and is one of the most comprehensive single-artist museums in the world. The Warhol is one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.
Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh
Established in 1895 by Andrew Carnegie, Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh is a collection of four distinctive museums: Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Science Center, and The Andy Warhol Museum. The museums reach more than 1.4 million people a year through exhibitions, educational programs, outreach activities, and special events.