Last night we had a great time at the Venice Art Crawl, the 7th installation of the monthly Venice Beach arts event. As always, there were numerous events throughout Venice, with shows at numerous venues throughout the boardwalk area. Artist’s included everything from first-time exhibiters like photographer Matt Branham, to Venice heavyweights Rip Cronk and William Attaway. We didn’t hit everything, but managed to take in a good majority of the shows. There are a couple more pics after the jump, and a larger gallery posted on my Facebook page. If you’ve never checked out the VAC, be sure to hit it up. It’s every third Thursday. More info at www.veniceartcrawl.com. I didn’t show this month, but plan on doing so next month. Stay tuned!
Last month I did a series of portraits on the front patio at Hotel Erwin during the Venice Art Crawl. The idea was to create a participatory art piece that people could be a part of making and then come back and see displayed the following month. I’m a big fan of close-up portraits, such as those done by Martin Schoeller, that focus only on the subjects’ faces, particularly the eyes. You can tell so much about someone’s character by studying their face up close and I wanted to do my own take on the concept. The Art Crawl seemed like the perfect forum, as I knew there would be a large number of people passing through and surely some of them would be willing to sit for me. I had more than 100 participants over the course of the night! In order to keep the images spontaneous and also handle the volume of people, I shot only three or four frames per person and gave very little instruction other than ‘do whatever you want.’ I thought it would be interesting to see how people reacted. The results were great, showing a wide variety of expressions, including silly, straightforward, engaged and distant. Over the next month I narrowed the edit down to 1 per person and spent a fair number of hours individually toning and sharpening the images so they’d each be uniform and pop off the paper or screen.
Last night I displayed the results back in the same space where I shot them and was happy to see a number of the participants return to check out the results. All of the images were projected on a screen in a continually looping slideshow and 33 were printed and hung on a curved chain curtain that’s proven to be a great space for hanging art. Thanks to everyone who participated! If you’re interested in purchasing a reprint of your photo you can click on the slideshow above. If you know you were one of the images I included in the print show you can contact me at dz@davidzentz.com to purchase your print. Below is a photo of the exhibit, in case you missed it.
'Show Your Face' portrait exhibition at Hotel Erwin
'Show Your Face' portrait exhibition at Hotel Erwin
'Show Your Face' portrait exhibition at Hotel Erwin
The inaugural Venice Art Crawl launched with a bang last night with a solid crowd showing up to check out the numerous local artists who were showing at pop-up galleries mostly located between the Boardwalk and Pacific Ave. I was showing my own work at Nikki’s alongside artist Scott Simon (check out his work here) and was also working the event as a volunteer, so I didn’t have much time to get out to all the venues, but I did manage a quick lap and took a few photos along the way. It was great seeing so many artists participating in the first event. A good sign that the event will continue to grow in the coming months. After the crawl wrapped up we made our way over to the official afterparty at Video Army, a new production company located on Pacific Ave. It was a fun environment with lots of people dancing and great light for shooting. After the party wound down we hit up a nearby taco truck and made our way home. Really a successful night if you ask me. Looking forward to next month!
I am a Los Angeles photographer specializing in portraits and documentary storytelling. I am available for assignment worldwide. For inquiries or bookings please contact me at dz@davidzentz.com or 310-745-9854.
