Last Thursday night I walked amongst the hoards of tourists, along the Hollywood walk of fame and arrived at my destination – a storefront in the corner of a strip-mall with blackout windows and no light coming from inside. Upon opening the doors to Freedman Fitzpatrick we were met with a display of bodies, beers, and conversation. The exhibition space, consisting of 5 videos projected one after another, was cut off by a blackout curtain and silent, with participants strewn about the room centered by a dark carpet and some chairs. “Of Survival, Celebration, and Unlimited Semiosis,” curated by Brook Sinkinson Withrow, presents some of the more thoughtful and interesting contemporary and emerging video artists today. Highlights from Diamond Stingily, whose soft-form sculptures star in this short film concerned with notions of companionship and loneliness, with plush bodies serving as stand-ins for human ones.

Diamond Stingily at Freedman Fitzpatrick.

Alima Lee at Freedman Fitzpatrick.

My walk continued, about a block and a half until El Centro apartments where The Gallery @ has opened their latest iteration. Originally located at Michael’s restaurant of Santa Monica, the name remains open and marks their dedication to ephemera, receptiveness to resource and conceptual interest in adaptability, allowing for room to continue to grow and evolve. Their current exhibition, Amalia Ulman’s short film Shanghai Fire, is the first installment in a season of programming constructed around the theme of Intimacy. Upcoming exhibitions will present Math Bass & Nevine Mahmoud, Flannery Silva, Alake Shilling, and writer Fiona Duncan. Ulman’s film follows protagonist (played by Ulman) who learns via a news report that her house may be burning down in the Malibu Fires, whilst she is abroad in Shanghai. As we follow her movements over the next few hours, present feelings of chaos and helplessness are exaggerated by the distance and isolation of being in a foreign place. This is amplified with the use of orientalist tropes such as framed film stills that were burnt and overlaid with Chinese calligraphy as in 1990s Hong Kong movie posters.

Amalia Ulman, “Shanghai Fire” at The Gallery @.

An uncanny and quintessentially Los Angeles evening serves as a reminder of Hollywood’s persistent, timeless transience. The contemporary art scene not looking to change it, but rather feed on Hollywood’s ever strange and moody energy, location providing an added element to the exhibitions.