LOS ANGELES, CA – May 2, 2018 – On April 11, 2018, the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts announced its 2018 Artist Project Grants recipients. Among the ten recipients, Fulcrum Arts was awarded a $40,000 grant for its ambitious Lawrence English project Sirens, which will launch during its A×S Festival starting November 2, 2018. In fact, Sirens will be the highlight of Fulcrum Arts’ 10-day biennial festival. English will create a site-specific installation utilizing some of the remaining 160 civil defense sirens – the original role of their sound was as an agent for alert and protection from WWII through the Cold War – that are scattered across Los Angeles. Reappropriating the sirens for the project, the artist will employ sound as a means to create a spatial mapping, reconfiguring Los Angeles’s geographic, political and historical landscapes. Learn more about the grant in this Los Angeles Times piece and on the foundation’s website http://www.mikekelleyfoundation.org/#!/grants/grants-awarded. Please visit Fulcrum Arts’ site for more on Sirens and the upcoming festival at https://www.fulcrumarts.org.

Siren, nearby LAX, installed during the 1950s. 
One of many sirens used in Lawrence English’s Sirens project during November’s AxS Festival. 
2017 courtesy the artist.

“We are honored to receive funding from the Mike Kelley Foundation,” stated Fulcrum Arts Executive and Artistic Director, Robert Crouch. “Since beginning their granting program just a few years ago, they have consistently funded some of the most adventurous and challenging projects in recent memory. This year’s list of grantees is truly impressive, and we are thrilled to be counted among them.”

The Artist Project Grants initiative, now in its third year, seeks to further Mike Kelley’s philanthropic work and honor his legacy by supporting innovative artist projects at Los Angeles nonprofit institutions and organizations. A combination of small, mid-size, and large institutions comprise this year’s grantees, which span a wide range of disciplines such as performance, multimedia art, sculpture, and printmaking. The 2018 Projects include solo, group, and collaborative exhibitions, as well as interactive workshops and related publications. Besides Fulcrum Arts, this year’s grantees include the Craft & Folk Art Museum, Hammer Museum, JOAN, LA Freewaves, LAXART, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Museum of Latin American Art, Self Help Graphics & Art, and The Underground Museum. The 2018 grants mark both the largest total sum awarded and group of grantees to date.

Fulcrum Arts will present artist Lawrence English’s project Sirens during its biennial A×S Festival running this year from Friday, November 2 through Sunday, November 11, 2018. English will create a site-specific installation utilizing some of the remaining 160 civil defense sirens from the Cold War that are scattered across Los Angeles. Broadly, English’s works call into question how sound is used on and around us; with Sirens he examines the use of sound as a cultural signifier, first codified by its role in civil defense then contrasted by its shift today to a so-called ‘non-lethal’ weapon. English’s interest in the weaponization of sound is fueled by his research around listening and the role audition, or the process of active listening, plays in our understanding of place at all levels – re-engaging listeners by shifting sound to reshape our orientation within physical and metaphysical spaces. A publication will accompany the installation.

A B O U T – 

Lawrence English:
Lawrence English is an artist, composer and curator based in Australia. Working across an eclectic array of aesthetic investigations, English’s work prompts questions of field, perception and memory. He investigates the politics of perception, through live performance and installation, to create works that ponder subtle transformations of space and ask audiences to become aware of that which exists at the edge of perception.

For 20 years, English has dedicated his practice to site-specific histories and the vibrations of places and events, on physical, historical, and political levels. He founded the renowned multi-arts organization and imprint Room40 in 2000, which has issued over 200 editioned works of emerging and established artists. His work has been presented at venues including SF MOMA; CTM Berlin, Germany; Gallery of Modern Art, Australia; and the National Art Museum of China, Beijing. English has travelled broadly working in the Amazon and Antarctica, recording sensorial content that is used to inform and construct works that carry with them the weight of the subject and consider intricate and specific histories. 

In 2017 he received a PhD from Queensland University of Technology; his thesis: developing a new critical theoretical framework for listening as it pertains to creative practice. With interviews on his unique approach featured in The Guardian and NPR, English also lectures widely throughout Australia, Europe, and at various universities in North American including Harvard and Brown University. | http://www.lawrenceenglish.com

The Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts:
The Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts seeks to further Kelley’s philanthropic work through grants for innovative projects that reflect his multifaceted artistic practice. The Foundation also preserves the artist’s legacy more broadly and advances the understanding of his life and creative achievements. The artist established the nonprofit foundation in 2007. | www.mikekelleyfoundation.org

Fulcrum Arts:
Based in Pasadena, California, Fulcrum Arts empowers artists to invent, inspire, and provoke. The 501(c)(3) provide resources and opportunities for artists, collectives, and independent arts organizations to advance their visions and contribute to a vibrant, challenging, and inclusive creative community. The nonprofit advances the fields of art and science to impact culture on a national level through exhibitions, partnerships, interdisciplinary symposia and convenings, and residencies. 

The Sirens project aligns well with Fulcrum Arts’ mission and vision to support the creation of experimental and challenging artwork on a civic scale, and enhances the organization’s curatorial impetus to change public access to major contemporary artworks that shift perception and open new dialogues. | https://www.fulcrumarts.org

About A×S Festival:
A×S Festival is a citywide celebration of art and science presented in collaboration with over a dozen partner organizations. While often described as occupying opposite ends of the spectrum, art and science are instead understood to be powerful engines of contemporary culture. As a thematic pivoting point, A×S provides opportunities for discovering the fascinations, curiosities, and tensions ignited by pondering integrations of art and science. The 2018 A×S Festival, will incorporate the concept of the “wunderkammer,” or “cabinet of curiosities,” as a model for exploring the intersection of art and science. | http://www.fulcrumarts.org/axs-festival

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For more information, photos, or to schedule an interview with the Mike Kelley Foundation, Lawrence English and/or curator Robert Crouch, Executive and Artistic Director Fulcrum Arts, please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Tejada at 213-840-1201 or lynn@greengalactic.com.