Through July 29, Pacific Design Center’s Blue Lobby features three alluring solo sculpture exhibits that pair natural materials with industrial ones: Proposal for New Landscapes by Nobuo Sekine, one of the key founders of Japan’s Mono-ha (“School of Things”) movement and that nods to an overdue exploration of Japanese postwar culture; a retrospective by Italian architect/designer Antonio Pio Saracino and Lautner Beams by LA-based Matt Johnson, featuring metaphysical visualizations of string theory as re-purposed steel cast-offs from John Lautner’s demolished Shusett House.

Nobuo Sekine, Installation view of Phase of Nothingness—Black, 1977-1978.
Photo: Joshua White.
Courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo.

The designLAb’s opening event will showcase 16 cutting-edge art, architecture and design, sound and taste exhibitions on view in the Pacific Design Center’s Blue Building Lobby and Second Floor Galleries. MOCA PDC opens the same night with a trailblazing contemporary photography exhibition, Catherine Opie: 700 Nimes Road.

Matt Johnson, “Eight” (Lautner Beam / Super String), 2014.
Photo: Joshua White.
Courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo.

The evening’s highlights include several one-night-only performances: Industry Gallery, (recently named in Art + Auction’s Power 100) presents Steve Boyer’s Tasting Bar with samplings of exotic, highly-concentrated bitters in the context of his ongoing digital exhibit, Drawing Agents. LA-based artist Steve Roden, who hopscotches between paintings,installations and sound works will create a one- hour live performance beginning at 8 p.m. at Young Projects Gallery. For this special occasion, Roden will perform an improvised sound piece to Stas Orlovski’s animation, Skazka, using a modular synthesizer that incorporates “found” audio materials.

WHAT: Pacific Design Center 2016 Winter Art Season
WHEN: Friday, January 22 | 5:00 – 9:30 pm
WHERE: 8687 Melrose Avenue | West Hollywood, CA 90069