Artbound Season 3 Episode 4
Artbound's fourth episode brings one-of-a-kind arts and culture stories that celebrate the creative spirit of Southern California. Culled from Artbound articles selected by our audience, these documentary segments include:
Paul Turounet is a photographer whose site-specific photographic retablo-like portraits explore the various migrants in found traveling along the U.S.-Mexico Border, especially in areas shared by Mexico, California and Arizona using a technique harkening to the 19th-century tintype effigies of the deceased found among the headstones and above ground caskets in many Mexican and Hispanic cemeteries.
Deemed outsider art, folk art, and other similarly nondescript and fluid labels, the Watts Towers do not necessarily fit the bill for a standard definition or understanding of art. But no matter what they are called, the Towers remain a cultural jewel of Los Angeles. And within the cracks and structure of these Towers lies an unfolding story and scientific mystery of sorts. Due to its unconventional construction, new scientific methods are being used to repair and stabilize the Watts Towers.
Gary Baseman's mid-career retrospective "The Door is Always Open" examines a long and varied career while focusing on his family. It is a love letter to the Fairfax district in LA and takes a deep look at Gary's recent discovery of his family's past and the legacy of Jewish history in Eastern Europe.
Getting Lost in the High Desert
Diane Best personifies the creative spirit found throughout the High Desert, but especially in Joshua Tree proper. She has been a vital multi-talented creative force here of years now. Artbound explores her practice, from landscape paintings to immersive video art installations.
It's been said that California isn't a place, that it's a philosophy, a way of life that you hold in your heart whether you live here or not. The music of Best Coast is a postcard to our state, tipping a hat to the Beach Boys and Laurel Canyon girls, to Orange County punk and that old-school Bakersfield twang.
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