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CONTACT:
 | "Contemporary Art, What's Truly at Stake?" Los Angeles-May 6, 1999--California State University, Los Angeles will host a conversation, "Contemporary Art, What's Truly at Stake," sponsored in part by the California Council for the Humanities, as part of the series, Fire in the Library, Fires in the Mind, on Thursday, May 20, 1999 at 7:30 p.m. in the Luckman Fine Arts Gallery on the Cal State L.A. campus. The program is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. Conceptual artist Eugenia Butler, currently teaching at Cal State L.A., created the popular Fire in the Library... program originally held at Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). She will "choreograph" the discussion at Cal State L.A. that features four other artists and theorists of the relationship of contemporary art to contemporary life. Joining Butler will be Ulises Diaz, architect and social theorist, author of Ciudad Hybrida/Hybrid City and a member of the artistic collective ADOBE L.A.; Enrique Martinez Celaya, internationally recognized Cuban-born painter with a background in the sciences; Los Angeles artist Kim Abeles, whose international traveling survey exhibition includes the Presidential Smog Plates Series; and artist/filmmaker Susan Mogul, whose video portrait, "Echo Park," was commissioned by Peter Sellars for the L.A. Festival. The interactive character of the Fire conversations involves the audience in the lively discussion as well. "Visuality and visual culture is becoming a dominant issue in economics, global communication and information, as well as a primary tool for knowing the world," says Butler. The question for the evening is intended to raise issues having to do with the value of the arts to society and the place of the arts in contemporary society. Focusing on contemporary values and cultural perspectives, the discussion will have implications for artists and art lovers as well as for those to whom the contemporary art scene is a complete mystery. The Luckman Fine Arts Gallery at Cal State L.A. is located at the Eastern Ave. exit of the San Bernardino freeway, at the interchange of the #10 and #710 freeways. Call the Luckman at (323) 343- 6600 for information and reservations.
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