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You are here: Home / LACE / 2005-2009 / Circulation and Light Visit

Circulation and Light Visit

Mark Hagen, "Empty Cages" 2004, C-Print, 8.5 x 11", edition of 6
Mark Hagen, “Empty Cages” 2004, C-Print, 8.5 x 11″, edition of 6

March 15 – April 16, 2006

LACE is pleased to present Circulation and Light Visit, a two-part installation by Los Angeles-based artist Mark Hagen, organized by LACE Program Coordinator Karl Erickson. Circulation and Light Visit are made to be viewable from the sidewalk 24/7 to constantly offer an art experience to Hollywood Boulevard passersby.

Circulation
, is a free poster distribution project with an accompanying installation on LACE’s storefront windows. The project documents dozens of attempts by animals to escape from zoos that ended in failure: either the animal was returned to captivity or died. Designed with clean, friendly blocks of color, the poster belies the tragic stories it reports. Hagen’s window project features selected escape stories, using these wistful narratives to activate this highly visible border of LACE’s space and the metaphorical boundaries contemporary artists seek to transcend. The poster, installed outside of LACE, is free for the taking.

Light Visit
, two large chalk drawings on LACE’s front-of-house chalkboards, features Koko, the gorilla who “speaks” through the use of American Sign Language. Hagen has taken two of Koko’s many learned signs and combined them into a new phrase that is a poetic description of the installation itself, mirroring Koko’s often unique word combinations to describe her world. In striking white chalk against dark green, Koko signs to the public passersby outside on the street, silently reaching out to them.

Artist and writer Todd Bourret writes that Hagen “is at odds with the emotions [he elicits]… which in turn clouds the fact that the stories are analogies for the work itself: a conflicted, perhaps futile attempt to break free from its burdensome context, to operate outside of expectations.” Hagen’s work is often about these refusals to accept limits and endeavors for transcendence.

Mark Hagen has been exhibited and screened in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, London, Glasgow and Helsinki. His most recent exhibition was Futurism Restated Again with Todd Bourret and Jeff Kopp at Blum & Poe/Rental Gallery. Circulation and Light Visit is his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles. Mark Hagen was born in Falls Church, VA and received his MFA from CalArts in 2002.

Filed Under: 2005-2009, Exhibition, Installation, LACE Tagged With: 2006, Circulation and Light Visit, Exhibition, installation, Karl Erickson, Mark Hagen, poster distribution

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On Saturday, August 2 from 2–7pm, join LACE for On Saturday, August 2 from 2–7pm, join LACE for this year's Artists’ Film International (AFI'25) at the Philosophical Research Society (@philosophical_research_society).

This touring film program is collectively curated and presented by 16 international arts organizations and convened by Forma (@formaartsmedia). AFI’25 introduces the work of talented moving image artists to worldwide audiences, and will be live over 300 days, with exhibitions, screenings and public programs hosted across 4 continents.

LACE’s selection for AFI’25 is "Leymusoom Garden: New Sun" (2024) by Heesoo Kwon (@leymusoom). Kwon’s oneiric visual language and unique animation style allow her to create memoryscapes of personal and community liberation. The film rewrites mythical matrilineal histories through utopian and whimsical abstractions of time, space, and memory to ultimately bring forth healing and transformation. 

Admission is free! RSVP at the link in our bio.

Image caption:
Still from Heesoo Kwon, Leymusoom Garden: New Sun, 2024. Courtesy the artist
Join LACE for “Obsidian Reflections” happening Join LACE for “Obsidian Reflections” happening Saturday, July 19, 2–5 PM at the Philosophical Research Society (@philosophical_research_society).

Curated by Selene Preciado and Andrea Acuña, this film program presents a selection of video works that integrate ancestral knowledge and indigenous storytelling, imagining futures where the past and present connect through the power of ruins and resilience. Followed by a musical performance with multimedia NeoCumbia artist El Keamo (@el_keamo).

Learn more and RSVP at the link in our bio!
We are excited to announce LACE's 11th Emerging Cu We are excited to announce LACE's 11th Emerging Curator! Meet Semaj Peltier (@horsebreath87) and pom*pom (@__pom____pom__), collaborators in a curatorial collective and experimental film archive organizing community-based events since 2022. For the Emerging Curator Program, Semaj Peltier and Pom Pom curate "No Loneliness Like This," a film and food event showcasing experimental films that traverse the many manifestations of state-sanctioned isolation.

Peltier, a projectionist, archivist and filmmaker, brings a praxis shaped by her studies at the University of Amsterdam’s Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image Masters program, specializing in ephemeral histories shaped by coloniality and otherness. pom*pom, developed by Russell Hartling and Crystal Dawana, is an experimental food collective whose sensory-driven dining experiences intersect with film programming to evoke memory, storytelling, and connection. Together, they build worlds where film and food become tools of resistance—rituals that evoke memory, incite dialogue, and nurture solidarity through shared sensation and subversion. 

This year’s panel included Jheanelle Brown (@jheaneeeeeelle), faculty member at CalArts and Curator of Film at REDCAT; Carrie Chen (@carriechen01), artist, curator, and educator; and Heber Rodriguez (@hebereatschips), Coordinator for the City of Lancaster’s Parks, Recreation and Arts Department in the Arts and Museums Division. 

Read the full press release in our bio!
If you missed “ENDURANCE” or want to relive th If you missed “ENDURANCE” or want to relive the experience, head over to the LACE website to watch a selection of the performances with more to come soon!

“ENDURANCE” presented performance art and interdisciplinary work by elder artists. These artists use their practices to share wisdom, knowledge, and experiences that they have gained throughout their lives. This series is a companion program to LACE’s 2024 performance series, “ABUNDANCE”, both featuring often invisibilized bodies.

This program was held at L.A. Dance Project (@ladanceproject) from May 16–17, 2025.

The online presentation of “ENDURANCE” is supported by the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles (@culture_la). 

Photos by Angel Origgi (@angeloriggi).

Image captions in order:
Barbara T. Smith, OWB, 2025
Ulysses Jenkins and his band “Who Dat!,” Ethnic Cleansing, 2022/2025
Hirokazu Kosaka, Shoot Yourself, 2025
The Dark Bob, Beirut, 1982/2025
Kamau Daáood, Griot notes: Poem in Invisible Ink
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