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You are here: Home / LACE / 1995-1999 / Mezzanine

Mezzanine

October 10 – November 11, 1998

Los Angeles-based artist John Souza has produced a wealth of images and objects over his thirty-year career. During his lifetime, Souza has pared down his possessions to the point of living with almost nothing, and he has destroyed much of his own work in the process. In recent years, he has sought to transfer his innate tendency to dismantle his physical surroundings to a larger exploration of the law of entropy.

Mezzanine consisted of a three-part installation that combined seemingly disparate architectural elements executed and installed with Souza’s trademark precise engineering and refined detail. The three stations in the installation offered opportunities for observation and repose, and invite a perverse consideration of both.

The artist’s intention was to conceive of a quiet, contemplative space where nothing seems to happen. But in fact, viewers were presented with a subtle yet charged environment that illuminated the contradictions and gaps between desire and objects of desire. About Mezzanine, Souza said, “This is a fugue state that lasts for only a few moments.”

Souza uses his artwork to devise systems that organize a collection of personal memories, which he integrates with collective histories in order to form new sites for experience and reason — and the subsequent complete erasure of both. According to Souza, “Mezzanine is the place where outcasts can celebrate rulers and their sidekicks.”

In conjunction with the exhibition, Souza with his band Deer Nuts performed musical selections ranging from the horrific to the comedic. Deer Nuts is an evolving entity comprised of between four and seven musicians, most of whom are also visual artists. Souza, himself a guitarist, describes the music of Deer Nuts as being “an eclectic mix that keeps us entertained.”

John Souza has been one of Los Angeles’s premiere, yet overlooked, artists with a career spanning over nearly twenty years. He is regarded as a provocative thinker and inventive sculptor who uses precise detail to suggest his conceptual intentions. In 1994 at the Sue Spaid Fine Art Gallery, Souza installed “Rememberentering,” a micro-museum in which he fabricated displays of an a historical view of the City of Angels. The exhibition included medieval-like ornamental ironwork, S & M rubber straps and chains, and a farcical sculpture of kitsch home decoration objects, which combined to comment on trendy L.A. pop deconstructionist architecture. The installation was a clear critique of our constructed environment. In his work Souza exposes the power of the mundane materials we pass by each day in order to lead the viewer to a closer examination of architecture and elements that surround us.

Concerts by Deer Nuts on 9 January and 30 January 1999

 

Souza installation

Strugar--Color Me Mine installation

 

Press

LA Weekly, p.136, 1999

Filed Under: 1995-1999, Exhibition, Installation, Performance Tagged With: 1998, 1999, architecture, concert, Deer Nuts, Exhibition, installation, John Souza, Mezzanine, music, performance

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You can now watch all the performances from "ENDUR You can now watch all the performances from "ENDURANCE" on the LACE website as part of our digital archive! 

"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 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:
Sheree Rose, "The Most Dangerous Woman in America!" (2025)
Sharon Kagan, "...and then this happened..." (2025)
Anna Homler, Jeff Schwartz, and David Javelosa, "VOE Variations" (2025)
Awilda Sterling-Duprey, "Makandal es la consigna / Makandal Is the Call to Action" (2025)
Juanita and Juan (Alice Bag and Kid Congo Powers) (2025)
Oguri, "Dance Emerges, Out of Time, with unforgettable ancestors and friends" (2025)
Gloria Enedina Álvarez accompanied by Greg Hernandez (2025)
Construction for LACE’s new home is in full swin Construction for LACE’s new home is in full swing — we’re one step closer to unveiling an exciting new chapter. Stay tuned…🚜

Slide 2 (left to right), LACE Team: Johnny Young, Ida Tongkumvong, Fiona Crary, Selene Preciado, Sarah Russin
Slide 3 (left to right), LACE Fellow & Getty Interns: Becca Choe, Camilla Caldwell, Jada Wong
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!
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