Welcome to LACE

Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions

  • Programs
    • Projects
    • Emerging Curator Program
    • Apprenticeship
    • Lightning Fund
    • Se habla español
  • Archive
    • Archive
    • Publications
  • About
    • Visit
    • History
    • Ethos
    • Board of Directors
    • Team
  • Support
    • Benefit Art Auction
    • Give Now
    • Membership
    • Supporters
    • Special Editions
  • Shop
    • Online Shop
You are here: Home / LACE / 1995-1999 / Product No.2

Product No.2

September 18 – November 13, 1999

Joe Scanlan presented a re-design of his nesting bookcase– Product no. 2-– a modular, infinitely expandable object suitable for holding books, dishes, beanie babies, CDs, videos, vases, lamps, linens, candles, small sculptures, flowers, etc. In addition to the product, the show included “Serving Suggestions,” photographs of the objects in situ; and the premiere issue of Commerce, a magazine published by the artist, (which also functioned as the catalogue with essays by Michael Newman, David Pagel, and Laurie Palmer. )

Much of the artwork produced by Joe Scanlan over his ten-year career has grown out his particular responses to and adaptations of his immediate environment such as his bedroom, his wardrobe, and his library. In his early work, Scanlan recognized that certain of his mundane needs would be met only with the creation of particular kinds of garments, furniture, or other items that are not commercially manufactured. Based on a need for economy, an appreciation of ingenuity, and a do-it-yourself nature, he opted to fabricate the objects himself. A by-product of this practice is that he has become adept at several trades, especially sewing and carpentry, yet is in sentiment and in conceptual orientation, as critic Maureen Sherlock aptly stated, not so much a craftsman as an artist “closer to that near-defunct American, the tinker/inventor.” Pieces such as Nesting Bookcase (1989), Extended-wear Underwear (1991), and Bathroom Floor (Improved) (1993), suggest flexibility and adaptability as both lifestyle traits and as works of art.

Because they were created initially for private use, to bring Nesting Bookcase as well as other works by Scanlan into the gallery may challenge our understanding of their role and purported intention. Scanlan’s works have, as he says, “the uncomfortable posture of only ‘passing through’ the context of art — where they are momentarily frozen, held still for scrutiny — before returning to their mundane uses.” Of course, the works rarely return to their mundane state because they are mostly acquired by individuals and institutions that recognize the capacity of the work to address, poignantly, human traits such as desire, resistance to conformity, and imagination. In her article entitled “Home Economics ” (Arts Magazine, Feb. 1992) Sherlock says, “[Scanlan] resolves the problem of his own specific practical needs, while not being adverse to [his artworks’] patent potential. Added to these are their not-so-improbable layers of artistic meaning within a gallery context, but their aesthetic exchange value does not preclude their use value in singular or mass production: they can find a place in his home, Crate and Barrel, or the gallery; meaning, use, and exchange circulate in multiple systems.” Scanlan’s idiosyncratic responses to the limitations of his surroundings have become the basis of an artistic practice founded on inventiveness, adaptability, and hope.

 

Scanlan-- re-design of his nesting bookcase– Product no. 2

Filed Under: 1995-1999, Exhibition, LACE Tagged With: 1999, Exhibition, Joe Scanlan, magazine, Nesting Bookcase, photography, Product No.2, re-design, Sculpture, Serving Suggestions

Visit

TEMPORARY OFFICE LOCATION
6464 Sunset Blvd.
Ste. 1070
Los Angeles, CA, 90028

tel: 1(323)250-0940
info@welcometolace.org

LACE recognizes our presence on Tovaangar, the unceded ancestral lands of the Gabrielino-Tongva people who are its rightful caretakers.

Lace Logo

Follow

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST

GIVE NOW

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo
  • YouTube

News

LACE’s Lightning Fund Opens August 15, 2025!

PRESS RELEASE: Announcing LACE’s Next Emerging Curators

Announcing the 2025 Lightning Fund and Jacki Apple Awards

More News

LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions)

welcometolace

The works selected for “A Tender Excavation” d The works selected for “A Tender Excavation” depart from personal, familial, or historical photographic archives which ultimately are recontextualized through installation, collage, painting, film, video, sculpture, or mixed media, reimagining and reconnecting lost fragments to speak about personal and collective resilience, constructing new possibilities for an interconnected futurity.

LACE is thrilled to introduce three of the artists featured in the exhibition...

✷ Mercedes Dorame (@mercedes.dorame)  is a multi-disciplinary artist who calls on her Tongva ancestry to engage the problematics of (in)visibility and ideas of cultural construction and ancestral connection to land and sky.

✷ Leah King (@leahkinglive) is a multimedia artist working in collage, sound, film, and performance. Her intricately layered visual and sonic works explore race, gender, and power through a futurist lens.

✷ Ann Le (@annsgood) is a LA based artist and Senior Lecturer of Photography and Fine Arts at Loyola Marymount University. Her photomontages explore identity, family history, the diaspora, and the space in between becoming Vietnamese-American.

Join us at the opening reception on Saturday, November 1, 2025 from 2–5 PM at CSULA’s Luckman Gallery. Light refreshments will be provided. RSVP at the link in our bio.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the Teiger Foundation.
⭒ We are excited to welcome Jason Villegas to th ⭒ We are excited to welcome Jason Villegas to the LACE team as our 2025 Hisako Terasaki Intern! ⭒

Jason is currently a student at Los Angeles City College studying animation. He is a Mexican American artist making work about queer identity and bear subculture, inspired by indigenous art, pop culture, and consumerism. Jason makes ceramic sculptures, paintings, comics, and enjoys swimming, sci-fi, collecting toys, and his cats.

Join us in welcoming Jason to the team!
“A Tender Excavation” centers identities that “A Tender Excavation” centers identities that have been systematically excluded from mainstream narratives and representations of not only American art but of representing an “American” identity.

LACE is thrilled to introduce 3 of the artists featured in the exhibition...

⋆ Star Montana (@starmontana) is a photo-based artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She was born and raised in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles, which is predominantly Mexican American and serves as the backdrop to much of her work.

⋆ Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai (@prima_jalichndrsakntbhai) is a transdisciplinary artist, working across performance, video and installation, based in Los Angeles. Born in Thailand in 1989, they grew up in Europe before moving to the US in 2011.

⋆ Arlene Mejorado (@ari.mejorado) is an artist from Los Angeles who works through analog and digital image-making processes to contemplate ideas around memory, landscape, and placemaking. Often working intuitively, Mejorado’s practice ranges from traditional documenting to staging scenes that merge elements of installation, performance, and studio photography.

Join us at the opening reception on Saturday, November 1, 2025 from 2–5 PM at CSULA’s Luckman Gallery. Light refreshments will be provided. RSVP at the link in our bio.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the Teiger Foundation.
LACE’s new group exhibition “A Tender Excavati LACE’s new group exhibition “A Tender Excavation” curated by Selene Preciado opens at the Luckman Gallery at CSULA on Saturday, November 1! Join us for the opening reception from 2–5 PM. Light refreshments will be provided. RSVP at the link in our bio.

“A Tender Excavation” approaches research-based artistic practices through propositions of alternative histories, bringing together a group of artists that work with historical and familial photographic archives as a point of departure to construct new narratives and elicit transformation. Artists featured in the exhibition include Zeynep Abes, Susu Attar, Jamil Baldwin, Mely Barragán, Artemisa Clark, Arleene Correa Valencia, Mercedes Dorame, Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai, Leah King, Tarrah Krajnak, Heesoo Kwon, Ann Le, Arlene Mejorado, Star Montana, and Camille Wong. “A Tender Excavation” is on view from November 1, 2025–February 21, 2026.

“A Tender Excavation” is made possible thanks to our friends at The Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State LA. Support for this exhibition is provided by the Teiger Foundation.
Follow on Instagram

Copyright © 2025 Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions