How the Julia Stoschek Foundation Resurrected Los Angeles’ Forgotten Theater

The Julia Stoschek Foundation’s immersive video installation What a Wonderful World: An Audiovisual Poem just made its U.S. debut in an unexpected location: the Variety Arts Theater, a five-story Venetian-style landmark in downtown L.A. that has languished in darkness since the early 1990s. Once a symbol of the city’s architectural ambitions, the building slowly faded from public memory. Now, burrowed between decaying columns and hovering over vacant stages is a chronological voyage through 120 years of film and video art that transforms the dormant space into a rich, cinematic dreamworld. Curated by Udo Kittelmann, the exhibition features work by Paul Chan, Jon Rafman, Bunny Rogers, P. Staff, Jacolby Satterwhite, Precious Okoyomon, Paul McCarthy, and Arthur Jafa, among others. Driven by the show’s impulse toward transformation and disruption, we asked several participating artists to reflect on a core question: “What’s missing in the art world?”

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P. STAFF

“Revolution, compersion, apocalypse, end-of-capital, free-everything, kisses, soaking, fireworks, trans-everything, pleasure, nothing.” 

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JORDAN WOLFSON

“There’s nothing missing. Art is always a representation of the times in which we are living. And if you sense, or feel, that there is a lack or an excess in the art-making, then that is, in fact, part of the reflection the art makes, with or without the intention of the maker.”

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PRECIOUS OKOYOMON

“For me right now what’s missing in the art world is miracles, and the space for the possibility to create miracles in new and terrifying  ways, more wonder more time outside of time.”

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JACOLBY SATTERWHITE

“When you do clownery, the clown comes back to bite!

 Clownery is missing. Failure too. Everything works. That’s the problem. Empowerment works best. Humanity doesn’t.

I like clownery. It means something failed. Failure is more interesting than empowerment. Empowerment is very successful.

The art world looks good. It doesn’t feel like anything. Clownery would help. Failure would help more.

Clownery is unpopular. Failure even more. That’s why they’re good. Empowerment is very popular.

Nothing is embarrassing anymore. That’s new. Clownery fixes that. Failure makes it human.

Clownery is a kind of honesty. Failure is a kind of beauty. Empowerment is a kind of product.

When you do clownery, the clown comes back to bite.”

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JULIA STOSCHEK

“The courage to not yet know what it’s looking at.“

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