All-American Jewish lesbian folksinger Phranc has led many lives. Most of those lives have flown proudly beneath the radar of convention. She first rocketed into public consciousness in the 1970s with the Feminist Studio Workshop in Los Angeles, then with pioneering L.A. punk-electro maniacs Nervous Gender, and later as folkie Phranc, a persona that blew multiple quiffs as she opened for Morrissey through the '90s. Phranc of California is her latest foray into looking obliquely at life. Handcrafting found cardboard, gouache and thread into life-size sculptures of all the ploys of summer: Popsicles, stripey unitards, beach balls. It's a deft and cogent reflection of the way things are by someone well-versed in seeing things the way they really aren't. The exhibition is a prelude to her October trading post of cardboard cowboy gear in the Museum Shop at the Autry Center in Griffith Park, part of the “Out West at the Autry” series, a triptych of LGBT culture as it manifests in the West.

Tuesdays-Saturdays. Starts: June 18. Continues through July 23, 2011

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