One of the few spaces to carry the L.A. tradition of living-room galleries into the late ’90s was Jane Hart’s Lemon Sky Projects, which the former founding director of MUSE X digital editions operated out of her home for almost five years. By the end of last year, Lemon Sky was closing, and Hart was slated to direct the well-funded Brendan Walter Gallery in West Hollywood, a project enormous in scope but undoubtedly far more conventional in terms of curatorial risk. But the Brendan Walter Gallery evaporated, and Hart is now reasserting her presence on the alt-art scene by staging six simultaneous gallery exhibits across the city, leading up to the opening of the new not-in-her-living-room Lemon Sky Projects+ editions.


Four of the six shows in Hart’s “constellation6” are currently open, with the final two exhibits opening Saturday. Each of the artists involved works in some combination of performance and more traditional media. On Wednesday the 24th, Charong Chow will augment her multimedia self-help parody installation “How To Marry a British Guy” at Coleman Gallery on Melrose with a raffle to win a date with a real live British guy. Last week at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Paulina Wallenberg Olsson translated the creepy theatricality of her digital portraits of an “imaginary population” into a live act supported by the inscrutable Climax Golden Twins; the iris prints remain on view through early November. Leah Singer, spouse to Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, had to forgo attending her opening at Acuna-Hansen Gallery last Saturday, but will be performing via digital animation at Chinatown’s Electronic Orphanage on November 3. Tamara Fites makes a welcome return to her character-driven performance/installation mode at POST, with a new work entitled “The Ice Queen: I’ll Come When I Want” that sees the artist in intermittent attendance (according to her character’s imperious whims) over the duration of the show. On October 20, the final piece of “constellation6” pairs multimedia artists Michael Dee and Colin Cook in the opening shows for a relocated Pageant, at 400 S. Main St., downtown. (Cook’s Legion of Rock Stars is headlining a Halloween art bash at Café Club Fais Do-Do the evening of Saturday, October 27.)


The dust won’t have settled from all this activity before Hart and Lemon Sky partner Robert Grahmbeek open their new space at 5367 Wilshire Blvd. (two doors down from Suzanne Vielmetter’s gallery). Combining a digital printmaking facility with a gallery space, Lemon Sky Projects+ editions will kick off with a show of the photographic stills from Jessica Bronson’s “Panamint Series” exhibit at Cal State L.A.’s Luckman Gallery. Living-room galleries have a history of losing their commitment to risky art as the overhead increases. Even if this turns out to be the case with Lemon Sky, “constellation6” ensures that nobody will think it was because Hart lost her curatorial edge.

CONSTELLATION6” — A JANE HART/LEMON SKY PROJECTS SERIES:
LEAH SINGER at Acuna-Hansen Gallery, 427 Bernard St. | Through November 10

CHARONG CHOW at Coleman Gallery, 8625 Melrose Ave. | Through November 1

PAULINA WALLENBERG OLSSON at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition, 6522 Hollywood Blvd. | Through November 3

COLIN COOK AND MICHAEL DEE at Pageant, 400 S. Main St. | Opening Saturday, October 20, 4 to 9 p.m.; through November 10

TAMARA FITES at POST, 1904 E. Seventh Pl. | Through November 10

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