OXY ARTS Announces Collaboration With Paul Holdengräber

OXY ARTS, Occidental College's public art space rooted in social justice and community organizing, has announced a collaboration with Paul Holdengräber, the renowned interviewer and Founder and Director of Onassis Los Angeles, a center for dialogue, and dublab, a platform for discovery and the cultivation of next-wave music, arts and culture.

Previously, and for 14 years, Holdengräber was Founder and Director of The New York Public Library's LIVE from the NYPL cultural series where he interviewed and hosted over 600 events, holding conversations with everyone from Patti Smith to Zadie Smith, Ricky Jay to Jay-Z, Errol Morris to Jan Morris, Wes Anderson to Helen Mirren, Werner Herzog to Mike Tyson.

At OLA, Holdengräber launched The Quarantine Tapes, a daily program that chronicles the shifting paradigms in the age of social distancing. Each day, Holdengräber calls a guest for a brief discussion about how they are experiencing the global pandemic. Known for probing his guests to step far beyond talking points, self-described "Curator of Public Curiosity" Holdengräber will continue his work in a new talk series programmed in collaboration with OXY ARTS. The series begins with a conversation with artist EJ Hill on March 3rd in response to his first solo institutional show, Wherever we will to root, on view February 17-April 22, 2022 at OXY ARTS. There is limited availability for in-person seating, so please to contact us to attend. The series continues with Maurice Harris (BLOOM & PLUME), artist and musician Jason Moran, and more. The series will be available on dublab.com and wherever you get your podcasts.

Paul Holdengräber comments: "The British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips has said that when we speak to other people things fall out of our pockets. This has been my guiding principle through the two dozen years that I have been in conversation with guests from all walks of life. I am joyously anticipating these three conversations with EJ Hill, Jason Moran, and Maurice Harris in collaboration with OXY Arts and dublab."

A California native whose practice includes writing, painting, sculpture, performance, and installation and explores the social construction of identity, EJ Hill departs from his physical practice to embrace the painterly tradition of still-life floral representation with a suite of large-scale paintings of florals that investigate leisure, pleasure, and joy. The exhibition also makes room for Hil's interest in music, with a piano that will allow him to play at his leisure through the course of the exhibition, and a closing night concert with his new band, Daisy Days. Stepping away from the work he came to be known for, Wherever we will to root brings forward a cathartic response to the artist's portfolio of work, and takes place in advance of his participation in the forthcoming Whitney Biennial.

As part of the programming of the show, Holdengräber will also interview Maurice Harris, a Los Angeles-based artist best known as the visionary behind Bloom & Plume, a bespoke floral studio in Echo Park. One of the most followed florists on Instagram and star of Quibi's floral arranging series "Centerpiece" and HBOMax's "Full Bloom," Harris has also presented a flower sculpture at MOCA, photography at the San Diego Art Institute, and a performance piece at the Broad. Additionally, Holdengräber will interview boundary-bursting jazz artist and MacArthur Fellow Jason Moran, whose practice is deeply invested in reassessing and complicating the relationship between music and language. Moran, the artistic director of jazz at the Kennedy Center, challenges the formal conventions of the medium and bridges together the visual and performing arts through his experimental art-making.

Meldia Yesayan, Director of OXY ARTS, comments: "Paul's long history of insightful discourse supports OXY ARTS' long-standing commitment to sparking meaningful conversation. As the crux of EJ's exhibition is a demand for rest, relaxation, and refusal, this will be the only interview EJ will give in reference to the body of work he is showing."

Prior to joining The New York Public Library in 2004, Holdengräber founded and served as the director of the Institute for Art and Cultures at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). In 2014, the French government awarded him the Officier des Arts et des Lettres in recognition of his cultural contributions. He was decorated with the Austrian Cross of Science and Art by the Austrian President.

At the New York Public Library, Holdengräber held conversations with Anish Kapoor, Sally Mann, Laurie Anderson, Christopher Hitchens, Orhan Pamuk, Pico Iyer, Carlo Ginzburg, William Kentridge, Edwidge Danticat, Harry Belafonte, Rick Rubin, Toni Morrison, Brian Eno, Jessye Norman, and Van Cliburn to name a few.

In 2020 Holdengräber together with dublab launched the quarantine tapes, a daily podcast, that now features over 200 episodes, with the likes of Rosanne Cash, Henry Rollins, Julie Mehretu, Tim Robbins, Susan Meiselas, Ann Magnuson, Suzanne Ciani, Salman Rushdie, Wally Shawn, Ibram X Kendi, Roxane Gaye, Lena Herzog, Derek Del Gaudio, Lawrence Wilkerson, Imani Perry, and Isabella Rossellini.