March 6 to May 18, 2025
Public opening reception: Sunday, March 9, 2025, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.
LA Municipal Art Gallery 4800 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027
The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG) presents “Step & Repeat,” a group exhibition curated by Nancy Meyer and John Weston.
Inspired by the historical Pattern and Decoration movement of the mid-1970s and its impact across our region, “Step & Repeat” highlights 46 Southern California artists who engage with themes of pattern and decoration. The exhibition seeks to create a dialogue around those concepts, encompassing both works that directly explore the subject and those that approach it peripherally. The title, “Step & Repeat,” is a term used for publicity banners at special events, most notably seen at red-carpet premieres. While this slightly tongue-in-cheek reference to Hollywood hints at LAMAG’s physical proximity, it also reflects the repetitive and systematic qualities inherent in patterns within the works on view.
“Step & Repeat” delves into the exploration of patterns as both physical and psychological occurrences, emphasizing their repetitive and systematic qualities. The works on view analyze how patterns manifest in tangible forms while also reflecting the physical and internal, mental processes they evoke. The investigation of these concepts stems from a desire to explore how decoration, often dismissed as mere embellishment, serves deeper purposes of valorization and humanization. Rather, decoration can be a meaningful act that elevates and adds value to objects, spaces, or experiences, reflecting human creativity and the need to connect with the world. By examining these dual aspects, the exhibition reveals the ways in which pattern and decoration may lead to understanding the human impulse to “pattern” and “decorate” as tools for mapping expression, identity, and the interplay between aesthetics and function.
Other themes explored in the exhibition include feminism and domesticity, implications of altered states of consciousness such as meditation and flow states, and psychedelic aesthetics. By situating these themes within the broader context of pattern and decoration, “Step & Repeat” offers a multidimensional exploration of how artistic practices intersect with personal, cultural, and historical narratives. Step & Repeat will include four new site-specific installations by Patricia Fernández, Jaime Muñoz, Antonio Adriano Puleo, and Mark Dean Veca.
Artists in :Step & Repeat” include: Liv Aanrud, Merrick Adams, Nick Aguayo, Michelle Andrade, Amelia Baxter, Linda Besemer, Raghvi Bhatia, Carole Caroompas, Fritz Chesnut, Edi Dai, Tomory Dodge, Roy Dowell, June Edmonds, Sharon Ellis, Edie Fake, Amir Fallah, Asad Faulwell, Patricia Fernández, Terri Friedman, Ishi Glinsky, Valerie Green, Mark Steven Greenfield, Sabrina Gschwandtner, Sherin Guirguis, Channing Hansen, Zach Harris, Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia, Jim Isermann, Soo Kim, Ahree Lee, Emily Marchand, Allison Miller, Dianna Molzan, Jaime Muñoz, Milena Muzquiz, Elyse Pignolet, Antonio Adriano Puleo, Caris Reid, Ana Rodriguez, Aili Schmeltz, Mindy Shapero, Brooklin A. Soumahoro, Jen Stark, Astri Swendsrud, Mark Dean Veca, and Bari Ziperstein.