In November 2015, PIASA asked René-Julien Praz to conceive a sale devoted
to emerging artists from the Los Angeles scene. The artists selected –
whether established or cutting-edge – reflect a generation, era and culture
that have inspired many of their contemporaries in recent years.
The emerging L.A. art scene shown for the first time in France
“Once I’d thought of the title, Bloody Red Sun of Fantastic L.A., nothing could seem
more fitting. The sheer wealth of images that these words evoke portrays with surgical
precision the pathos of this mythical city, where glamour meets vulgarity and highbrow
culture, the mainstream. Only in L.A. could kitsch rub shoulders with the sublime and
seduction with repulsion: this city truly is a world of contrasts.
The struggles, clashes, hopes, ambitions and despair of millions of immigrants are
an integral part of the city’s DNA. The city is built from their blood and tears as they
fought and won their place in this multi-cultural Eldorado, facing lies and duplicity
with courage, commitment, intelligence and solidarity, to finally be able to live together,
whatever their colour or origin: Mexican, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Iranian... In
this great melting pot, the religious - Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Buddhists
and Muslims – live alongside agnostics and atheists on these lands of the American
Far West.
