MOCA has taken specific measures to keep our visitors and staff healthy and safe. We have been monitoring coronavirus (COVID-19) closely and in line with suggestions from The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, we have decided to cancel Los Angeles Filmforum at MOCA Presents Pattern in Contemporary Film in an effort to help with containment. There is no immediate threat or cause for concern at MOCA, but we feel taking these measures are in the best interest of our broader Los Angeles community. MOCA Grand Avenue galleries and WAREHOUSE at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA are currently temporarily closed. Please continue to check our website for any additional updates.
Inspired by the exhibition With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972–1985, Pattern in Contemporary Film explores how pattern, decoration, and domestic subject matter are used in contemporary film and digital media. Pattern in Contemporary Film includes works by Brian O’Connell, Charles Woodman, Maternal Fantasies, and Jodie Mack.
In Pulse Generator Pastry (2016), Charles Woodman, son of artist Betty Woodman, repurposes patterns she prepared for ceramic sculptures as subjects for animation. Sculptor Brian O’Connell uses found patterns—cycles of the moon and sun, chapter headings in an Italo Calvino book—to lend form and color to his 16mm film Palomar (2015). Maternal Fantasies, a ten-person German collective, produces digital tableaux vivants that reconstitute classical and artistic references as discursive, poetic accounts of motherhood. Finally, filmmaker Jodie Mack renders an abstract landscape out of trinkets and costume jewelry in Something Between Us (2015).
