Helen K. Garber - Major Works

Major Works

L.A. Noir
Nominated for the 2006 Santa Fe Prize in Photography, L.A. Noir is a multi-media installation consisting of projected images of Helen's night urban landscapes of Los Angeles, text from pulp fiction based in Los Angeles using the city as character and West Coast Sound Jazz.

The recorded version was first shown at The Venice Art Walk, Venice, CA in 2005 and on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 at Sponto Gallery, Venice, CA, and again at The Venice Art Walk in 2006, CA.

Urban Noir/NY-LA,
A multimedia piece including projected images, text extracted from pulp fiction and mid twentieth century jazz along with 20 of Helen's photographic prints was exhibited at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University at New Paltz, NY, October, 2007. The University purchased the twenty images exhibited for the permanent collection of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art. John Beasley, noted jazz artist, composed a 17 minute suite to accompany the projected images and text. John performed the piece live for the first time in a multi-media presentation of Urban Noir/LA-NY after Helen lectured at the Annenberg Space for Photography in June, 2009. It was part of the first group of lectures presented at the recently completed institution.

A Night View of Los Angeles, a 360 Degree Panorama of the Entire City of Los Angeles as Seen from the Helipad of the US Bank Tower

A 40-foot (12 m) long version of A Night View of Los Angeles, a 360 degree panorama of the entire city of Los Angeles, taken from the helipad of the US Bank Tower (tallest building in Los Angeles and West of the Mississippi)was commissioned for the 10th Mostra di Architettura di Venezia or Biennale di Architecture in Venice,Italy from September through November, 2006. It was printed with solvent ink on stretched silk. - A second version of A Night View of Los Angeles, also 40 feet (12 m) long, but printed with solvent ink on outdoor banner vinyl was exhibited at the front entrance of the international fair, Photo LA, Santa Monica, CA in January, 2007. - - -

A Night View Collaboration

Helen's vision was to then invite the most significant Los Angeles graffiti writers of the past twenty years to share her privileged view of the city and catch (paint) her 40 ft (12 m). long masterpiece with their own distinctive street art identities (TAGS). To ceremoniously tag the entire city at once. This was first exhibited at the annual charity event, the, on May 20, 2007. The Night View Collaboration was exhibited a second time in conjunction with An Intimate View of Los Angeles, at Gallery Skart, Santa Monica, April, 2009. Again as part of the Santa Monica Pico Art Walk in 2009 and finally at the FADA Los Angeles Art Show, January, 2010.

Helen K. Garber, a noirist, feels a camaraderie with graffiti writers as she and they roam the city after dark while sometimes forsaking their physical safety, to use the urban landscape to create their art. They all share a love for the city of Los Angeles. Despite their differences in age, gender and background, they were able to communicate as equals because of their mutual respect for each other as serious artists.

Duce One designed the collaboration and invited Mear, Saber, Gin, Retna, Gzer, Vyal, Revok, Zes, and Cab to join him. This is the first time so many of these significant artists collaborated on the same production. Vyal gave Helen a lesson in good spray can technique and she added her own tag to complete the collaboration. In 2010, for the FADA Los Angeles Art Show, Duce again invited more writers to add their tags and Duce, Cre8, Mear and Vyal finished the piece during the art show, 3 years after it was begun.

This project opened up a dialogue between Helen and these fellow artists and has given the writers a forum to explain their process. Not only do large corporations support this group's work, the writers are presently in conversation with the Los Angeles Dept. of Cultural Affairs about creating murals for the city. Instead of considering them outlaws, the city hopes to support them for creting the same type of work.

Why? - Young artists rarely tag these artist's murals because their style is well known and respected. The young, ignorant artists generally tag murals that they can't relate to in the hopes that their tag will remain longer on a mural than on a plain wall that can be simply painted over.

While most view territorial gang tagging as urban blight, Helen views it no worse than billboards, electric wires, thoughtless development over the years such as fortress-like indoor shopping malls and McMansions created with lots of money, but no aesthic sense.

Imagine how more beautiful our cities can be if art programs were re-introduced to the public school system with an added emphasis on the appreciation of the urban landscape. That way future taggers, developers and landlords would create with a better understanding of design and aesthetics.

Venice/Venezia

Premiered at DNJ Gallery, Los Angeles, in 2010 Venice/Venezia is a series of b/w diptychs on stretched canvas that create a metaphor on by illustrating the duality of the of life in two distant cities that share the same name. Although the night images are beautiful to view, they are a sugar coated comment on how the residents of tourist destinations must share their lives with hordes of unwanted day tourists and then take back their beloved cities once the sun sets.