Fort Gansevoort hosted a grand opening of its Los Angeles gallery on December 14, 2019 (this was originally scheduled to take place in November). See a review by one of LAArtParty’s writers HERE.

The 3,000 square foot street level space is located in the landmark Merrick Building (4859 Fountain Avenue, LA, 90029) in East Hollywood’s Little Armenia district. Designed in 1930 by the prolific LA architect C.J. Smale, the building features interiors with soaring ceilings, wooden joists, and Art Deco architectural flourishes – features that bestow a unique atmosphere connecting the gallery’s West Coast venue to its distinctive, beloved East Coast space.

Fort Gansevoort’s inaugural exhibition will present new works by Christopher Myers in an exhibition titled “Drapetomania.” The solo shot features monumental appliqué quilts and other three-dimensional works that advance Myers’ mission to address questions of globalization, community, and race, by deftly layering the visual languages and craft traditions of wide-ranging cultures. “Drapetomania” takes its title from a debunked, pseudoscientific theory of mental illness promulgated by American physician Samuel Cartwright in 1851, describing a form of mania – an irrational desire to flee – that caused enslaved Africans to attempt escape.

Zoya Cherkassky, In The Bus, 2019, Oil on linen, 39.5 x 78.75 inches

Myers’ new works at Fort Gansevoort will explore notions and signifiers of freedom and the ways in which narratives of freedom are constituted by converse notions of bondage. Rich with references to films, novels, and myths, Myers’ new works for Drapetomania at Fort Gansevoort Los Angeles, include among their sources of inspiration the Senegalese film ‘Touki Bouki’ (1973), directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty; Sun Ra’s Afrofuturist film ‘Space is the Place’ (1972), Teinosuke Kinugasa’s 1926 silent horror movie ‘Kurutta Ippeji’ (A Page of Madness); and ‘Sultana’s Dream’, a 1905 feminist utopian story written by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, a Muslim feminist writer and social reformer from Bengal.

Where: Fort Gansevoort Los Angeles, 4859 Fountain Ave., LA, 90029
Website: https://www.fortgansevoort.com/