NEWS

Public Art

Metro Orange Line – Permanent Public Art Project

Valley College Station – 2005

As station artist, Laura designed terrazzo paving areas and porcelain enamel steel panels to be fabricated and installed on station platforms.  The art panel designs are black and white contemporary portraits shot in historic locations of rock ‘n’ roll history that took place in the San Fernando Valley. The images reference the styles and fashions of the times in which these events took place. One photograph was shot at the former location of the Devonshire Downs Racetrack, where the Newport ’69 Festival took place on June 20-22, headlined by Jimi Hendrix, The Animals, Marvin Gaye and others. It was also formerly the original Valley College location now Cal State University Northridge. The other photograph was taken at the former Franklin Canyon location of a Rolling Stones album cover Big Hits High Tides and Green Grass, shot in 1969.

“My artwork is closely aligned to the practice of narrative and documentary style photography in which the photographer has a personal connection to its subject matter.”

http://www.metro.net/about/art/locations/valley-college-station/

MTA Photo Light Box Series – 2006-2010
Laura London created seven large-scale photographic light boxes, which were installed in several locations throughout the metropolitan Los Angeles area.

Public Art Review, Public Art 2.0, issue 41, fall/winter, 2009

http://www.metro.net/about/art/artworks/couples-groups-and-friends/

Selected Bibliography

2022 Molapo, Mosa, “Andrea Chung Joins the SCMA Collection,” Smith College Museum of Art, July 20, 2022

Raya, Anna, “Otis College Extension’s Laura London on the Magic and Fun of Photography,” Otis College of Art and Design, January 21, 2020

Osberg, Annabel, Artillery Magazine, “Laura London,” Chimento Contemporary, May 11, 2016

Western, Beverly, “GIRL POWER AT CHIMENTO CONTEMPORARY, Laura London, Cole Case at Chimento Contemporary,” Artillery Magazine, April 18, 2016

Dambrot, Shana Nys, “Laura London: Relocation at Chimento Contemporary,” Huffington Post, April 13, 2016

Chassepot, Beatrice, “ART FAIR REVIEW: Photo LA, 25th edition,” be-Art magazine, January 30, 2016

Koll, Juri, “How Artists Survive, Part 8 – They Mark Their Territory,” Huffington Post, April 23, 2015

Wood, Eve, “Pick of the Week: Trio: Kathleen Johnson, Laura London, Lisa Rosel,” Artillery, April 9, 2015

Zeller, Heidi, “Artists of the Metro Orange Line exhibition closes December 13,” thesource.metro.net, December 6, 2012

Martens, Anne, “Artillery Feature”, Artillery Magazine, Vol. 7 Issue 2 November/December 2012, p. 28, (illus.)

Walker, Alissa, “How Do You Capture the San Fernando Valley Through Art?” blogs.laweekly.com, November 6, 2012

Wagley, Catherine, “Looking at Los Angeles / When Rock Star Fantasies Go Too Far,” blog.art21.org, October 25, 2012

Bjork, Lori, “Ten Questions with artist Laura London,” examiner.com, October 18, 2012

Wagley, Catherine, “Five Artsy Things To Do This Week,” blogs.laweekly.com, October 10, 2012

Derrick, Lisa, “Once Upon a Time…,” Cartwheel, October 1, 2012, (illus.)

Hymon, Steve, “Artists of the Metro Orange Line exhibition opens October 11 at Los Angeles Valley College,” thesource.metro.net, August 30, 2012

Frank, Peter, “Haiku Reviews: ‘Hair’, Cirque du Soleil and Some Electric Cellos (VIDEO + PHOTOS),” Huffington Post Arts, November 4, 2011

Cifarelli, Gabriel, “Playing Telephone With Art: Two Exhibits that Mix Curating With Old School Social Networking,” blogs.laweekly.com, June 2, 2011

Center for the Psychology of Women Blog, 2010, “Los Angeles Based Artist Laura London Talks Rock Stars, Teaching and Photography,” Laurie Wheeler

[link to interview]

National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2009, Calendar for Exhibition, “Modern Love: Gifts to the Collection from Heather and Tony Podesta,” National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

Selected Public Collections

ArtCenter Library, Pasadena, California (catalogs)
Corcoran, Washington DC
Johnson City Community College, Overland Park, Kansas
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC
Neuberger Berman, Chicago, Illinois
Norton Family Office, Santa Monica, California
Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California
Refco, Chicago, Illinois
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA

Art Fairs

Seattle Art Fair, Chimento Contemporary, 2018
Seattle Art Fair, Chimento Contemporary, 2017
PHOTOLA, Chimento Contemporary, 2017
PHOTOLA, Chimento Contemporary, 2016
Photo Miami, DA Gallery, 2007
Pulse Miami, Caren Golden Fine Art, 2007
Pulse Miami, Caren Golden Fine Art, 2006
Photo Miami, DA Gallery, 2006
Pulse Miami, Caren Golden Fine Art, 2005
Hamptons Art Fair, Caren Golden Fine Art, 2005
Art Chicago, Caren Golden Fine Art, 2004
Art Chicago, Revolution Gallery, 2004

Curatorial

2024 Artillery Magazine, CODE ORANGE, curator
2023 Artillery Magazine, CODE ORANGE, curator
2022 Artillery Magazine, CODE ORANGE, curator
2021 Artillery Magazine, CODE ORANGE, curator
2020 Artillery Magazine, CODE ORANGE, curator
2019 Artillery Magazine, CODE ORANGE, curator
2018 Artillery Magazine, CODE ORANGE, curator
2016 Artillery + Photo LA, Instagram Photo Contest, #climateforchangela, juror

Artist Designed Projects

2021 In Collaboration with LSH Gallery Annex – Artist’s Designed Limited Edition T-Shirt

Auctions

LACE Benefit Art Auction, Los Angeles CA, May 18, 2016
Delia Brown: Benefit Auction, c.nichols project, Mar Vista, CA, March 15, 2015
Stoked Sessions: Art Show & Benefit, The Brick Building, Culver City, CA, May 20 – 21, 2011
ForYourArt Benefit, Soho House, West Hollywood, CA, March 28, 2011
Re: PRESENT ~ LACE Annual Benefit Art Auction; a celebration of the moment representing three decades of excellence with a toast to the future, May 22, 2008
Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibits (LACE)
6522 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90028
The REFCO Collection of Contemporary Photography, Christie’s, Rockefeller Plaza, NYC, NY. Tuesday April 23, Friday May 5 & Wednesday May 10, 2006, Christie’s New York, New York Catalogue Lot 167

REVIEWS

Anna Raya, “Otis College Extension’s Laura London on the Magic and Fun of Photography,” Otis College of Art and Design, January 21, 2020
Teaching digital natives the artistry and skills behind traditional black-and-white photography – students, some of whom are accustomed to taking photos with their cell phone cameras whenever inspiration or a great selfie opportunity strikes – doesn’t require the leaps and bounds one might assume. Read the entire article here: https://www.otis.edu/news/laura-london-film-digital-photography-otis-college-extension

Kathy Leonardo, “photo l.a. And MOPLA Unite January 12-15, 2017,” Huffington Post, January 9, 2017
Chimento Contemporary will be featuring three works from artist Laura London’s Relocation series; Lilac – Present, Rose Garden – Past, Camilla Forrest – Future. Gallerist/Owner Eva Chimento said, “I fell in love with London’s work in the late 1990’s when she exhibited her Rockstar Moment series. Read the entire article here: https://lauralondon.com/HuffPost_PhotoLA_2017.pdf

Annabel Osberg, “CHIMENTO CONTEMPORARY – Laura London,” Artillery, May 11, 2016
Like fairy tales about to reach sinister climaxes, Laura London’s new photographs present spuriously romanticized views of female youth. Each portrait’s idealized setup is tempered by a portentous feeling that something is amiss. Read the entire article here: http://artillerymag.com/chimento-contemporary-laura-london/

Beverly Western, “GIRL POWER AT CHIMENTO CONTEMPORARY – Laura London, Cole Case at Chimento Contemporary,” Artillery, April 18, 2016
Last night found us in Downtown LA at Chimento Contemporary for Laura London’s show. We’ve been following London’s “girls” for quite some time, so we were anxious to see the newest crop of female adolescents usually featured in her work. Read the entire article here: http://artillerymag.com/girl-power-chimento-contemporary/

Shana Nys Dambrot, “Laura London: Relocation at Chimento Contemporary,” Huffington Post, April 13, 2016
Photographer Laura London has a mantra. “Personal, universal; observation, imagination.” Her most indelible images are animated by the meticulous and intuitive calibration of these dynamic dualities. From narrative symbolism to technical pragmatism, at every level London’s choices deftly merge the aesthetic and moral zeitgeist in which she is working with phenomenological fantasies of her own design. Read the entire article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shana-nys-dambrot/laura-london-relocation-a_b_9673818.html

Juri Koll, “How Artists Survive, Part 8 – They Mark Their Territory,” Huffington Post, April 23,2015
Christine Nichols has built her career on listening and watching. She understands artists’ approach to their work, whether it be works on paper or formed by fiberglass. She is careful in her curating, generous in her exhibitions of their work as she studies their methods. She embraces their marks as she creates room for them breathe in her space, called c.nichols project. Read the entire article here: https://www.lauralondon.com/reviews/Huffington_Post_Trio.pdf

Eve Wood, “Trio: Kathleen Johnson, Laura London, Lisa Rosel,” Artillery, April 9, 2015
Trio at c. nichols project is a visual exploration into harmony wherein three unique photo-based artists explore their individual visions while also maintaining a harmonious unity amongst each other. Kathleen Johnson’s beautifully mysterious landscapes allude to the possibility of life even in the most desolate of terrains, just as Lisa Rosel’s abundantly populated cityscapes capture their own hyperbolic energies. Laura London’s elegant images of youth culture also attest to a strangely enigmatic “otherness” where a girl in a striking black dress appears to have sprung fully formed into the surrounding white space. The image, though spare, is oddly electric. Read full article here:
https://www.lauralondon.com/reviews/ArtilleryTrio.pdf
Anne Martens
“Laura London”
Artillery Magazine
Vol. 7 Issue 2 November/December 2012, p. 28, (illus.)

Laura London often channels celebrities through her photography, but not necessarily in ways that you’d expect. She doesn’t document musicians, models or actors onstage or off, or portray them in surreal situations like say, Annie Liebovitz does. Instead, she asks teens and young adults she knows to perform for the camera. By photographing them preening and vamping as an exploration of idealized identity, London’s images become about the nature of culturally indoctrinated emulation.

In one of her images from “Rock Star Moment,” a series from 2000, a teen faces the camera with attitude, a guitar hung at her waist. Decked out in baby-doll dress and platinum wig, with black nail polish and smeary lipstick, the girl passes as a juvenile version of Courtney Love. In another picture the girl is dressed in black, leaning over a bathroom sink. Her mirrored reflection reveals a face masked with dark eyeliner and blood-red lipstick, her expression feigning Trent Reznor’s creepy living-dead look. Those two photographs suggest how London approaches her young subjects; that collaboration is a necessary component, even if it is left ambiguous as to whose imagination (the photographer’s or the model’s) is really being tapped.

“Once Upon A Time…” is London’s most recent and ambitious series, begun in 2007 and periodically updated. Read the entire article here: https://www.lauralondon.com/reviews/ArtilleryNovDec.pdf
Ten Questions with artist Laura London Art Essay by Lori Bjork, Examiner, October 18, 2012

1. What age would you say you first began creating art?
Age three to four. I would bring home stacks of abstract watercolor finger paintings from preschool. My mom would put them up on the wall and I would rearrange them. The first show was at age six to eight of a pastel drawing at an art show at a Chicago social club. My first professional show was while I was in college. I showed two black and white photographs in a juried show.

2. Did you create for the fun of it, because you simply couldn’t not create art or some other reason?
Yes, as a child I made art for fun. As I grew up I became engaged in it and went to art school.

3. What age would you say you first began defining yourself as an artist? High School age.
I began photography at 14. Read the entire article here: https://www.lauralondon.com/reviews/Examiner.pdf

Laura London Photography: The Youth Dilemma by Milagros Bello, Wynwood The Art Magazine

London’s photographs of young subjects express the rules of engagement of contemporary teenagers, and depict a new embodiment of culture. Seeking their own meaning and identity, in a cross-cultural synonymy, they shape their illusions, their truths, their morality, through epic ordeals and heroic quests. These youthful subjects reveal themselves by their bodily actions and their defiant poses, creating a crucial taxonomy of signs. We can grasp their anxiety, their struggles, their sensuality, their ultimate inner mystery. London appropriates their crucial reality well, transforming them into iconic profiles of our contemporary society. Read the entire article here: http://artpulsemagazine.com/laura-london

Interview with Laura London Contemporary Artist/Photographer, Stay Thirsty Media, Jan. 4, 2009

Thirsty caught up with Laura London in Los Angeles where she has lived and worked for the last sixteen years. L.A., its youth culture and rock n’ roll have heavily influenced her work which Los Angeles Times critic Holly Myers has called “the most casual and naturalistic sense of looking in at private moments in the lives of today’s youth culture.” Her first solo show in Miami runs from January 10 to February 10, 2009 at the Daniel Azoulay Gallery in Miami, Florida and the works featured relate thematically to the ideas of personal identity, youth culture and rock n’ roll. Read the entire article here: https://www.lauralondon.com/reviews/ST.pdf

Laura London: Photographs based on youth culture, and Rock & Roll by Cara Bloch
Lipstick Tracez, January 6, 2009

Laura London! Laura London! Doesn’t that sound that a rock star name to begin with? Like Joan Jett, Tennessee Thomas (from The Like), Doris Day, Marilyn Monroe, and Jenny Jones (the early 90’s talk show host???!!!!???) you must love the all alliteration in these strong female superstars! Read the entire article here: https://www.lauralondon.com/reviews/LipstickTracez121312.pdf
US Recent Projects
Public Art Review
Vol. 18 No. 2 Issue 36, 2007 p. 90, (illus.)

Initiated in 2001, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Metro Art Lightbox Program places the work of photo-based artists in illuminated boxes at Metro train stations (along the Red Line).  The most recent additions to the series, installed in 2006, include creations by artists Sam Erenberg, Colette Fu, Laura London, and Peter Goin.  Pictured above is Erenberg’s The Complete Works of Roland Barthes, which consists of digitally-altered photographs of seven Los Angeles artists holding books by Barthes.  According to Erenberg, “The seven artists I chose (from twenty-two of the Los Angeles art community, as well as the city at large.”  Fu’s Photo Binge is a collage of various binge activities: eating, exercising, shopping.   London’s Couples, Groups and Friends comprises seven images depicting teenagers in social environments, urban landscapes, and dream settings.  Read the entire article here: https://www.lauralondon.com/reviews/publicartreview_s-s07.pdf
Artists Transform Metro Orange Line Into Work Of Art, 2005 [link to artwork]

Opening October 29th, 2005 the Metro Orange Line will showcase artwork of 15 California artists.
The work of fifteen California artists is being incorporated into the new Metro Orange Line to enhance the journeys of future riders. One of the unique aspects of the Orange Line is that the artists’ brought a sense of both continuity and individuality to the stations. Artworks include terrazzo paving at platforms, colorful porcelain steel art panels at each station entry, sculpted seating, and various artist influenced landscaping elements.

[download full press release]
Phoebe Hoban
Photographer Laura London records the mock rock adventures of a suburban teen,
Her Fave Raves
Smock
Issue No. 3, Spring/Summer 2001, p. 35-37, (illus.)

Poised precariously between Nabokov’s nymphets and MTV’s sultry sirens, Laura London’s Rock Star Moments poses a 13-year-old Clancy—the self-possessed high-cheekboned daughter of an artist friend-in a series of mockumentary tableaux. Here, London cannibalizes the images of a bevy of female rock icons, including Shirley Manson and Courtney Love, simultaneously commenting on the pervasive influence of celebrities and bringing her own nubile life to the party.

London, who teaches photography to teenagers in Los Angeles, is clearly able to get on the same wavelength as her adolescent model. “I like to work with issues of identity. A lot of my work is autobiographical and comes from my own memories, “London says, “I was around teenagers so much I started noticing how they were similar and dissimilar to me during different periods of their lives. I like to use a person to tell a story, sort of like a filmmaker. But my images are not documentary; they represent a search to identify the youth culture of this particular era.”

Read the entire article here: https://www.lauralondon.com/reviews/Smock01.pdf

Holly Myers
Special to the Times
“London’s Photos Depict Teen Dreams, Fantasies”
Los Angeles Times
Art Reviews
November 24, 2000, F29, (illus.)

“Rock Star Moments”, Laura London’s new series of photographs on view at Works on Paper Inc., is a tour through the literal and psychological costume trunk of a 13 year-old girl named Clancy. The first five of the 10 photographs in the series feature Clancy in the guise of Marilyn Manson, Courtney Love and other rock stars, complete with wigs, makeup, jewelry, padded breasts and a guitar. If it weren’t for the clear markings of a teenage girl’s bedroom, the images would be surprisingly convincing.

Read the entire article here: https://www.lauralondon.com/Review_Holly_Myers_LA_Times.pdf

Robert Mahoney
“Laura London”
Time Out New York
February 18-25, 1999, Issue No. 178, p. 50, (illus.)

There’s something about teenage girls that seems so trivial, yet so deep. They can be sweet and cruel, goofy and serious, sexy and clueless. Photographer Laura London takes up Cindy Sherman’s idea of posing for the camera, but London uses teenage girls as models instead of herself. That’s not the only difference, however: London stresses inner complexity over visual clichés, even as she skirts those very clichés. It’s a dangerous game, but London by and large succeeds.

Read the entire article here: https://www.lauralondon.com/Review_Robery_Mahoney_Time_Out.pdf

Claudine Ise
Special to the Times
“Worth Watching”
Los Angeles Times
Art Reviews
May 1, 1998, F24, (illus.)

At Works on Paper Inc., Laura London’s portraits of teenage punk rockers, photographed in department store dressing rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms, invite voyeuristic curiosity. Her photographs appear to offer candid glimpses into the private rituals of young women, but in fact, each image has been carefully staged and costumed by London. Our knowledge of this somehow doesn’t lessen the sense that we’re peeking in at something irresistible, that’s really none of our business.

Read the entire article here: https://www.lauralondon.com/Review_Claudine_Ise.pdf

Peter Frank
“Art Picks of the Week”
Laura London
LA WEEKLY
Vol. 20 No. 27, May 29 – June 4, 1998, (illus.)

Whereas Laura London’s earlier photographs reveled in their own artifice, mocking and queering the stylized, exaggerated images and claims of clothing and beauty ads, these latest, markedly more poignant shots emphasize the individuality of their subjects, middle-class adolescent girls acting and interacting at home or in public spaces. Still, it is clear that London has set up at least some of these photos, artfully but unsubtly violating the camera-verite claim to documentary truth. London actually exercises as a “truth” of another kind, the narrative, even novelistic truth of observed and recalled experience. Whether she is watching these teens or posing them, London is obviously empathizing with them, recording their re-enactments of the kinds of personal and social rituals that marked her own coming of age. London “documents” one young lady in particular, a punkish and photogenic gamine who hangs with her homies and struts her stuff in front of a clothing store’s dressing-room mirror with equal grace, aplomb, vulnerability, girlishness, self-possession, etc. etc. The range of sensation she manages to project – or London projects through her – renders this mall-rat Audrey Hepburn the prefect modern-day everywoman-in-training.

Work on Paper Inc.
Los Angeles, CA

LAURA LONDON: “RELOCATION”
Catalogue Essay
Chimento Contemporary

Photographer Laura London has a mantra, “Personal, universal, observation, imagination.” Her most indelible images are animated by the meticulous and intuitive calibration of these dynamic dualities. From narrative symbolism to technical pragmatism, at every level London’s phenomenological fantasies of her own design. Her new series comprises a video work with audio; as well as photography, in a n eight-part portrait series in two folios plus a triptych. In both content and meaning, as well as technology and technique, these images represented a re-examination and directed evolution of her iconic celebrity-culture-critiques of 2000-2012 and the series of work exploring teen identity from 1995-1999. While those works took aim at the perverse and pervasive influence of celebrity thorough the American teen-ager, in 2015-2016, the new problem is selfie culture, and its new face is the Millennial.

Read the entire article here: https://www.lauralondon.com/Relocation_catalogue_essay.pdf
Sarah Gavlak
Catalogue Essay
Smoke and Mirrors

Teenage girls gathering in public bathrooms to apply make-up, smoke cigarettes, gossip about boys, music, and fashion is a common occurrence. Yet, when filtered through the camera of Los Angeles artist Laura London, who has been working with the subject over the last few years, there appears to be something not so matter of fact about these rituals of youth. In fact, there is something strange, or rather strained in these photos of young women at the onslaught of self-awareness and self-discovery that transcends the usual difficulty and awkwardness of adolescence. Young riot girls, hippie chicks and punk rockers sitting on the sidewalk sulking are not documented simply to illustrate this increasingly important demographic. Nor are they the work of a social anthropologist, who may observe the curious habits of girls spending hours in their bedroom playing guitar and giggling. Rather, London’s most recent images straddle the sociological and the physiological. They are staged fictions rooted in the girls’ social, emotional, and corporeal reality.

Read the entire article here: https://www.lauralondon.com/reviews/SmokeandMirrors.pdf

Laurence A. Rickels
Catalogue essay
Bridge Isn’t Falling Down

Laura London is an explorer of the Teen Age, you know the age, like, you know, I don’t know, the one we live in. The teen in our midst, the inner teen, is the measure and metabolism of what’s most pressing right now on the edge of the time to come. That’s why boredom is one bottom line only the teen can hang with: in less represented terms, what we call boredom is the wide open space of incalculable events, adverts, adventures. It’s the ever new frontier in which we get an outside chance of encountering the other, the one who comes towards us, uncontrollably, unstoppably, like the future, like reality. It’s in such a moment that identification exceeds itself and opens up to intervention, self invention, the advent of the other in your face. Like one moment I’m bored, then next moment I’m dressing up fit to be tied to a star.

Read the entire article here: https://www.lauralondon.com/reviews/Bridge_Isnt_Falling_Down.pdf