Conscious Life Expo
15 July – 13 August 2023
Opening: 15 July, 6–10 pm
Opening Performances: 7:30 pm & 9 pm
Rachel Elizabeth Jones
Grant LoParo
Robben Muñoz
With works that range in influence from folk tradition to futuristic extrapolation, Conscious Life
Expo freely explores "woo" in all its incarnations: as a mechanism of self-knowledge, a wildly
popular cultural trend, and as a product with inestimable potential for profit. With its collaborative
ethos anchoring the exhibit and informing its approach, Conscious Life Expo allows viewers to
survey the contradictions of Woo in good faith– to acknowledge both its sinkholes and its vistas,
irreconcilable and equally real. —Allison Sarah Hummel
All photos by Robben Muñoz unless otherwise noted.
Video documentation by Anderson Matthew.
Robben Muñoz, In a World Without Love, Surely You Must Carry a Fleeting Affection for the Darkest Well of a Shark’s Eye, 2023, Acrylic on canvas, 37.5” x 37.5”
Photo: Monica Nouwens
Robben Muñoz, A Divine Plan Means a Divine Draft, 2023, Acrylic on canvas
Found Yu-Gi-Oh! card
Robben Muñoz, The Realm of False Comforts, 2023, Watercolor on canvas, 30” x 30”
Hollywood Boulevard Egyptian Sun Discs (2023), 05:11, HD, video by Rachel Elizabeth Jones, Grant LoParo, and Robben Muñoz.
Documentation of process-performance in which Rachel Elizabeth Jones prepared discs of wet concrete in front of the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. Passersby were invited to make their mark on the discs in exchange for an instant film snapshot of themselves. The resulting dried concrete discs were exhibited in Conscious Life Expo.
Photo: Monica Nouwens
Photo: Monica Nouwens
Speech: A Soliloquy of Voices (2023), 05:06, written and performed by Robben Muñoz at Conscious Life Expo, 2023.
Video documentation by Anderson Matthew.
Photo: Monica Nouwens
Grant LoParo, Conscious Life Constellation XIV, 2023, 10” x 8”
Rachel Elizabeth Jones (b. 1988) is an artist and writer who grew up in Vermont and lives in Los Angeles. She is drawn to folk and vernacular modes and uses sculpture, installation, and video to engage with concepts of paradise, longing, and fantasy under capitalism, as well as complex tensions between urban and rural outlooks. She has contributed on art and cinema to publications including Contemporary Art Review LA (Carla), Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Inquiry, and The Brooklyn Rail. She is co-editor of tele- magazine and founded Flower Head in her garage in 2020. rachelelizabethjones.com / @ratbabyjones
Grant LoParo (b. 1990) is a visual artist and musician based in Los Angeles. With an interest in exploring the esoteric and giving visual and auditory form to the ineffable, he employs material and musical tools to channel the influence of the unconscious and allow its transmutation into experiential forms. @heavensgateclub
Robben Muñoz (b. 1990) is a visual artist based in Los Angeles, CA. He has shown work at Human Resources (Los Angeles, CA), Tlaloc Studios (Los Angeles, CA), and MOTOR (Los Angeles, CA). He has also worked in education and public programming at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Corita Art Center, Angels Gate Cultural Center, and The Getty. He attended the inaugural 2023 IKEA Residency (https://ikearesidency.net/) run by Mary Boo Anderson & Zoë Blair-Schlagenhauf. He received his BA from Oberlin College where he studied Art History and Cinema. robbenmunoz.com / @cool_emails
