Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Search
  • Exhibitions
    • Current
    • Upcoming
    • Past
  • Calendar
  • Learning
    • Artist Residency
    • Bookshelf Residency
    • Digital Projects
    • Public Programs
    • Schools & Community
    • Special Projects
  • Visit
  • About
    • Staff
    • Governance
    • Press
    • Partnerships
    • Opportunities
    • Annual Report
  • Shop
  • Get Involved
    • Spring Benefit
    • Join
    • Institutional Support
    • Artist Edition Series
    • Sustainability
    • Corporate
  • Donate
Yellow Pages

Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

  • Exhibitions
    • Current
    • Upcoming
    • Past
  • Calendar
  • Learning
    • Artist Residency
    • Bookshelf Residency
    • Digital Projects
    • Public Programs
    • Schools & Community
    • Special Projects
  • Visit
  • About
    • Staff
    • Governance
    • Press
    • Partnerships
    • Opportunities
    • Annual Report
  • Shop
  • Get Involved
    • Spring Benefit
    • Join
    • Institutional Support
    • Artist Edition Series
    • Sustainability
    • Corporate
  • Donate
Yellow Pages
Search
Programs

veronique d'entremont: THEIR BODY BECAME (an antenna, transmitting the message of god)

Community
Free
Image of public artwork in the Los Angeles State Historic Park, 2021
veronique d'entremont: THEIR BODY BECAME (an antenna, transmitting the message of god), Los Angeles State Historic Park, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.
Detail image of gold colored tapestry.
veronique d'entremont, Their Body Became, 2021 (tapesty, detail)

veronique d'entremont: THEIR BODY BECAME (an antenna, transmitting the message of god)
Los Angeles State Historic Park 1245 N. Spring Street Los Angeles, CA 90012

Public program: THEIR BODY BECAME (an offering) May 7, 6:30pm-8pm.

veronique d’entremont presents a public artwork that reimagines their own family legacy of spiritual mysticism, bipolar disorder and suicide through the veneration of human ancestors and non-human kin. The artist’s installation THEIR BODY BECAME (an antenna, transmitting the message of god) at the Los Angeles State Historic Park takes inspiration from their ongoing interspecies collaboration with feral swarms of honeybees. Borrowing from a multitude of sources including Christian Mysticism, Sicilian folk magic, earth-based spirituality, entomology and developmental psychology, the artist re-frames the story of their mother’s untimely death as one of martyrdom and sainthood—albeit unrecognized by the Catholic Church. Through their devotional sculpture and poetry, d’entremont crafts a personal mythology that seeks to reclaim agency and find liberation amidst patterns of intergenerational trauma.

Located at the top of a small hill is a 20’ diameter circular tapestry, painted with gold lettering that tells a poetic allegory of honeybee reproduction, through excerpts from the artist’s text “Hail Holy Queen: A Novena To The Bees"…but we remind you, O Queen, your mother abandoned you that you might flourish.” In the center of the tapestry sits an empty adobe shrine, sculpted out of a mixture of unfired clay, cemetery dirt and the ashes of the artist’s mother. The shrine simultaneously refers to a backyard grotto that might house a religious icon, but also to the mountain caves in which feral honeybee colonies commonly make their homes. Over the course of the installation, the unfired ceramic shrine will evolve, reminding the viewer of both the impermanence of human-made institutions and the lifecycle of the natural works.

At the base of the hill are arranged a series of sculptural receptacles bearing purposeful statements written by the artist as a form of invocation. Viewers are invited to write their own responses or prayers and insert them into openings incorporated into the sculptures. In future artworks, the artist will engage these written contributions, and the ceramic receptacles will be put to use as sculptural hives for feral colonies of honeybees. Through a QR code provided at the site, viewers are invited to watch documentation of THEIR BODY BECAME (an offering) a ritual centering queer and trans bodies and inspired by Catholic “ex novoto” tradition, where symbols of body parts can be used as offerings that evoke gratitude or desire for healing. The syncretic nature of d’entremont’s work—merging spiritual traditions to yield new meaning—creates room for the frictions and contradictions implicit in the gesture of a queer artist reclaiming the Catholic rituals of their upbringing. Their Body Became (An Antenna, Transmitting the Message of God) marks an expansion of d’entremont’s spiritual cosmology, as the artist moves beyond the matrilineal legacy of their biological family into an exploration of queer mysticism.

Los Angeles State Historic Park is located on a site with a syncretic history of its own. It was once an indigenous pueblo and trading site for the Tataviam, Chumash, and Tongva people, a Spanish settlement, and over the last two centuries the surrounding neighborhood has been a cultural center for Chinese, Mexican and Italian communities. On the street behind d’entremont’s installation sits St. Peter’s Italian Church, one of few remaining relics of Los Angeles’s Little Italy, where a now-aging Italian spiritual community hold processions and feasts honoring certain saints.

Credits & Sponsors
Video: THEIR BODY BECAME (an antenna, transmitting the message of god)
WE RISE is the annual Mental Health Awareness Month initiative of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health’s ongoing WHY WE RISE campaign, funded by sponsorships and Prop 63.

Together we are making an ICA for LA
Join now Donate
Find us on Facebook and Instagram
⍟ Privacy Policy ⍟
Last updated at Tuesday, 01 Mar 2022 10:07 AM, by Asuka Hisa Log in
Database Programs
First Prev 1 2
Back to top
?
STATUS ID image Title en Title es Last updated
Active Published
31
P8075051sep 02 2014
The Mega-Collector’s VIP Gallery: Prometheus Project Snow Globe 2:16pm Dec 03, 2021 Page
Active Published
32
Picketsign3
Mandy Harris Williams:
Raising My Voice
2:15pm Dec 03, 2021 Page
Active Published
30
Photo of artist Robin Frohardt in The Plastic Bag Store. Credit: Tony Lewis. 2021.
Special Projects 5:03pm Jul 20, 2022 Page
Active Published
25
Er store
Election Reform! Store 2:18pm Dec 03, 2021 Page
Active Published
27
Screen shot 2020 03 27 at 11.30.44 am
ICA LA: Raw Space to Art Museum 2:09pm Jul 27, 2022 Page
Active Published
24
Otherica2
Other Books 2:50pm Jun 24, 2022 Page
Active Published
21
dosa shop at ICA LA
Christina Kim + dosa mercantile 2:20pm Dec 03, 2021 Page
Active Published
23
Img 3287 small
Featured Media 4:53pm Jan 26, 2021 Page
Active Published
22
Russell etchen marfa books eye logo
Marfa Book Co. 2:49pm Jun 24, 2022 Page
Active Published
20
Visitors at ICA LA with headphones.
Digital Projects 12:11pm Jul 06, 2022 Page
Active Published
2
IMG_4707.JPG
Workshops 2:40pm May 08, 2019 Page
Active Published
19
Fullsizeoutput 9
Art for All Ages 4:29pm Nov 17, 2021 Page
Active Published
1
Img 2209
Mondays for Schools & Community Groups 1:30pm Jul 27, 2022 Page
Active Published
18
Image of panel of speakers at microphones from The Act of Memorializing: Candice Breitz, Every Ocean Hughes, and Okwui Okpokwasili, 2021
Public Programs 11:32am Jul 14, 2022 Page
Active Published
7
Clementamp
ArtMetroPolis 2:14pm Jul 27, 2022 Page
Active Published
5
oA fellow Jade with Everybody.World co-founders, Iris Alonzo and Carolina Crespo
Agency of Assets Agency of Assets 11:50am Jan 31, 2023 Page
Search results
Loading...