L.A. artists win $50,000 awards
Los Angeles' reputation as a visual arts capital was underscored by today's announcement of the annual USA Fellowships: Three of the 10 awards in the visual arts category went to Angelenos (four went to New Yorkers). Fifty arts fellows -- including an L.A. poet and a musician in San Diego County -- were named nationwide; they work in eight different genres -- dance, music, theater, architecture and design, literature, media and crafts and traditional arts. Each fellow will receive a a $50,000 prize from the United States Artists advocacy group in ceremonies today in Chicago. The L.A. visual artists being honored are Michael Asher, Andrea Bowers and Rodney McMillian (whose "Odes" installation is pictured above).
Other Southern California winners are L.A.-based Harryette Mullen (left), a poet and UCLA English professor, and Carlsbad instrumentalist Wu Man, a master of the pipa, a Chinese lute.
Four other Californians won, all hailing from the Bay Area: filmmakers Lourdes Portillo and Jay Rosenblatt, choreographer Joe Goode and nonfiction writer Jeff Chang. Also on the list is theater director Bill Rauch, co-founder and former longtime artistic director of L.A.'s Cornerstone Theater Company, who now is artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.
The winners, chosen by panels of experts in each discipline, come from 21 states, range in age from 31 to 82, and together will collect $2.5 million.
-- Mike Boehm
Credits: (Above) "Odes" installation by Rodney McMillian, Gene Ogami, courtesy of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. (Left) Harryette Mullen, Ken Hively /Los Angeles Times
