Realm of the Senses: The Lavalise Box, Cover image ©Aline Smithson

Sometimes the best ideas come during a lively dinner conversation with a few too many bottles of wine. In the case of  Realm of the Senses – La Valise, this innovative “exhibition” was concepted during a covid dinner and the result is a series of custom made boxes with works from eleven artists, writers, and musicians, combining ideas around the senses–smell, sight, sound, and touch. The project took several years to execute, with many thanks to Elizabeth Baldwin, Poul Lange, Karen Rosner and Mei Xian Qiu who conceptualized, curated and designed the project.

There will be a showing tomorrow night, Thursday October 24, 2024, 6 to 10 pm, at Track 16 Gallery, Suite 100, Bendix Building, 1206 Maple Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90015.

In its inaugural exhibition, Realm of the Senses – LaValise presents a collection of original artworks, each exploring a distinct sensory experience. Together and individually, they capture life questions about what we let into our own private worlds and why. What is the influence, the joy, the burden of our senses? The eleven participating artists showcase a wide range of mediums and techniques including photography, painting, poetry, music, fragrance, collage, assemblage, and wearable art, all packaged into an edition of twenty numbered wooden presentation boxes.

In an edition of twenty, each box contains the work of the artists, seven works of 2D art stored in the lid, and seven works of 3D art in the box proper. Most artists chose to provide unique pieces for the boxes, so all the boxes are different.

Participating artists: Fatemeh Burnes, Arturo Cardelus, Joyce Dallal, Poul Lange, Dominique Moody, Karen Rosner, Michael Lewis Miller, Yxta Maya Murray, Aline Smithson, Mei Xian Qiu, and Anneliese Varaldiev.

Sample of select items from La Valise

Realm of the Senses – La Valise, Open Box Display

Realm of the Senses – La Valise, Box Objects

Realm of the Sense – La Valise, Flat Art Selection

Realm of the Senses – La Valise, Catalog Page

Realm of the Senses – La Valise, Projection Series ©Fatemeh Burnes

FATEMAH BURNES is an artist, educator, curator, and activist based in Los Angeles. She obtained formal and informal artistic training, received a BFA and MFA, and did additional graduate studies in art history and exhibition design. Since 1992 she has exhibited her own work nationally and internationally, curated over 100 exhibitions, and authored numerous publications.

Fatemeh’s painting and photography focus on nature and human nature by looking at modern events and tragedies, both ecological and social, and how those events manifest in contemporary life. Some of her most current work highlights environmental and identity issues, specifically in the context of her experiences as an immigrant and as a woman.

Realm of the Senses – La Valise, Field/Form ©Anneliese Varaldiev

ANNELIESE VARALDIEV is a photographer and videographer whose work is in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Cinémathèque Française, and the Musée d’Art Moderne (Paris), as well as a number of private collections and institutions. Her camera work for broadcast media includes a long association with French television—for documentaries (or, more precisely, “film essays”) on such figures as Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Orson Welles, Roy Lichtenstein, and William Forsythe. Varaldiev’s images have been shown in a number of museums and galleries in the US and Europe, including the Museum Folkwang (Essen, Germany), Galerie Michèle Chomette (Paris), and the Stephen Cohen Gallery (Los Angeles). Notable exhibits include  Glasstress, a collateral event of the 55th Venice Biennale, and Kameramusik, a solo installation of photographic portraits of composers at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, which was part of the inaugural New York Phil Biennial in 2014.

Realm of the Senses – La Valise, Taste ©Yxta Maya Murray

YXTA MAYA MURRAY  is a novelist, art critic, playwright, social practice artist, and law professor. The author of nine books, her most recent are the story collection, The World Doesn’t Work That Way, but It Could (University of Nevada Press, 2020), and the novel, Art Is Everything (TriQuarterly Press, 2021). Her next work of nonfiction, Artivism and the Law, is in progress and will be published by Cornell University Press. She has won a Whiting Award, an Art Writer’s Grant, a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Foundation/Money For Women, and was a 2021 New York City Arts Corps Grants co-grantee. She’s also been named a fellow at the Huntington Library for her work on radionuclide contamination in Simi Valley, California.

Realm of the Senses – La Valise, Jac Pod Galleries  ©Poul Lange

POUL LANGE is a photographer and visual artist, originally from Denmark now living and working in Downtown Los Angeles. 

Realm of the Senses – La Valise, Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom, ©Mei Xian Qiu

MEI XIAN QIU is a Los Angeles based artist. She was born in the town of Pekalongan, on the island of Java, Indonesia, to a third generation Chinese minority family. At birth, she was given various names in preparation for societal collapse and variant potential futures, a Chinese name, an American name and an Indonesian name given by her parents, as well as a Catholic name by the local priest. In the aftermath of the Chinese and Communist genocide, the family immigrated to the United States. She was moved back and forth several times between the two countries during her childhood – her parents initial reaction to what they perceived as the amorality of life in the West countered with the uncertainty of life in Java. Partially as a result of a growing sense of restlessness, her father joined the U.S. Air force and the family lived  across the country, sometimes staying in one place for just a month at a time. She has also been based in Europe, China, and Indonesia as an adult.

Realm of the Senses – La Valise,

Realm of the Senses – Painting ©Joyce Dallal

JOYCE DALLAL is an artist who works in a variety of media. The themes that surface in her artwork are those of collective and personal history, community, memory, and the evolution of contemporary cultural identity. A first-generation American born in the Midwest to Iraqi-Jewish parents, her work is informed by the experience of navigating and integrating these often-conflicting identities.

She is the recipient of several grants and fellowships, among them an NEA Regional Arts Fellowship in Photography, a Brody Arts Fellowship, and a City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and her work has been commissioned by the city of Pasadena, the Los Angeles Public Libraries, Community Redevelopment Agency, Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Los Angeles International Airport. She received her MFA from the University of Southern California and founded the Digital Arts Program at El Camino College in Southern California.

Realm of the Senses – La Valise, Espejos, Tape and Player by ©Arturo Cardelús

​ARTURO CARDELÚS is a Spanish-American composer based in Los Angeles, CA. His score Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles, was called “Score of the Year” by “The Wrap”, won Best Score at Annecy Film Festival, and was nominated for the Goya Award (Spanish Academy Awards) and the IFMCA Award. Cardelús has also scored the internet sensation In a Heartbeat, the Netflix Original miniseries Call Me Francis, the Billy Zane drama Centurion XII, and Netflix’s Black Beach, directed by Oscar nominee Esteban Crespo.

Cardelús’ recent projects include Disney’s Descendants, Dragonkeeper, and Frida Kahlo Immersive Exhibition.

Cardelus’ music is known for his evocative scores and memorable melodies. His scores blend his classical background with his Hispanic heritage, often featuring melodies played by Spanish guitars, incorporating tango and other Hispanic genres. One of his most known pieces, Con Aire de Tango, was commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic Soloists and released in a NAXOS album along with other chamber music pieces by Cardelus. Cardelús’s contributions to the world of concert music were recognized when he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 2016.

​Cardelús hails from Madrid, Spain. He studied piano performance at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, Conservatorio Superior de Música in Salamanca, and Conservatorio Profesional in Guadalajara. Cardelús then shifted his focus, studying composition and film scoring at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where he graduated summa cum laude and received the composition department’s highest award.

Realm of the Senses – La Valise, The Unseen China Details ©Karen Rosner