Dear X-TRA Readers and Family,
This year has been unlike any other. Project X Foundation and X-TRA feel the weight of the uncertainty and unrest resulting from the pandemic, the fight for racial justice, and the still precarious future of our democracy. We’re finding our footing, but like many of you, our organization is going through a lot of changes right now. It’s been a period of assessment and recalibration on many levels. As we process it all, we know that the need for X-TRA and critical dialogue remains as important as ever.
At the moment, we are proud to be on solid financial ground, despite the impact of the pandemic and cancelling our fundraiser in the early Spring. This is due in no small part to the foundations and government agencies that stepped up in the face of the crisis. Over the past six months, we’ve received significant and meaningful COVID Relief grants.
Even with this emergency funding, we critically rely on and need your support. Now more than ever.
We know lots of you are struggling right now. Many causes are in dire need of support. But if you can afford to step up and make a donation to X-TRA, we need you.
Give in the name of the best writing and critical thought. Give because art and conversations about art must persist even in—especially in—challenging times. Give because Los Angeles deserves a journal of record. Give to help keep us strong as we continue to evolve and grow.
Use the link below, or send a check to “Project X Foundation for Art and Criticism” and mail to PO Box 41-437, Los Angeles, CA 90041.
If you want to know more about what we’ve been up to this year, please keep reading below.
Let’s look forward to 2021 together.
Looking Back at 2020
We want to share some of the significant events that affected Project X over the tumultuous year. X-TRA doesn’t shy away from printing long-form essays, and we hope the length of this letter doesn’t scare you away!
Updated Mission and Goals
We’re pleased to share our new mission and vision statement. It aims to reflect the specificity of our work, intentions, structure, and goals:
X-TRA’s mission is to sustain a vibrant critical discourse about contemporary art and foster inclusive networks and expansive thinking. X-TRA’s journal, website, and public events create forums for the diverse voices of artists and writers.
X-TRA cultivates a deep understanding of contemporary art, explores a wide range of ideas and artists’ work, and strives to do so with generosity and integrity.
We acknowledge that our organization’s Board of Directors, editors, and staff do not meet our own standards of diversity. For the past 18 months, we’ve worked to assess our internal structures and processes at the Board, staff, and Editorial Board levels. We are changing our systems and policies to make them more diverse, more equitable, and to ensure that labor is fairly compensated. These are key steps in addressing the systemic racism embedded within our own organization and which permeates so many histories, including the history of art and its related economies. As cultural producers, we are committed to increasing diversity, equity, inclusion, and access to and within contemporary art discourse.The shift in the journal’s publication schedule from quarterly to twice-yearly allows more time for this work and a more sustainable model for welcoming new editors, staff, and Board members.
Programming
It was a big year for X-TRA programs—despite all.
Last week, we launched the 90th issue of X-TRA and the first of our 23rd volume!
X-TRA is Los Angeles’s longest running art journal, and we’ve published writing and artist’s projects by more than 575 contributors, with a track record of presenting work by underrepresented and marginalized artists. Since 2015, 100% of X-TRA’s covers have featured artists who identify as BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and/or women.
X-TRA’s website audience is growing at breakneck speed: in the past year alone, the number of people visiting our website more than doubled to 85,000+!
Volume 22
In 2019-2020, we published the 22nd volume of X-TRA Contemporary Art Journal. Of the 28 contributors to the volume, 26 (93%) are BIPOC, women, and/or LGBTQIA+. Highlights of the volume include: commissioned Artist’s Projects by Margaret Haines, Beatriz Cortez, Paul Maheke, and Kang Seung Lee; interviews with Pippa Garner, Allyson Vieira, and Alexandra Juhasz and Theodore (ted) Kerr; essays and reviews covering the work of James Luna, David Hammons, Patty Chang, Kim Dingle, Nari Ward, and Susan Mogul. The front covers featured the work of Nari Ward, James Luna, Julie Becker, and Patty Chang.
X-TRA Online
In addition to the Journal, X-TRA Online is where we publish experimental, intimate, and immediate writing and projects from artists and writers created with the screen in mind. Next week we’ll publish a new piece by Dena Yago. Some highlights of the past year include artist Kelly Akashi in conversation with David Muenzer; Harley Wong writing about Tuan Andrew Nyugen; artist Melanie Nakaue on Artificial Intelligence for Re:Research; Pau Pescador’s 4-part video series looking at the history of public buildings in downtown Los Angeles, Susan Morgan reading her essay on a photo by Edward Weston, and documentation of our public programs, like the Reader’s Chorus and remembrance of Haruko Tanaka at JOAN.
Artists & Rights
And, in July, we launched X-TRA’s ARTISTS AND RIGHTS, our first podcast conversation series, which has, to date, attracted 2,300+ listeners and garnered incredible feedback. In each episode, four LA-based artists come together to talk about the intersection of Los Angeles’s most urgent issues and their artistic practices. Participants included artists Nao Bustamante, Cog•nate Collective, Zackary Drucker, Todd Gray, Arshia Haq, Vishal Jugdeo, Gelare Khoshgozaran, Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, Latipa, Ahree Lee, Sandra de la Loza, Elana Mann, Jennifer Moon, Jaklin Romine, Patrick Staff, and Mario Ybarra Jr., with art historian and X-TRA editor Mario Ontiveros as moderator. The eight episodes are on X-TRA Online and hosted on podcast apps, such as Apple and Spotify.
Public Programs
Our public programs were most affected by the COVID pandemic. We had to cancel 7 public events planned for spring and summer. Thankfully, with our X-TRA Online platform in place, we were able to pivot to the web space. We presented our X-TRA launch events in the form of recorded video conversations between writers and their editors. This launch format is proving to be a great way to engage the content on our site, bring our audience deeper into the subjects covered in X-TRA Journal, and to highlight the writing and editorial process. What’s more: the events are archived and accessible online from anywhere at any time.
Project X Foundation and Fundraising
In August, we lost one of the pillars of the X-TRA community, artist Elizabeth Bryant. Elizabeth was part of Project X and X-TRA from the very start: a sounding board, contributor, cheerleader, and avid reader. Elizabeth was the wife of Stephen Berens who co-founded Project X and X-TRA with Ellen Birrell in the 1990s. Stephen quietly stepped down from his roles as Project X Foundation President and Publisher in September. We want to acknowledge his service and vision. The X-TRA community is indebted to Stephen’s steadfast insistence that X-TRA remain independent, that it publish the highest quality writing, and that it stay connected to the diverse and vibrant artist community in Los Angeles.
We want to thank Robert Gunderman for his six years on the Project X Foundation Board. Thank you, Bob! Board members Kim Allen-Niesen and Mara Gladstone have stepped in to the Secretary and CFO roles. Karen Moss, Susan Silton, and Matty Wilder continue to serve on the Board.
We’re proud to have received support this year from the LA County COVID Arts Relief fund overseen by the Los Angeles County Department of Art and Culture, the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, J. Paul Getty Foundation and California Community Foundation, and VIA Art Fund. Project X was also awarded program support grants for the 2020-21 year from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Pasadena Art Alliance, City of Los Angeles Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.
Just before that first lockdown, we launched our X-CHANGE Edition, a stunning pair of prints by Hanna Hur and Monica Majoli. The sale was cut short, but the prints will join the collections of the Hammer and LACMA.We still have a few portfolios available! Priced at $1750 a pair, the editions are a way to give significant support X-TRA and get a great deal at the same time! Learn more here>.
Our gift to you: All donations and purchases over $20
receive a free X-CHANGE tote!
Are you interested in becoming more involved?
We’re actively seeking new members to expand and diversify our Editorial Board, Board of Directors, and Advisory Council. If you’d like to learn more, please email us at projectx [at] x-traonline.org.
Image Credits
top: NIC Kay rehearsing lil BLK (2015–ongoing). Performed at Hamilton Park, Chicago, March 16–18, 2017. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Nana Adusei-Poku.
Collage, clockwise from upper left:
Susan Mogul, Mom’s Move (video still), 2018. Film, 25 min. © Susan Mogul. Courtesy of the artist and Video Data Bank.X-TRA Volume 23, number 1, Fall/Winter 2020.
Kelly Akashi, Downtime Machine, 2017. Handmade candles, glass, copper, bronze wire, dimensions variable, 18 x 54 x 54 in. (45.7 x 137.2 x 137.2 cm.) Courtesy of the artist and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles.
Paul Maheke, video still from the Summer Launch event.
X-TRA Artists & Rights, participants in Episodes 3 and 4, from left to right: Mario Ybarra Jr., Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, Arshis Haq, Latipa. Photographed outside Catasonic Studios in Echo Park.
Kang Seung Lee, graphite drawing of a cactus plant, called Harvey, propagated from a larger cactus that originally belonged to Harvey Milk. Drawing based on an artwork by Julie Tolentino. From Porous Bodies, Artist’s Project for X-TRA 22.4 Sumer 2020. Courtesy the artist.
X-TRA Volume 22, numbers 1-4.
X-TRA Artists & Rights, participants in Episodes 5 and 6, from left to right: Misael Diaz, Partick Staff, Mario Ontiveros, Vishal Jugdeo, Elana Mann, and Amy Sanchez Arteaga. Photographed outside Catasonic Studios in Echo Park.