For this exhibition, we invited seven artists to visually discuss their relation with the flâneur - a 19th century character portrayed by the French as a well dressed man, strolling through the Parisian arcades to pass the time, free to explore his surroundings to gather inspirational substance.

According to Walter Benjamin, the flâneur rose to prominence primarily because of an architectural change in the city. While Baron Haussmann was redesigning boulevards and tearing up many of the old twisting streets, the flâneur became the anonymous face in this revived crowd.

Re-defining flânerie in a current context within the Los Angeles boundaries appears quite foolish, yet it is compelling.

While the urban sprawl that is the city of LA remains fairly discouraging to the strolling of the Beaudelarian character, it still allows for a new genre of wandering poetry to be generated. Artists such as Ed Ruscha, Charles Bukowski and Andrea Zittel, whose work is heavily influenced by the atmosphere of their surroundings and daily routines, come to mind. The anonymity, compartmentation and luxurious façade of the vast LA suburban area greatly influenced new artistic vocabularies.

With this new exhibition we will gather alternative meanings associated with the historical flâneur in this current context of changes.