MOAH : CEDAR | Dani Dodge – PRIME

12/29/2022

[NoHo Arts District, CA] – This month’s LA Art blog features Dani Dodge’s PRIME at MOAH : CEDAR through January 22, 2023.

A nearly 100-year-old historic center, MOAH: CEDAR is a historical building on the southwest corner of Cedar Avenue and Lancaster Boulevard. In concert with the Museum of Art and History (MOAH), MOAH : CEDAR is a proactive haven for the community. MOAH : CEDAR hosts not only art exhibitions, but educational programs and events, performances and concert series, and serves as an experimental studio for practices.

MOAH : CEDAR currently is hosting Dani Dodge’s PRIME. From November 12, 2022 – January 22, 2023, PRIME is an art exhibition with the thematic exploration of place. Notably, that notion of place exploration focuses on the high desert.

Dodge was an artist-in-residence during 2019, and centered around the Prime Desert Woodland Preserve in Lancaster, CA. Mindful of her presence and impact on the environment, Dodge set up motion-detecting cameras to monitor areas without human footprints. A looping cello soundtrack punctuates noises of nature throughout a 10-minute video. With features from wind, flora, and even fauna, Dodge gives us a glimpse into untouched wilderness.

When we think of the word PRIME, we conceive of two daily usages: an ideal location, and of first importance. There is a fascinating interplay in Dodge’s work which focuses not only on natural spaces in which humans intrude and impact – but the lasting effects of this intrusion. One of the artworks features a metal mattress as an artifact which represents a Mojave Desert dig mattress she saw in the Preserve. Its twisted mattress frame and exposed metal mark how humans both modify (and are absorbed) into the landscape.

In a room adjacent to PRIME, an interactive exhibition welcomes people to indicate where they feel at peace. Gallery goers write down where they feel at peace (and some have written down what gives them peace). This portion of the exhibition is particularly fascinating since many of the answers were religious in nature. Typically religion and the arts have been pitted against one another, but here they organically come together. Perhaps this is likewise a triumph of MOAH : CEDAR, and their search to serve a diverse community.