
UNREPD announced today a 9-month long residency at the recently opened The Grand LA, an art, shopping, dining, entertainment and hospitality destination located in downtown Los Angeles on Grand Ave Arts/Museum Row. The four-exhibition series will open on April 8th, with Edwin Marcelin’s debut solo exhibition, Elevation: Abstract Meditations on Iconic Black Discipline, in which paintings and a video installation highlight the artist’s commitment to the centrality of abstraction in the making of black iconography and language. Marcelin’s exhibition will be on view through May 21, 2023, followed by solo exhibitions from Corey Pemberton, Valincy-Jean Patelli, and Moncho 1929.
“We have been overwhelmed by the response to UNREPD and the achievements of the artists we’ve been honored to support in their moments of emergence. In addition to our flagship location on Western Ave, in Melrose Hill, we are thrilled to be a part of the culture and energy that has been generated by the opening of The Grand LA,” said UNREPD Founders Sarah Mantilla Griffin and Tricia Benitez Beanum. “We will continue to create more seats at the table for both artists and collectors. Our intention from the very beginning was to exhibit art by underrepresented communities and to give their work visibility. We believe our placement at the Grand LA is an extension of this mission.”
The 5,800 sq. foot space is located at 100 S. Grand Ave in close proximity to the recently announced Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure © also at The Grand LA, as well as walking distance from Walt Disney Concert Hall, MOCA, The Broad, and The Music Center. UNREPD opened in 2020 and has mounted critically acclaimed exhibitions by mixed media artist Corey Pemberton and painter Kirk Henriques, and has featured the work of a variety of other artists, among them: Robert Peterson, Sachiko Bradley, Walter Cruz, and Bryce Batts.
Following Marcelin’s Elevation: Abstract Meditations on Iconic Black Discipline, UNREPD will present: Corey Pemberton’s Content Aware, which questions the process of objects becoming artifacts, and considers black artists’ roles in memorialization and record keeping; Valincy-Jean Patelli’s I Will Tell You the Future, a body of mixed-media works that explore Yoruba cosmology and how we examine acts of manifestation through rituals and spiritual practices; and Moncho 1929’s :Botanica, which highlights how African and Indigenous religious symbolism and practice permeate through Christianity, while being masked by it and largely unspoken, in many Latinx households.
The four-exhibition series will include:
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Opened: April 8, 2023
Edwin Marcelin’s debut solo exhibition, Elevation: Abstract Meditations on Iconic Black Discipline
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Opening: June 3, 2023
Corey Pemberton’s second solo show with UNREPD, Person, Place, Thing
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Opening: September 9, 2023
Valincy-Jean Patelli’s debut solo exhibition, I Will Tell You the Future
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Opening: November 4, 2023
Moncho 1929’s: Botanica