Moveable Feast: Gronk in Conversation with Paul Holdengräber

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Moveable Feast continues to explore Los Angeles arts and culture with a special presentation featuring renowned visual and performance artist Gronk in conversation with Paul Holdengräber.

Gronk is the heir to Paul Klee: "A line," wrote Klee, "is a dot that went for a walk." Gronk has remained faithful to his first love, drawing: a fierce commitment to the dynamic nature of the line, to color, to repeated patterns and shapes like musical notations and graffiti. The importance of the gestural, of the hand, the love of Japanese calligraphy, of fluidity, is visible in Gronk's extraordinary and varied body of work.

In a far-ranging conversation, Holdengräber and Gronk will dive into the artist's younger years, when he was part of the famed avant-garde multimedia arts collective known as Asco (Spanish meaning nausea, disgust); together they will examine his numerous collaborations with stage designers, directors and musicians. The conversation will reveal how deeply Gronk has made his own the words of the Polish avant-garde playwright, painter, philosopher, and novelist Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz from his 1920 absurdist play, They: "I don't even want to be an artist, which longed to be throughout all of my miserable life. I want to be myself. That's all."

In partnership with USC and supported by Selma Holo and Mei-Lee Ney, Moveable Feast brings together arts partners and creative voices to shape collective experiences. Each conversation is a journey, where ideas travel and evolve to deepen our understanding of the world and ourselves.

After the conversation, join us for light refreshments.

Gronk is a nationally renowned performance artist and painter from Los Angeles. During the 1970's he was one of the founding members of Asco, an avant-garde multimedia arts collective in Los Angeles. Gronk later turned his attention to drawing, painting, and performance art in with musicians and performers as well as stage design for institutions such as the Los Angeles Opera. He is best known for his physical approach to painting.

Paul Holdengräber, a curator of public curiosity, is an acclaimed interviewer and cultural interlocutor. He was the founding executive director of Onassis Los Angeles (OLA) and founder and director of The New York Public Library's LIVE from the NYPL cultural series, in which he interviewed and hosted more than 600 events featuring the likes of Patti Smith, Wes Anderson, Mike Tyson, Werner Herzog and many more.

Before his tenure at the library, Holdengräber was the founder and director of The Institute for Art & Cultures at LACMA. He holds a PhD in comparative literature from Princeton University. In 2003, the French Government named him Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and then promoted him in 2012 to the rank of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres.

In 2010, the president of Austria awarded him the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art.