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January 17 – 30, 2020
Search for Homeless Shelter Bomb Threat Motive Continues Bomb threat at underconstruction bridge housing facility under investigation. By S am C atanzaro Police continue to investigate several explosive-like devices that were found at the site of a 154-bed homeless shelter set to open soon in Venice. “While the motive is unclear the Department continues to work to identify if the Bridge Home Site or the homeless community was a target,” the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said in a news release. According to the LAPD Media Relations Division, the devices that were found in the
area of Main Street and Sunset Avenue in Venice Thursday, January 2 were facsimile devices resembling explosives. The first devices were discovered around 5:30 p.m. on and as the investigation developed more devices were found in the vicinity as well. The devices were found on and near the construction site of the new Bridge Housing facility and an adjoining street While the LAPD would not provide more information about the incident, in statement Bonin said that there were three separate devices. “While they were apparently designed to look like explosive devices, LAPD’s bomb squad determined that none of them contained the necessary fuel to cause an explosion. LAPD removed the devices, conducted a safety sweep of the area, reopened streets, and allowed people back into their homes,” Bonin said.
Photo: Citizen App.
Footage from the Citizen App showing police activity in Venice Thursday evening during a false bomb threat.
The items were first reported to the LAPD around 6 p.m. Thursday and forced evacuations at Pacific Avenue and Main Street from Rose Avenue to Brooks Avenue. The LAPD Bomb Squad was on the scene as authorities investigated the package. By 10:30 p.m. police had let residents return to their homes. The lot the devices were found at was a
3.15-acre lot that takes up an entire block between Pacific Avenue and Main Street south of Sunset Avenue that will soon be a 154-bed bridge housing center set to open in the coming months. The project has been the subject of legal action and pushback from opponents who think the shelter will disrupt the neighborhood. Bonin, in his statement, suggested that the facsimile devices could have been an intended attack on this shelter. “This is an appalling incident perpetrated by a disturbed and cowardly person or persons. If it was meant to slow or halt progress on providing bridge housing, it failed. It is unacceptable and inhumane for people to be living and dying in sidewalk encampments in our neighborhoods. It is imperative that we get people off the streets. We will not be intimated, and we will not back down from providing solutions to our homelessness crisis,” Bonin said.
John Baldessari, Conceptual Art Icon, Passes Away One of America’s most influential conceptual artist, loved for his sense of humor, dies at 88 By Sam Catanzaro Longtime Venetian John Baldessari, one of the most influential conceptual artists in the United States, has died at the age of 88, an icon who through his humor-filled work helped shape Los Angeles into the artistic hub it is today. “John Baldessari was an iconic Venice artist and one of the most influential artists of our time. He inspired many in his many years as a teacher and contemporary artist. He influenced me to collaborate with painters and other artists taking my work to another level. I will always remember how artist/performance artist Ann Magnusen and my PR partner Henry Eshelman revered him. He will be missed,” said Sunny Bak, President of the Venice Art Crawl. Beethoven’s Trumpet (With Ear) By John Baldessari, Saatchi Gallery – London. Photo: Jim Linwood (Flikr). Baldessari was born in 1931 in National City, California to an Austrian father and Danish moth-
John Baldessari in 2009.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
er. His father was a salvage dealer and his family grew their own vegetables, composted and raise their own animals, an upbringing Baldersarri cited as a reason he had difficulty throwing things away, as evident in the wide-range of objects featured in his work. “It’s hard for me to throw anything away without thinking about how it can become part of some work I’m doing,” Baldessari said in a 2008 interview with the New York Times. “I just stare at something and say: Why isn’t that art? Why couldn’t that be art?” Baldessari received both a B.A. and M.A.
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Contact Judy Swartz judy@smmirror.com (310) 204-4255
John Baldessari, Four splashed men (with robot and flamingos), 1991.
from San Diego State College. Over a seven-decade career, Baldessari helped make Los Angeles the artistic-hub it remains today with his conceptual work that often included a sense of deadpan and absurdist humor.
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Photo: Florent Darrault (Flikr).
John Baldessari, Four splashed men (with robot and flamingos), 1991. Photo: Florent Darrault (Flikr).
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