Art Talks at Brand invites contemporary artists to discuss their work and the issues surrounding it, followed by a moderated Q&A with Brand staff member, artist, and writer Jennifer Remenchik. Artists are selected to reflect the diversity of the art scene of the greater Los Angeles area.
The series is sponsored by the Brand Associates and is free and open to the public.​​​
March 5, 7:00 PM | Lani Trock
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Lani Trock (b. 1984) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice centers in harmonious world-building. To awaken the collective imagination and actualize a new operating system for society, she works with organic sculptural materials to cultivate gentle environments, and invites visitors to contemplate from their unique voice and vision, how they would imagine the world at peace. Engaging with art as a spiritual practice, honoring the studio and gallery as spaces of devotion, she builds ephemeral altars and invites collaborators to activate them in joyful co-creation. In communion with her site-specific, immersive installations, she facilitates group expressions of improvisational sound and movement techniques. Trock was born and raised in Hawai’i, and has a BA in Philosophy from UC Santa Cruz. She is a longtime resident of Los Angeles and an active participant in its interwoven art & music communities. This year, she’ll be showing work as part of Material Prophecies; Craft as Divination, at The Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, (February 20-August 1) – and then as part of UNFOLD PROJECTS, exhibition 01, at The Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego, (May 30-August 2).
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Images: Artist portrait inside her installation harmonic convergence, shown as part of group exhibition Storm Before the Calm, in 2022 at Praz-Delavallade. Photo credit: Clifford Usher; Installation view of so we blossom gently into the infinite garden, 2021. Photo credit: Roadwork Studio. Images courtesy of the artist.
March 19, 7:00 PM | Chanel Von Habsburg-Lothringen​
Chanel Von Habsburg-Lothringen (b. 1989, Detroit, MI) is a photographic artist whose work engages the American duality of aspiration and desperation, systems of power, the cinematic, and the abject. In her practice she has developed a research-based and systematic approach to production by creating her own image database. By layering references both personal and collective, she creates spaces where beauty becomes a form of confrontation and ornament becomes a language of dissent. Rather than offering resolution, the artist welcomes sustained looking and quiet discomfort, asking viewers to consider what remains when power is stripped of its certainty, and what new forms can emerge in its place. Von Habsburg-Lothringen holds an MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BA in Social Science and History of Art from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her work has been exhibited at: The Box, BozoMag, Cranbrook Museum of Art, Lauren Powell Projects, NADA New York, Material Fair, Detroit Independent Film Festival, and Royal Albert Hall. She co-founded EMBASSY and has curated projects at museums and festivals.
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Image: Artist portrait; Chanel Von Habsburg-Lothringen, Untitled, 2026. Archival Pigment Print , 30 x 20 inches, Edition of 2 +1AP. Images courtesy of the artist. © Chanel Von Habsburg-Lothringen
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April 2, 7:00 PM | Catherine Mennard
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Catherine Menard is a Los Angeles–based interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans single and multi-channel video, performance, site-responsive installation, expanded painting, and sculpture. Rather than treating these mediums as discrete outputs, she choreographs them as interdependent components—image, sound, object, and body—within immersive environments calibrated to the architecture, circulation paths, and acoustics of a given site, approaching the conditions of a Gesamtkunstwerk or “total work.” Menard received both her Bachelor of Science in Spatial Experience Design and Master of Fine Art from ArtCenter College of Design. She has been internationally recognized for her permanent public artwork—The Pasadena Armenian Genocide Memorial—completed in 2015 and located in Memorial Park, Pasadena, CA. Her most recent solo exhibition was presented at Unveil Gallery in 2024, Irvine, CA. Menard’s work has been exhibited in group exhibitions across Los Angeles including Rusha & Co, Reisig and Taylor Contemporary, and The Box.​
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Images: Artist portrait by Sedrick Spillers, 2026; Monochromes, 2023. Multimedia installation, 4:21; 19th century frames, used green screen fabric, choreographed light, original sound by Catherine Menard and William Lettieri; installation shot. Images courtesy of the artist.
April 16, 7:00 PM | Danny Angel Escalante
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Danny Angel Escalante is a Los Angeles-based artist. In his art practice, Escalante explores the quotidian, ranging from the phenomenological every-day to the historical class associations and experiences of the brown body. Inspired by historical works, his Catholic upbringing, indigenous heritage, and contemporary politics, Escalante creates drawings and sculptures that distill the body into gestures, marks, and traces. He received his MFA in Art from the California Institute of the Arts and MA in Studio Art from the CSU, Northridge. Escalante is an Adjunct Professor at Los Angeles City College and Citrus College. His work has been exhibited at several institutions and galleries, including VAMA Gallery at Los Angeles City College, The Window, QiPO, Torrance Art Museum, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Grice Bench, Main Gallery at California Institute of the Arts, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Cirrus Gallery, and the Main Gallery at CSU, Northridge. Escalante is a former Board Member of Monte Vista Projects, 2015-2020, an artist run collective and gallery space. He is the founder Ford Ranger Gallery, a mobile gallery that brought art to unconventional spaces.
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Images: Artist portrait; Danny Escalante, Discharger (A.W.G.-V.2), 2025. O2, Steel, Brass, Copper, Aluminum, Plastic, etc. Images courtesy of the artist.
Dimensions Variable.
Brand staff member and program moderator Jennifer Remenchik is an artist and writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has been exhibited in several institutions and galleries, including No Gallery, VIVO Media Arts Centre, HILDE, basement projects, Industry Lab, and The Contemporary Austin, among others. She is a regular contributor to Hyperallergic and has written for CurateLA, BOMB Magazine, and Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles. Remenchik began art talks at Brand Library & Art Center to showcase artists who reflect the diversity of the art scene of the greater Los Angeles area.