By Llano Del Rio Collective
Los Angeles, CA. Llano Del Rio Collective. 2021
Pages: 12
Dimensions: 8.5 in X 11.25 in folded
Cover: Paper
Binding: folded newspaper
Process: web press
Color: full color
Edition size: unknown
ISBN: none

The latest guide from our fabulous friends in the Llano Del Rio Collective is a newsprint newspaper produced in collaboration with the extra vital organization Los Angeles Poverty Department. These are circulated for free around Los Angeles but we have copies for purchase for out of towners like ourselves. Note that because of the plastic banding used by newspaper printers, your copy may not be perfectly flat, but it will be fresh and new nonetheless. From the artist publisher:

Compassion and Self Deception is a twelve-page broadsheet exploring the socio-emotional impact of Los Angeles’ housing catastrophe. The guide set out to address the question, “how can the city feel about Skid Row, and so many residents living on the streets?”. Compassion & Self Deception contains sections like A Celestial Guide To The Moral Universe Of Skid Row, and Beyond Good And Evil as well as relevant illustrations, interviews and diagrams. The publication hopes to frame the affective dimension of LA’s housing inequality.

This publication, created by the visual artist Robby Herbst, is an element of “Compassion and Self-Deception,” a multidisciplinary art project of the Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD), that includes this publication, the performance “The New Compassionate Downtown” by LAPD, and a series of public conversations. The publication and the performance were generated through a parallel research process and ongoing dialogue between Herbst and LAPD Performance directors Henriëtte Brouwers and John Malpede. The publication is funded by the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. 

Compassion and Self Deception is the seventh Llano Del Rio Guide. The Llano Del Rio Collective aims to expand cultural, social, and political imagination of Los Angeles through the production of these thematic guides. Past guides include: An Antagonist’s Guide To the Assholes Of LA, Utopias of So.Cal, and Rebel City Los Angeles. The project is organized by Robby Herbst. Though not strictly a collective Llano Del Rio negotiates collectivist ideals with an advisory group currently constituted by Lisa Anne Auerbach, Lara Bank, John Burtle, Ken Ehrlich, Vlad Gallegos, Ashley Hunt, Sandra de la Loza, Kelly Marie Martin, Tom McKenzie, Hillary Mushkin, Adam Overton, Janet Sarbanes, Erin Schneider, and Kimberly Varella.