Archive for 2011
Beneath the ferocity of Hans Burkhardt’s exacting brushwork and application of oil paint there is an undeniable remnant of hope that appears consistently throughout the works in “Within and Beyond the Mainstream.” Burkhardt’s bold moves on the canvas are akin to the call of the Sirens, luring the viewer into the field of vision so [...]
In Chris Barnard’s Crowd Pleaser, New Mexico, a splintering shard of remaining daylight eclipses an empty box of metal bleachers facing a desolate desert landscape. Darkened clouds are set to converge, promising imminent darkness and threatening rain, but the spectacle has already taken place and the crowd has dispersed. The ambiguous New Mexican environ depicted [...]
California Assemblage artist George Herms has been spinning remnants of the quotidian into a narrative characterized by gesture, rhythm, and chance since the late 1950s. “Xenophilia (Love of the Unknown)” features intricate collages and sculptures pieced together from found materials, while exhibiting alongside a younger generation of artists from Los Angeles and New York, who [...]
The photographic practices of Mark Laita and Rodney Smith demonstrate an acute attention to form, composition, and revel in the act of looking. Whether it’s marveling at the juxtaposition of geometric contortions and scale patterns of exotic serpents or capturing an alluring woman who never acknowledges the camera, the photographs uncover animal and human subjects [...]
“You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it.” — John Updike At the West Coast Mud Slingers exhibition at the Brand Library Art Galleries, a selection of California-based artists with varied [...]
“For a Long Time…” is a collection of works – from Marina Abramovic, Vito Acconci, Hamish Fulton, Whitney Hubbs, Erica Love, Raymond Pettibon and Kehinde Wiley – which focuses on duration and the physicality endured in performance, and non-performance art works. A video work by Wiley assembles men in one quadrant of a television monitor, [...]
Works from Northern California artists Daniel Phill and Terry Thompson at first seem a disparate pairing. Thompson renders neon signage while Phill studies flora employing a gestural technique that nearly obscures the subject altogether. The former paintings are calculated and controlled, the latter are as organic as the plant life depicted. But both paint their [...]
Through the lens of New York filmmaker and photographer Josh Azzarella, images shared in the collective memory of popular culture are subject to revision. Engaging in a meticulous process of rendering culled archival footage frame by frame, and then juxtaposing his own images as if they were a delicate mirage, Azzarella considers a fragile past [...]
