WPA | News

Charles Irvin | Graff Mourgue D'Algue

2012-05-05T09:10:00.003-07:00

New Directions in Alchemy

10-May/17-Jun-12
Opening 10-May-12, 6 PM

CHARLES IRVIN

Los Angeles-based Irvin deals with inner landscape and scenery constructed from common icons such as pyramids, jesus, aliens or the misfits skull. His education and personal experience impregnated these images into his subconscious. Raised as a Catholic in Fundamentalist Christian North Texas, he developed an affinity for Christian imagery.

In New Directions in Alchemy most of the paintings are haunted by crescent moon figures. Sometimes they are depicted as alien divinities lounging on a pyramid, sometimes they perform scatological rituals in sterile rooms. The ensemble is blue suspended in space, a parallel universe where you'll be enlightened by an infinity fountain and where rock hard vanities emerge through vaginas. We never would have believed these new directions where possible to initiate, but we felt they were there somewhere in our very own alchemy. Irvin's work constantly clashes the subconscious and the conscious.

Charles Irvin's work was included in exhibitions at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, White Columns in New York and the Museum of Modern Art in Luxembourg and currently in The Art Of Cooking curated by Hanne Mugass.

7, Bvd. d'Yvoy

CH - 1205 Geneva

—

www.graffmourguedalgue.com

Dennis Hollingsworth | Michael Kohn Gallery

2012-03-16T09:34:00.003-07:00

Dennis Hollingsworth: Terestrial
March 23 - May 4, 2012

Michael Kohn Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new and recent paintings by Los Angeles-based artist, Dennis Hollingsworth. At the heart of Hollingsworth's practice is a rigorous fidelity to the dichotomous nature of painting. Simultaneously materialist and conceptual, abstract and figurative,
textual and painterly, Hollingsworth makes us question the étre of painting in the way Donald Judd did with the object.
Structure plays an integral role in these luxuriously rich, dense works, allowing the painting to take on a sculptural identity. Paint is dropped, both marbled and monochrome, and scraped up with scrapers and drywall knives. Tools are invented in order to achieve intended effects, such as daubers made of balled up knit fabric (which delivers flower-like forms which he then rocks into a bed of paint) or origami-like pincers that he uses to pull the spines off the monads. Spatulas and various knives are used in abundance. Brushes are cut and thinned into specific shapes and rarely does he rely on them as they
are sold in stores.
Re-working the identity of painting, Hollingsworth presents the viewer with an existential conundrum that demands an awareness and a re-shaping of our own process of seeing. First you are asked to confront the sheer physicality of the work, which repositions the painting as a sculptural object and then back again, a never-ending balancing act between two different practices. Slowly the conceptual underpinnings and gestalt effect take hold as forms emerge and disappear, demanding a unique and powerful engagement with the work.
Dennis Hollingsworth received his M.F.A. at the Claremont Graduate School in 1991. He has exhibited widely throughout Europe and the U.S. Recent solo exhibitions include Galerie Pelaires, Palma de Mallorca; Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo; Galerie Miguel Marcos, Barcelona.

8071 BEVERLY BOULEVARD
LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA 90048
Tel: 323 658 8088 Fax: 323 658 8068
Tuesday to Friday 10 am - 6 pm
Saturday 11 am - 6 pm

MItchell Syrop | Thomas Soloman Gallery

2012-03-09T08:26:00.009-08:00

Opening Reception Saturday, March 10, 6 - 8 PM

Mitchell Syrop: Bifurcated Life
Mar 10 - Apr 21

Thomas Solomon Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by the artist Mitchell Syrop entitled,Bifurcated Life. This is the artist's first solo exhibition with the gallery.

Bifurcated Life is a series of 28 images, derived from notebook pages, both written and viewed in succession. The work evolves through a series of statements sometimes repeating themselves while transmuting in the process and eventually pushing the boundaries of language and representation.

Taken as a whole, the piece plays like a song. Pages can be grouped together and a viewer can conceive of sets of images within the larger body that resemble verses and refrains. After five repetitions of statements revolving around the theme of bifurcation, the piece transitions into its next movement.

Written from an interior perspective, the work resounds with existential tones that reflect on the dialectic of writing as creation and the embodiment of the artist’s divided public and private personas. In this case we find that the writing reveals secrets the author might not make known to himself.

The piece assumes a responsibility that negates the assumption that language is an indispensable nucleus of communication. Statements which can only be read through phonetic pronunciation unravel into what appear more like symbols; words become as divided as their meanings.

Mitchell Syrop's work has been widely exhibited in America and throughout Europe, Asia, and Australia. The artist has participated in a number of significant group exhibitions including Tomorrow Land: A Tribute to CalArts, MOMA (2006) and Forest of Signs, MOCA, Los Angeles (1989). His work is represented in prominent collections, including MOCA, Los Angeles, LACMA, ICP NYC, San Diego Museum of Art, and the Orange County Museum of Art.

Thomas Solomon Gallery

427 Bernard St., Los Angeles, CA 90012

323 275 1687 www.thomassolomongallery.com

Re:Cut | Fil Rüting + John Pearson @ TAM Last week

2012-03-05T17:36:00.002-08:00

RE:CUT
Jan 21 - March 10, 2012

3 Installations by
Mclean Farnstock, Michael Kelly, Fil Rüting

3 curated selections of video including work by:
Chris Coy, Valerie Green, Masood Kamandy, William Kaminski, Zach Kleyn, Owen Kydd, Lisa Madonna, Jesse McLean, John Pearson, Nicole Sloan, Joe Sola

RE:CUT features video artists that play with appropriation, cinema, and the imagined space created within video and film. By deconstruction and re-imagining footage that has already had a life in the world, these artists expand the familiar into new, multi-faceted installations and single-channel videos.

Torrance Art Museum
3320 Civic Center Drive
Torrance, CA 90503
310.618.6340

Tuesday - Saturday
From 11 am - 5 pm
FREE ADMISSION
Closed Sunday, Monday, and all major holidays

Henry Taylor | Gallerist NY

2012-01-29T11:14:00.000-08:00

Gallerist NY has published an interesting article by Michael H. Miller on Henry's current mini retrospective at MOMA PS1.
Read it here.

Henry Taylor | MOMA PS1

2012-01-26T09:06:00.000-08:00

Henry Taylor
On view January 29, 2012—April 9, 2012

Los Angeles-based artist Henry Taylor (American, b. 1958) applies his brush both to canvas and to unconventional materials—suitcases, crates, cereal boxes, cigarette packs—offering a refreshing, idiosyncratic perspective on culture and politics using everyone and everything around him as source material. While Taylor drew and painted in his youth, he studied art later in life, attending the California Institute of the Arts after working for ten years as a psychiatric technician at a state hospital. In the months preceding the exhibition, the artist will be in residency in one of MoMA PS1's former classrooms, using it as his New York studio to create new work for the exhibition.

MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave. at the intersection of 46th Ave.
Long Island City, NY 11101
(718) 784-2084
Hours12–6 PM, Thursday through Monday, closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Tyler Vlahovich | Feature Inc NYC

2012-01-23T14:24:00.000-08:00

Tyler Vlahovich: recent work
15 February – 18 March 2012
reception: Sat, 18 Feb, 6–8pm

FEATURE INC.
131 ALLEN ST NY NY 10002
212.675.7772
featureinc@featureinc.com

LA Contemporary Art Fair | David Hughes, Tyler Vlahovich

2012-01-19T09:35:00.000-08:00

Art Los Angeles Contemporary Art Fair
January 19-22, 2012.
The Barker Hangar
3021 Airport Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90405

John Tevis Gallery will be showing a two-person booth with Dave Hughes and Anthony Ocone, as well as work available by Tyler Vlahovich and Mary Weatherford.

JOHN TEVIS GALLERY
47 rue Chapon
Paris 75003 FRANCE
+33 (0)1 42 71 84 83 telephone
+33 (0)6 31 25 31 06 mobile
jet@johntevis.com
www.johntevis.com
www.artlosangelesfair.com

CUE Art Foundation | Michael Minelli

2012-01-17T09:08:00.000-08:00

Michael Minelli: Curated by Sowon Kwon
CUE Art Foundation
January 26 – March 10, 2012
Opening reception Saturday, January 26, 6-8pm

“Michael Minelli’s work is carefully and singularly made...its modesty in this regard is as purposeful as its engagement with the big, the bang, the speed and polish of our world as mediated by mass culture. His work lays bare the extent to which we are irrevocably made, remade and struck dumb in mass culture’s wake.”
—Sowon Kwon

CUE Art Foundation
511 West 25th Street, Ground Floor
New York, New York 10001
Tel: 212-206-3583
Hours Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 6pm
Closed Sunday and Monday

Re:Cut | Fil Rüting + John Pearson @ TAM

2012-01-15T10:30:00.000-08:00

RE:CUT
Jan 21 - March 10, 2012
Opening reception Saturday, January 21st, 6-9 pm

3 Installations by
Mclean Farnstock, Michael Kelly, Fil Rüting

3 curated selections of video including work by:
Chris Coy, Valerie Green, Masood Kamandy, William Kaminski, Zach Kleyn, Owen Kydd, Lisa Madonna, Jesse McLean, John Pearson, Nicole Sloan, Joe Sola

RE:CUT features video artists that play with appropriation, cinema, and the imagined space created within video and film. By deconstruction and re-imagining footage that has already had a life in the world, these artists expand the familiar into new, multi-faceted installations and single-channel videos.

Torrance Art Museum
3320 Civic Center Drive
Torrance, CA 90503
310.618.6340

Tuesday - Saturday
From 11 am - 5 pm
FREE ADMISSION
Closed Sunday, Monday, and all major holidays

Amy Sarkisian | Morbid Curiosity + Eslov Wide Shut

2012-01-15T10:21:00.000-08:00

Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection at the Chicago Cultural Center January 28 - July 8, 2012
Morbid Curiosity showcases collector Richard Harris’ nearly 1,000 works, including creations by many of the greatest artists of our time, which explore the iconography of death across a variety of artistic, cultural and spiritual practices from 2000 B.C.E. to the present day.

The two major components of this exhibition are the “War Room,” highlighting the atrocities of war in notable works from the 17th century to present day in the 4th floor Exhibit Hall; and the “Kunstkammer of Death,” a modern-day “cabinet of curiosities” housed in the Sidney R. Yates Gallery, featuring a wide-ranging survey of mortality across cultures and spiritual traditions.

The centerpiece of the “War Room” is Mr. Harris’ collection of five great war series featuring prints by Jacques Callot, Francisco Goya, Otto Dix, the Chapman Brothers and Sandow Birk, which he has acquired over the past 30 years. This exhibition marks the first time that all five series will be exhibited together in their entirety.

Related Events:

Friday, January 27 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. - Opening Reception

Saturday, January 28 at 3 p.m. - Gallery Talk with British artist Jodie Carey and Guerra de la Paz artists

Sunday, January 29 at 3 p.m. - Gallery Talk with collector Richard Harris

Friday, February 3, 12:15 p.m - University of Chicago First Friday Lecture
Plato the Poet: Socratic Visions of Afterlife
Claudia Cassidy Theater
Katia Mitova, Instructor, Basic Program, University of Chicago discusses the elaborate myths of the afterlife in Plato’s dialogues Gorgias (523a – 537e), Republic (614b – 621b) and Phaedo (110b – 114e), and the relationship between morality and poetic imagination.

January 13 – March 7 - Forever 27: Music Superstars Gone to an Early Grave
As a companion to the exhibition, Project Onward presents a new exhibition in the Garland corridor of the Chicago Cultural Center. The exhibit will feature portraits of musicians who have died at age 27 such as Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain, among others.

Amy Sarkisian | Notes on Looking

2011-12-22T08:30:00.001-08:00

Notes on looking has posted a great interview with Amy Sarkisian.
Read more here.

Pamela Jorden | Art In America

2011-12-12T11:45:00.000-08:00

Art in America has published a review of Pamela Jorden's show
at Romer Young Gallery.

Quarry, 2011
33 in. x 33 in.
Acrylic and bleach on fabric

Pamela Jorden by Mark Van Proyen December 2011

Pamela Jorden (b. 1969) is an emerging abstract painter whose work looks distinctly different from the "provisional painting" so visible in the past decade. Raphael Rubinstein coined this term in his widely discussed article of the same name, published in these pages in May 2009. Where provisional painting can be characterized by a rather theatrical lack of finish Jorden's work – although it likewise can have a casual quality – appears decidedly untheatrical. Hers moves toward a somber introspection that recalls Symbolist ideals, while also embracing a forward-looking vocabulary of very unconventional shape/pattern relationships.

The largest painting in this exhibition was Vega (2010, 54 by 40 inches). A bold, yellow, inverted triangle on a loosely applied gray ground spans the composition. A second central triangle, this one right side up, emerges as if in relief, pushing up from below the picture plane. Two of its sides have been traced by wobbly ultramarine lines that enliven the entire canvas. By virtue of its declarative graphic form and devil-may-care execution, Vega was the only work in the show that might be mistaken as an attempt at provisional painting. Yet, it seemed more an exploration of modernist principles than a flaunting of informality.

An untitled work from 2011, one of four circular compositions on view, offers a rich and intimate visual experience that balances soft shapes with forms bearing hard, decisive edges. Fluid areas of deep viridians and gray-violets give off a reflective sheen, the paint having been mixed with pulverized mica. The 33-inch-square Quarry (2011), which contains a busy assortment of intersecting lines and jagged shapes in whites and blues, suggests a mélange of dance-step diagrams superimposed over one another. As in the untitled circle, the brushwork ranges from crisp to free-flowing and the darker areas shift in chroma and iridescence.

Some of Jorden's paintings engage with a neo-Op strain of abstraction, also popular during the past 10 years. But her works stand apart, due to their wide range of painterly elements and relatively small scale. They remind us that the true subject of any abstract painting is the position that it self-consciously takes in relation to the history of abstract painting.

Projections | Romer Young Gallery

2011-12-05T21:47:00.000-08:00

PROJECTIONS: Romer Young Gallery

GALLERY OPENS AT 6:00PM / SCREENINGS START @ 6:30PM

THIS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9: PICTURE THIS
Organized by John Pearson and featuring work by Derek Boshier, Judy Fiskin, Kevin Hanley, Doug Henry, Ezra Johnson, Alice Könitz, Kimberli Meyer, John Pearson, Terri Phillips, Museum of Commerce, MRKN PROD, Halsey Rodman, Fil Rüting, Mitchell Syrop. A program of videos that make sense from the conjured associations of images. These videos convey a certain handling and interpretation - overt or subtle - of images structured in time. Many of these videos were created parallel to or out of artists' performance, sculpture, painting, or photography practices. For me these works push and provoke ideas about perception and photography, a photography that embodies both observation and proposition.

Attached is a pdf of the evening’s program.
For more information about the entire Projections series go to the Romer Young website: http://romeryounggallery.com/index2.html

MIchael Minelli | DennisHollingsworth.us

2011-11-15T16:25:00.001-08:00

Dennis Hollingsworth has written a review of Michael's show on his blog.

Michael Minelli | Opening WPA

2011-11-11T09:50:00.000-08:00

Michael Minelli | Black Boxes
November 11th - December 4th, 2011
Opening Saturday, November 12, 5 – 7pm

WPA presents Black Boxes, an exhibition of recent work by Michael Minelli. This is Minelli's second solo exhibition at WPA. Minelli has long been interested in the quid pro quo between popular media discourse and the individual subject. In keeping with his previous body of work, where paper microphone stands, thought bubbles and free standing banners acted as avatars of public address, Minelli's recent sculptures further investigate public discourse through forms that conflate guitar amps, camera lenses, gun barrels and flat screen TV's.
Unlike the indomitable black boxes that house a doomed aircraft's final communications, Minelli's Black Boxes are fragile props rendered in cardboard and rolled paper. Instead of a tangible record or explanation, these new works present mediation as a porous architecture whose holes and hollow appendages suggest conduits of open exchange; in effect, offering silence as both an invitation and threat.

Michael Minelli has exhibited his work in the U.S. and in Europe. In January 2010, his commission from The Wexner Center for the Arts entitled "not by everybody" (2006) was exhibited at the Design Museum of Holon in Holon Israel as part of the international exhibition Only Now. He has an upcoming solo exhibition at the CUE Art Foundation, in New York City, in January 2012.

Gallery hours:
Open 12-6pm, Saturday-Sunday or by appointment.

Contact Michael Minelli
michaelminelli.com

Pamela Jorden | Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery

2011-10-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

Pamela Jorden | Sun and Moon

October 21- December 4, 2011
Opening Reception: October 21, 6-8pm

Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Pamela Jorden. The show will consist of recent abstract oil paintings on linen and fabric; opening October 21, and running through December 4. Please join us at the reception for the artist on Friday October 21 from 6 to 8pm.

Pamela Jorden’s paintings are composed of fragments, accumulations of shape, line, texture, and pattern which form varying optical densities. The paintings are influenced by her day-to-day surroundings; she often uses her observations of changing light during the day, the shifting of perspectives as one moves through space, and the dense layered appearance of the Los Angeles landscape stacked and compressed in haze and smog. Jorden’s process is experimental—she lays down initial marks and then responds to them—creating an improvisational surface throughout the work. In each painting the palette is restrained to a handful of colors, while the mark making engages texture, gesture, mass, and scale. At times she uses straight, wide brush strokes contrasted with thinner angular lines and interspersed with washy, less defined areas, to build a rich tapestry.

In her latest body of work she has also varied the materials upon which she paints, and the references from which her compositions emerge, taking cues equally from artists such as Sonia Delaunay and Jasper Johns. One painting features silver paint on a silver fabric ground, while another involves a target made on a circular stretcher. Jorden plays on art historical references but also experiments in her own practice with layering similar properties, whether it is repeating shapes (circles within circles, triangles with triangles) or similar color (silvers on silver, blacks on black). Jorden’s studio practice is one of exploration and invention revealing an inquisitive and restless approach to painting.

Pamela Jorden lives and works in Los Angeles, California. This is her fourth solo show with Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery. She has been in numerous shows in Los Angeles and New York, and in September had her first solo show in San Francisco at Romer Young Gallery. Her work has appeared in Art in America, Artnet, the Los Angeles Times, and Artweek.

TRY-HAR-DER | Tyler Vlahovich | Mitchell Syrop

2011-10-17T11:33:00.000-07:00

Try Har Der has posted some shots from Tyler's and Mitchell's shows at WPA.
click here to see more.

Pamela Jorden | Square Cylinder.com

2011-10-06T10:52:00.000-07:00

Interesting discussion around Pam's current show in San Fransico on Squarecylinder.com
Read more here.

Argot & Ochre | Co/Lab Recap

2011-10-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

WPA had a nice mention in the Argot & Ochre blog.
Click here to read more.

WPA | 2012 Calendar only $20

2011-10-01T17:07:00.000-07:00

Support WPA at Co/Lab by purchasing our 2012 Calendar.
Artork by each WPA Member including a unique rubber stamped collage by David Hughes.
Limeted edition of 100.
Only $20!

Art Platform - Co/Lab
Events
Opening Preview: Friday, September 30, 2011
3PM – 5PM Opening Preview
5PM – 9PM Vernissage Party benefitting the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of art and The Museum of Contemporary Art.
General Admission:
Saturday, Oct 1 • 11AM – 6PM
Sunday, Oct 2 • 11AM – 6PM
Monday, Oct 3 • 11AM – 4PM
L.A. Mart®
1933 S. Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90007
Parking will be available in the L.A. Mart® lots on the corners of Broadway and Washington. Ample street parking is also available.
Ticketing Information:
Click here for ticket information.

http://www.artrala.org/
www.artplatform-losangeles.com

WPA | Co/Lab

2011-09-26T09:51:00.000-07:00

Concurrent with Art Platform-Los Angeles, WPA is participating in Co/Lab which is a new event that brings together 19 art initiatives, alternative spaces and non-profit institutions to highlight the range and diversity of art practices in Los Angeles.

Events
Opening Preview: Friday, September 30, 2011
3PM – 5PM Opening Preview
5PM – 9PM Vernissage Party benefitting the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of art and The Museum of Contemporary Art.
General Admission:
Saturday, Oct 1 • 11AM – 6PM
Sunday, Oct 2 • 11AM – 6PM
Monday, Oct 3 • 11AM – 4PM
L.A. Mart®
1933 S. Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90007
Parking will be available in the L.A. Mart® lots on the corners of Broadway and Washington. Ample street parking is also available.
Ticketing Information:
https://www.microspec.com/tix123/eTic.cfm?code=APLA11

www.wpala.com
www.artplatform-losangeles.com

Pamela Jorden | Romer Young Gallery Review

2011-09-23T18:08:00.001-07:00

Pamela Jorden's show in SF reviewed here.
enjoy!

Video Dumbo | Fil Rüting

2011-09-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

Fil Rüting will be screening a 7 minute piece "Dreamtime" at DAC.
September 23-25th.
DUMBO ARTS CENTER (DAC)
111 FRONT STREET, STE. 212
BROOKLYN, NY 11201

video_dumbo is the annual festival of international contemporary video art. This year video_dumbo will be held on September 23-25th as part of the 2011 Dumbo Arts Festival. For the past seven years, video_dumbo has been an important exhibition platform for emerging filmmaker and media artists. In our continuing mission to exhibit rarely seen video art, we present a growing selection of international, thought-provoking works to our audience.
http://www.videodumbo.org/

Tyler Vlahovich | Rhona Hoffman gallery

2011-09-13T17:46:00.000-07:00

Tyler Vlahovich is part of a group show curated by Hudson.

Rhona Hoffman gallery
Called " bodybraingame"
Sept 16- oct 22
Chicago
Rhoffmangallery.com

There will be an opening reception for the artists on Friday, September 16th from 5-7:30 pm.

I like a lot, and in this exhibition that may be understood in at least two ways.

Remember in the mid ‘80s when painting died - amusing, right? For me the significance was more about the focus moving to theory, photography, and information and the resulting effects of how we moved toward a more public understanding or perception of art. After about ten or so years of that, the perception and appreciation of art was more a mental assessment of a thing than an experience of a thing, and while that mode of understanding has continued for another twelve years or so, the shortcomings of operating long term from that sensibility have long remained quite obvious.

Feature Inc. has always offered a strong presence for painting and over the years I’ve increasingly realized that the impact of art on the body is just as forceful if not more so, than its impact on the brain. Letting feelings and mutable physical and emotional sensations guide an understanding of something doesn’t necessarily provide for an articulate line of reasoning, but it does offer an interior richness which is personally very satisfying. I especially like how that form of experience leads one to think and talk around something rather than to think or talk something through. Around is more inclusive and open to development than the conclusiveness of through.

-Hudson, Feature Inc.