Amy Sarkisian | Notes on Looking

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

Pamela Jorden | Art In America

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

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

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

Read more here.

Michael Minelli | Opening WPA

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

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

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

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

Argot & Ochre | Co/Lab Recap

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

WPA | 2012 Calendar only $20

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

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

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

Video Dumbo | Fil Rüting

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

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.

Pamela Jorden | Romer Young Gallery

LOOKING THROUGH TREES
ROMER YOUNG GALLERY
1240 22nd Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
www.romeryounggallery.com

OPENING RECEPTION:
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 6:00 -9:00PM

Romer Young Gallery is pleased to present its first solo exhibition with Los Angeles painter Pamela Jorden. Jorden is part of a new generation of painters whose work is at the forefront of an ongoing and unfolding conversation around the possibilities and potential of ‘abstraction.’

“The structure of light is geometrical compared to the structure of matter which is ‘organic.’ (Organic = Free-form) Both matter and space have ‘density.’ Light opens peep-hole tracks in the ‘density’ of space, because of the structure of light and allows us to ‘see.’” (1)

Pamela Jorden’s exhibition Looking Through Trees presents a new series of paintings, each one an invitation for a phenomenological experience of a painterly space defined by color, mark, composition and light. Jorden emphasizes that the world we experience is not solely figurative and our senses that interpret our surroundings do not operate in a solely rational manner. This perspective informs her paintings and challenges the compartmentalizing of abstraction. Resisting depiction in favor of slow suggestions, the works quietly allude to such things as the natural effects of changing light, the densities and geometries of urban landscapes, the haze of atmospheres and environments. The works balance a play between foreground and background, void and form, light and dark, hard and loose. Gradually assembled, the paintings are composed of fragments with varying optical densities and accumulations of shape, line, texture and pattern - each mark an isolated experience adding to the synthesis of the whole. The end results existing as “experiments in which color has weight and energy with the power to harmonize or disrupt.”

Pamela Jorden received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1996. She will have her fourth solo exhibition at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery in New York City, NY in 2011. Recent projects include solo exhibitions at David Patton Gallery, Los Angeles; the Mason Gross Gallery, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Group exhibitions include "The Working Title", Bronx River Art Center, Bronx NY, "One Year Anniversary Show," "Swap Thing" and "Sun Zoom Spark," WPA, Los Angeles CA, “Some Abstraction Occurs”, 65 Grand, Chicago, IL (2008), “Themes and Variations”, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA (2007), “Reality is An Activity of the Most August Imagination”, Rental Gallery in Chinatown, Los Angeles (2006), and “(keep feeling) Fascination: Recent Abstract Painting in Los Angeles”, Luckman Gallery, Cal State LA (2006).

For additional information, please contact the gallery at 415.550.7483 or email info@romeryounggallery.com. Romer Young Gallery is a San Francisco based contemporary art gallery committed to showing regional and international emerging and mid-career artists.

1. Lee Lozano, private notebook excerpts, August 18, 1969

Fil Rüting | Opening WPA

Fil Rüting | AUSTRALIAN
September 3rd - October 2nd, 2011
Opening Friday, September 2nd, 8-10pm

WPA is pleased to announce "AUSTRALIAN",
a new Video Installation by Fil Rüting.

"AUSTRALIAN" consists of two video projections screened on opposing walls. As the title suggests, the work's focus is on the artist's homeland, exclusively sourcing its imagery and sound from the cinema of Australia. The video is the next installment of Rüting's ongoing process he refers to as "Tri Repetaé". "Tri" referring to the human ability to see three channels of color, trichromacy. "Repetaé" referring to meaning affirmed through repetition and context. Rüting uses cinematic sources, wrenching them from their linear format, cutting and shifting time, recomposing imagery in colorful ghost-like forms and figures moving through a stationary camera space. In "AUSTRALIAN", the tri repetaé form explores a compositional narrative focusing on the question of what the term "Australian" means.¹

Themes explored in Rüting's video installation include primitive utopianism, colonialism, gender politics, transgression, the modern condition and spirituality. The artist has subtitled a few segments within the installation, "Nura (Country)", "White Fellas", "Petrol Heads", "Blokes and Sheilas", "The Big Smoke" and "Dreamtime".

The result is a thirty-minute drop into a psychedelic Down Under, filled with wonder, angst, hedonism, transformation and suspense. Sonically abrupt and mesmerizing "AUSTRALIAN" disarms the viewer into a bi-polar space, where iconography and narrative meet to create a poetic identity hidden within the cinematic condition of a unique modern nation.

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

510 Bernard St, Los Angeles CA 90012

Film Screening | WPA Present's Alan Kaprow's Fluids, 1967

Sunday, August 14th, 8:30pm
WPA will be screening the rarely seen Pasadena Art Museum documentary of Alan Kaprow's "FLUIDS" 1967.

Alan Kaprow's happening FLUIDS involved
constructing enclosures with ice blocks at various locations in Pasadena
and Los Angeles. Kaprow recruited participants using billboards that
displayed the FLUIDS score: "During three days, about twenty rectangular
enclosures of ice blocks (measuring about 30 feet long, 10 wide and 8
high) are built throughout the city. Their walls are unbroken. They are
left to melt".

Groups of young people made his work a reality. They stacked blocks of
ice, delivered by the Union Ice Company, into rectangular structures.
Over the ensuing days, the ice structures melted. This 30 minute film documents one of these events.

The Optimist’s Parking Lot | Amy Sarkisian and Charles Irvin

Beacon Arts Building
808 N. La Brea Ave.
Inglewood, CA 90302
310.419.4077

Art Exhibition: The Optimist’s Parking Lot
August 13th – September 25th, 2011
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 13th from 6:00-10:00 PM
Gallery Hours: Thurs. – Sat. 1:00 – 6:00 PM & Sun. 1:00 - 4:00 PM

The Optimist's Parking Lot, a group show curated by Suzanne Adelman and Keith Walsh, proposes a state of being that metaphorically draws upon the provisional or transitional status of this zone, which may be a stop within a journey, the location for a political sit-in, or possibly even one’s home. In this way, a parking lot is much like a gallery: A way station for art objects, and a zone for expectation, contemplation, deferment, anxiety, advocacy, and exaltation.

Optimism is, in fact, a noun. Common definitions of the word also often cite Gottfried Leibniz’s 17th century philosophy that the existing world is the perfect world as it was conceived through God the master architect. This notion has given way in the last four centuries to a humanist sensibility and, as embodied through artistic production, realizes phenomenological zones of self-empowerment. The decision to create, and the will to do depends upon a certain optimism—which may also be considered a utopian gesture. Inevitably, optimism evokes its counterpart, pessimism and dystopia. This expressed struggle is often enfolded into the various processes that transpire during the making of art, and may find its reification in the work’s formal aspects, or its manner of response to external conditions. How might the work acknowledge, filter, or avoid references to our larger contemporary context of economic malaise, corporate capitalism, geopolitical unrest, environmental catastrophes, and conservative social mandates? How might art help us better imagine our individual and collective futures? The relationship of form to content also brings about the question of whether art functions well as evidence of optimism or not. Can art be a more reliable indicator of the complexities of optimism than a smile or an upbeat spiel?

The poetics of The Optimist’s Parking Lot attempts to remind us of the multifaceted nature of optimism: the challenges of considering a sense of future and possibility--along with its potential detours, waiting, and endgames in the context of current events.

The Optimist’s Parking Lot feature the work of Lisa Anne Auerbach, Aaron Brewer, Kristin Calabrese, Mason Cooley, Young Chung, Dorit Cypis, Mark Dutcher, Doug Harvey, Steven Hull, Steve Hurd, Charles Irvin, Ed Johnson, Vincent Johnson, Molly Larkey, Amy Sarkisian, Kyungmi Shin, Jen Smith, Thaddeus Strode, Suzanne Adelman, Keith Walsh, Chris Wilder, and Aaron Wrinkle.

Pamela Jorden + John Pearson | NYC Group show

For Immediate Release-

SNOWCLONES

INNA BABAEVA
DREW BEATTIE
SUSAN BRICKER
DAVID DEUTSCH
MICHAEL DOPP
EJ HAUSER
PAM JORDEN
RACHEL LIEBER
BENJAMIN KING
LAUREN LULOFF
MICHAEL MAHALCHICK
ROB NADEAU
JULIA OLDHAM
JOHN PEARSON
CLINTEL STEED
JACKIE SACCOCCIO
HOLLY ZAUSNER

ART BLOG ART BLOG is extremely pleased to announce the opening of "Snowclones" curated by Benjamin King (HKJB) and Rob Nadeau. This show is the fifth in a series of exhibitions ART BLOG ART BLOG is presenting at a temporary location in Chelsea, NY on the 11th floor of 508 West 26th St. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, August 4th from 6 - 9pm. The exhibition runs through Saturday, August 13th. Open hours are Tuesday - Saturday, Noon - 6pm and by appointment.

The tendency toward artists employing a multi-disciplinarian approach seems today more prevalent than ever. In the spirit of Alan Kaprow, Buckminster Fuller, Stewart Brand, happenings, liquid light shows, shamans, tricksters, wits, oracles and so on, we have invited a group of 17 artists to come together in a collaborative effort entitled Snowclones.

It could be argued that many visual artists work within culturally identifiable visual templates, such as sculpture, painting, video, installation, performance, etc. Similarly, a snowclone takes a linguistic template ( as in "X is the new Y,” or “if by X, you mean Y,” and “X2: Electric Boogaloo,” and so on) where the substitution of the variables change the meaning of the statement while still retaining the original form.

Drawing upon this concept, the form of the group show could be considered just such another timeworn template with endless possibilities for customization. In Snowclones, the organizers seek to foster an experiential environment in which each person, or artwork, plays off one another, generating meaning through the juxtaposition, presentation and re-presentation of interwoven layers of artistic content. The resulting event will ideally affect a shift in focus from that seemingly well-known format to something surprising, improvisational and unique.

The artists involved represent a wide spectrum of visual templates, disciplines and conceptual practices. Everyone is free to experiment and alter their own work as they see fit throughout the run of the show. Whether each artist contributes an already existing piece or chooses to work site specifically in the gallery, the continually evolving show seeks to be collaborative, fluid and open. Boundaries become blurred between disciplines and authorship, while content bleeds from one source to another, thereby altering and subdividing the existing space to reveal some underlying and intuitive logic.

* A snowclone is a type of cliché and phrasal template originally defined as "a multi-use, customizable, instantly recognizable, time-worn, quoted or misquoted phrase or sentence that can be used in an entirely open array of different variants". An example of a snowclone is "grey is the new black", a version of the template "X is the new Y" where X and Y may be replaced with different words or phrases. Snowclones are related to both memes and clichés. . . In the study of folklore, snowclones are a form of what are usually described as a proverbial phrase which have a long history of description and analysis. There are many kinds of such wordplay, as described in a variety of studies of written and oral sources. The term was coined by Glen Whitman on January 15, 2004. (Wikipedia)

Benjamin King and Rob Nadeau
HKJB.org
info@hkjb.org

&

ART BLOG ART BLOG
artblogartblog.com
joshuaabelow.blogspot.com

David Hughes | POST Group show

Nick Ackerman and Rich Bot and Dave Hughes are in a
group show curated by Chris Oliveria at POST Gallery 1904 East 7th
Place, Los Angeles from 7 to 9 PM TONITE ONLY Sunday the 24th of July.

Film Screening | Andrew Hahn video work + House, 1977

Join us for a a night of video and film.

Andrew Hahn screens some of his video work.
Followed by the psychedelic horror film "House".
Monday July 18th, 9pm, back garden WPA.

House (1977)
Hausu (original title)
Director: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi

Oshare (Gorgeous) is excited about spending summer vacation with her father, until she finds out that his beautiful, freakishly serene girlfriend Ryouko would be going as well. Oshare decides she will be going to her aunt's house in the country instead. She brings with her her friends from school - Fanta (who likes to take pictures, and daydreams a lot), KunFuu (who has very good reflexes), Gari/Prof (who is a major nerd), Sweet (who likes to clean), Mac (who eats a lot), and Melody (a musician). However, the girls are unaware that Oshare's aunt is actually dead and the house is actually haunted. When they arrive at the house, crazy events take place and the girls disappear one by one while slowly discovering the secret behind all the madness.

Film Screening | WPA + Hop Louie Present Terri Phillips and Black Moon

WPA + Hop Louie present!
Terri Phillips - video work and Louis Malle's "Black Moon"
Thursday July 14th, 8:30pm WPA Gallery - back garden

Black Moon (1975)
Director: Louis Malle

The surreal narrative pivots around a confused teenager (Cathryn Harrison) who witnesses a war between the sexes and finds herself involved in numerous dream-like situations at a country estate. An underlying subtext offers a convoluted commentary on the women's movement of the 1970s.

Walking a fine line between fantasy and reality with the two occasionally merging, Black Moon refuses to conform to a conventional storyline and a description of the fantastical events that take place could easily give one the wrong impression and misrepresent the cinematic experience Malle intended. The director was well aware of this, saying "I don't know how to describe Black Moon because it's a strange melange - if you want, it's a mythological fairy-tale taking place in the near future. There are several themes; one is the ultimate civil war...the war between men and women. I say the 'ultimate civil war,' because through the 1970s we'd been watching all this fighting between people of different religions and races and political beliefs. And this was, of course, the climax and great moment of women's liberation. So, we follow a young girl, in this civil war; she's trying to escape, and in the middle of the wood she finds a house which seems to be abandoned. When she enters the house, she obviously enters another world; she's in the presence of an old lady in bed, who speaks a strange language and converses with a huge rat on her bedside table. She goes from discovery to discovery - it's a sort of initiation." The film has obvious connections to the writings of Lewis Carroll as well as other films from the same period such as Robert Altman's Images (1972), which shares a similar fascination with unicorns, and Ingmar Bergman's bleak war allegory, Shame (1968). Malle freely admitted that Black Moon "conveys my admiration for and curiosity about Alice in Wonderland. And in the part I deliberately cast this English girl, Cathryn Harrison..."[1]

David Hughes | No X performance online

Guide-LA.com has published an audio recording of David Hughes Radio Performance of his book "No X"at WPA Gallery, Los Angeles, December 2010.
Click here to listen.

Terri Phillips | TryHarDer

TryHarDer managed to come to Terri's opening and has put some pictures up on their site.
Click to see.

Tableshow + Andrew Hahn | TryHarDer

Some pics from our last show and Andrew's Studio next door on TryHarDer.
Click to view. and here too.

Terri Phillips | The Bloody Pond

Terri Phillips | The Bloody Pond
June 25-July 10, 2011
Opening Reception: Saturday June 25, 7pm-9pm

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

For Fun | Friends of WPA 100xBetter

The LA Times has an article about a new chicken coop design by 100xbetter, aka Brendan Sowersby and Will Rollins.
Click here to read the article.

Diamond Dust | Rachael Neubauer

See Line Gallery
Pacific Design Center
8687 Melrose Avenue
Suite B274
West Hollywood, CA 90069

mobile 917 604 3114
info@seelinegallery.com

Hours:
Monday - Friday 11am till 5pm
and by appointment

WPA | Tableshow

WPA | Table Show
May 21 - June 18, 2011
Opening Reception: May 21, 7pm-10pm
Pop Up Bakery and Dj's Opening night.

WPA is pleased to announce Table Show.
Featuring work by Bart Exposito, Andrew Hahn, David Hughes,
Rachael Neubauer, Terri Philips, Fil Rüting Henry Taylor and Ryan Tomcho.

A table is a type of furniture featuring a flat and stationary horizontal upper surface used to support objects of interest, for storage, display, and/or manipulation. The surface must be held stable; for reasons of simplicity, this is commonly accomplished by support from below by legs.
The term "table" is derived from a merger of French table and Old English tabele, ultimately from the Latin word tabula, "a board, plank, flat top piece". In Late Latin, tabula took over the meaning previously reserved to mensa (preserved in Spanish and Portuguese mesa "table").

Amy Sarkisian | Huffington Post

Peter Frank has written a short review of Amy's current show.
click here to read.

Notes on Looking | Amy Sarkisian

Geoff Tuck has a nice post about the current goings on in Chinatown, featuring Amy's current show at WPA.
Click here to read.

My House is Your House | Amy Sarkisian - Tyler Vlahovich

“My House is Your House,” curated by Whitney Carter and Molly Larkey, April 29 - May 29, 2011
Opening reception: Friday, April 29, 7-10 pm

Artists: Sara Clendening & Eric Wesley, Samantha Fields & Andre Yi, Samara Golden & John Seal, Kate Harding & Steven Bankhead, Michael Henry Hayden & Anthony Lepore, Daniel Ingroff & Paul Pescador & David Gilbert, Kristi Lippire & Matt Wardell, Yunhee Min & Patrick Meagher, Tracy Nakayama & Jeremy Yoder, Amy Sarkisian &Tyler Vlahovich

Statler Waldorf Gallery is pleased to present “My House is Your House." The exhibition examines couples who work together, either in a direct capacity, or by sharing an intimate space outside of their respective studio practice(s). A partner’s role as confidant and critic is essential, as they are often privy to the most intimate evolutions that each other’s work endures over time. How do the conversations that happen within a studio and a home, with a partner whose opinion is a trusted source, affect one’s practice? “My House is Your House” also celebrates the role that communities of like-minded individuals (partners of another sort) play in our creative endeavors. In opening up one’s home, and creating connections with those around us, we build exchanges that ultimately make our world meaningful.


Statler Waldorf Gallery is an artist-run exhibition space located at 1098 W. Kensington Road, Los Angeles, CA, 90026, a private residence in Echo Park. We are open by appointment only. For more information, please email: info@statlerwaldorfgallery.com.

Amy Sarkisian | TryHarDer

Some very nice pics from Amy's opening last saturday on TryHarDer.
Click here to view.

Henry Taylor | TryHarDer

TryHarDer has posted some pictures from WPA member, Henry Taylor's current show at Blum And Poe. Click here to see the pictures.

Amy Sarkisian | Opening

Amy Sarkisian | American Gag
April 16 - May 14, 2011
Opening Reception: April 16th 6-9 pm

WPA is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new work by Amy Sarkisian. Sarkisian's new sculptures present an iconic statement about the perverted, maligned and marginal in all of us.

This body of work is a combination of drawing and sculpture, which are my two default modes of working. I'm attracted to drawing because of its economy and it balances my sculptural practice, which tends to be more complex. American Gag has become an exercise to resolve my drawings while at the same time not abandoning my first love that is sculpture.

Amy Sarkisian lives and works in Los Angeles. She has had solo exhibitions at Atelier Cardenas Bellanger and Galerie Carlos Cardenas in Paris, Suzanne Vielmetter and Sister in Los Angeles, Marella Arte Contemporanea in Milan. This summer she will be included in an exhibition at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in England. Amy Sarkisian ran the project space, Studio 870, in the late 1990s and is the newest member of WPA.

Ryan Tomcho | TryHarDer

TryHarDer blog has posted some pictures from Ryan Tomcho's opening.
You can see them here.

Pamela Jorden | The Working Title | Group Show NYC

The Working Title
On View from March 25 – April 29

A 32-artist group survey of recent abstraction organized by Progress Report Opening Reception: Friday, March 25, 6-9pm Temporary Gallery Location: 305 E 140th St #1A Bronx, NY 10454 Bronx River Art Center (BRAC) is pleased to present The Working Title, a 32-artist group survey of recent abstraction organized by Progress Report, opening on March 25, 2011. The exhibition, which runs until April 29, 2011, is the third in a series hosted in our temporary location, "On the Block", at 305 E 140 St. #1A, Bronx, NY, while we undergo a seven-million dollar renovation to our West Farms facility.

Artists featured: Amy Feldman, Benjamin King, Britton Tolliver, Cordy Ryman, Dennis Hollingsworth, Douglas Melini, EJ Hauser, Eric Freeman, Gary Petersen, Halsey Hathaway, Ian Pedigo, Inna Babaeva, Ivin Ballen, Jasmine Justice, JD Walsh, Jered Sprecher, Joshua Abelow, Joy Curtis, Keltie Ferris, Kris Chatterson, Lauren Luloff, Letha Wilson, Matthew Deleget, Omar Chacon, Osamu Kobayashi, Pamela Jorden, Patrick Brennan, Stacy Fisher, Tamara Zahaykevich, Tisch Abelow, Vince Contarino, Yadir Quintana

The name of the exhibition refers to the changing classification, description, or title that is given to abstraction. By nature, abstraction resists tradition and categorization transforming itself into a highly visual moving target. These artists employ abstraction as a means to investigate different approaches to materials, systems, media and content. Rather than following a pre-established doctrine of romantic sentimentality, most of the works elicit an air of experimentation, familiarity, and an overall sense of purpose.

The Working Title brings together different perspectives on abstraction in conversation with each other. Minimalism, post-modern, geometric, gestural, formal, color filed, video and process-driven works occupying the same room, creating unpredictable relationships through contrasting approaches.

Having direct access to technology has become an important tool for artists to share and discuss their practice, making connections on a regional and global level. The collective stance and attitudes on making art are less defensive than they used to be, opening up conversations with the past by seeking out and elaborating on previous approaches that may have been marginalized or forgotten.

The Working Title is less about seizing the moment, but more of a selection of current voices that use abstraction as a starting point to create work that expands the trajectory of what is possible.

This exhibition was organized by Progress Report, a visually-driven project that offers a glimpse of the creative process that share various perspectives from the working artist’s point of view.

Henry Taylor | Opening @ Blum and Poe

Blum & Poe is very pleased to present its first solo exhibition of paintings and sculpture by Los Angeles-based artist Henry Taylor.

In Henry Taylor's work, the line between art and life is often indistinguishable: freely commingling intensely personal figurative paintings with totemic assemblage sculpture. Taylor has developed a unique visual dialect wedded to the downtown - Los Angeles community he calls home, addressing his subjects with the ease of an insider and the hand of an outsider. Taylor's nuanced portraits shed a sentimental light on near and dear friends, family members, lovers and heroes, both dead and alive, real and imagined. They are non-hierarchical, generous and democratic likenesses of the people most central to his life and thought, with equal emphasis placed on a portrait of his niece and nephew in relaxed pose or larger than life statuesque representations of Serena Williams or Jackie Robinson. An acute documentarian of his community, Taylor fits squarely into the lineage of painter as social observer, channeling amongst others, Alice Neel, Toulouse Lautrec and John Singer Sargent.

Taylor's paintings and sculptures are often constructed in a frenetic manner with partial gestures, half-phrases or incomplete figures painted on surfaces as varied as cigarette packs, cereal and beer boxes or suitcases. These objects, prior to Taylor's intervention, were left for dead on street corners and in dumpsters, but when salvaged by the artist, become fair game, to be used as integrated components in sculptures or as alternative surfaces to stretched canvas for painting. Most recently Taylor has begun collecting emptied Clorox bleach bottles, which when spray painted black and inverted on broomsticks take the form of African tribal masks or dancing statues. Propped on constructed bases of plywood and held together by whatever means necessary, these figures come to life, defined both by their unique handmade construction and shabby materiality. They exist as accumulations of found objects intimately linked to their surroundings, repurposed and breathed with life by their maker.

Taylor's vernacular is the street. His studio practice is deeply informed by its sights and sounds, and most notably by its people; those who move freely between Taylor's life and studio, often only long enough to have their portrait painted once. These personalities, along with the historical figures who find their way into Taylor's work, are rendered with a dignity and soul, befitting their place within Taylor's world.

Henry Taylor (b. 1958, Oxnard, CA) has been honored with solo museum exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY, 2007, the Santa Monica Art Museum, Santa Monica, CA, 2008 and will be included in the forthcoming exhibition, Human Nature: Contemporary art from the Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA. Taylor has been included in group exhibitions at the Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL, MOCA North Miami, Miami FL, Peres Projects, Berlin, Jack Hanley Gallery, Los Angeles, CA and Milliken Gallery, Sweden. Henry Taylor received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from California Institute of the Arts and lives and works in downtown Los Angeles.

Blum & Poe | 2727 S La Cienega Blvd. | Los Angeles | CA | 90034

Ryan Tomcho | Linger

Ryan Tomcho | Linger
March 12 - April 9
Opening Reception Saturday, March 12th 7-9pm

Press Release

Ryan Tomcho's lush canvasses approach painting through nontraditional means. Pigment here is encapsulated in resin and applied by a machine. The trace of the hand is taken hostage by imposter brush marks which weren't created in the physical sense. They only exist as artificial imitations applied as a very thin layer of pigment. The surface is treated as if it were a space where events float in, and not as a crust with material density. These events are moments where one edge, illusion, color, structure, and imposter mark interacts with another in a way which activates sensory experience. Space is stretched and manipulated to expand possibilities of a pictorial experience which is not tethered by a unified whole. One could even say they're a space of fantasy. Each, fortunately, can look quite unlike another, though repetition is not necessarily excluded.
Sure, these were produced with a technological apparatus, but that doesn't mean they're limited to a discourse on technology and its modes of production. How it's made is ideally not as important as what it's doing, which is to say the engagement exceeds the means of production.

Andrea Bowers | Legal Defense Fund

Artist and friend of WPA, Andrea Bowers, was recently arrested with three others trying to prevent the destruction of what once was an 11-acre old-growth forest in Arcadia, California. The Arcadia 4 were removed from trees and arrested for their efforts. Currently, they are facing criminal charges and have begun their legal battle.

The Arcadia 4 are in need of your support now more than ever. Any contributions towards their legal defense fund are greatly appreciated and make necessary actions such as this possible.

Please visit the website at arcadia4justice.org to donate and show your support.

Javier Tapia | TRYHARDER pics

TRYHARDER has posted some pictures from the current show at WPA.
The current page also now has a slideshow.

Javier Tapia | Opening

Javier Tapia | Angst Journey, Where's the Dead Man's Chest
February 13 - March 6
Opening Reception February 12th, 7pm

Press Release

The latest project of the Chilean artist Javier Tapia, with the title: Angst Journey, Where's the Dead Man's Chest, will be presented at WPA in China Town, Los Angeles.
The show, opening on Feb. 12th at 19 o'clock, is scheduled to last until March 6th of 2011.

In this project Javier Tapia will present an all over installation who aims to create a metaphorical space, commenting in aspects of the human condition and its struggles of ambition, weather they are mental or physical. In order to build up this work, Javier Tapia is using mixed narrations; the first one is a direct reference to mountain climbing, more specifically, the climbing of mount Aconcagua, located in Chile, combined with the legend of El Dorado, used by aborigines in the Americas by the time the Conquerors of the New World arrived back in 1492.

The installation is combining mixed elements of theatrical scenography with aspects of scale model making, all together with sounds and light effects. The work invites the viewer to enter a pseudo monument, or a reference to a museum of natural history, where a sort of an ambiguous drama is being remembered and portrayed.

Javier Tapia was born in Santiago, Chile in 1972, and has been living in Europe since 1999. His education in Fine Arts has taken him to the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona between 1999 and 2001 and to a 6 years MFA program at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts between 2004 and 2010. In 2009 he was invited by UCLA to follow the program lead by Prof. Mary Kelly (US), where he had the chance to open his work to the artistic community of Los Angeles.

The exhibition is an initiative of the board members of WPA and is sponsored by the Danish Arts Council.

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

THE ARCHAIC REVIVAL | Amy Sarkisian, Charles Irvin

THE ARCHAIC REVIVAL
Curated by Dani Tull

CHROMIUM DUMB BELLE
ALISON BLICKLE
TRACY CONTI & STEPHEN MCCARTY
LIZ CRAFT
SARAH CROMARTY
MICHAEL DECKER
FRANCESCA GABBIANI
WENDELL GLADSTONE
PEARL C. HSIUNG
CHARLES IRVIN
PENTTI MONKKONEN
SANDEEP MUKHERJEE
ALIA PENNER
BRIAN RANDOLPH
EWOUD VAN RIJN
EDDIE RUSCHA
AMY SARKISIAN
ALLISON SCHULNIK
ANNA SEW HOY
MINDY SHAPERO
JIM SHAW
LAURIE STEELINK
THADDEUS STRODE
OWLEYES "JAMES" WEIGEL
LANDON WIGGS
MARNIE WEBER

The exhibition will also feature special musical performances and ceremonial happenings.

Archaic Revival Events:
Jan 29th “Mujical” performance by Featherbeard at the opening

Feb 4th Oracle readings by Maja D’aoust and “Spectral Psychography” by Christian Cummings and Michael Decker

Feb 12th Ceremonial Earth Acupuncture Dream Journey by Urban Shaman Eric Baumgartner
TBA The Entrance Band

Special thanks to Amanda Kobritz.

OPENING RECEPTION Saturday, January 29, 7-10pm
CLOSE Saturday, February 26
GALLERY HOURS Wednesday - Saturday, Noon-6 pm

Las Cienegas Projects
2045 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034

The Archaic Revival from YDGN Productions on Vimeo.

John Pearson | Kristi Engle Gallery

TBA: A Group Video Exhibition in 7 Parts Dec 1 - Feb 18
John Pearson Jan 23 -29

	Kristi Engle Gallery 5002 York Ave. Highland Park, CA 90042 323.258.2385 Thursday, Friday, and Saturday: 12 to 6 pm or by appointment

Collective Show | WPA

COLLECTIVE SHOW LAUNCHES LOS ANGELES EXHIBITION
Los Angeles, CA – January 7, 2011 – Collective Show is pleased to present “Collective Show Los Angeles 2011,” an artist-organized exhibition of contemporary art groups recently established in Los Angeles. This collaboratively curated “group show of group shows” features artist-run spaces and projects formed in the past five years.
Previously realized in New York in 2009 and 2010, Collective Show exhibits local art groups that work in a growing space between established non-profit organizations and commercial galleries. These groups explore a wide range of collaborative approaches and missions, often in flexible and adaptive conditions with an emphasis on communities and conversations.

Over 30 groups will exhibit artwork, publications and posters during the show at a newly renovated space in Chinatown. In addition, screenings, performances and talks will take place during the exhibition. A catalogue will accompany the exhibition and will be available at www.collectiveshow.org/LA

Participating groups include: 323 Projects, Actual Size Los Angeles, Adrian Piper Gallery, Artist Curated Projects, CANAL, Commonwealth and Council, CUBO, Dan Graham, Ditch Projects, Eighteen Thirty Collaborations (ETC), Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0 *particle group* b.a.n.g. lab, Elephant, The Elysian Park Museum of Art, Eternal Telethon, Gibsmir Family, Human Resources, JMoca (Justin’s Museum of Contemporary Art), LA Pedestrians, Los Angeles Road Concerts, MATERIAL, [Name], NIGHT GALLERY, Public Address, Public Fiction, The Public School, S1F, secondhome projects, Silvershed, Statler Waldorf Gallery, Summer Camp, Workspace, WPA, and guest groups from Zurich and Berlin.

Collective Show Los Angeles 2011 is organized by artist groups ACP (Artist Curated Projects), Human Resources, Name, Night Gallery, Public Fiction, The Public School, Silvershed, Statler Waldorf Gallery and Workspace. Collective Show was founded by collaborators from New York and Los Angeles, and aims to further creative relationships by providing an open-source format for locally organized shows. Collective Show is not-for-profit, volunteer organized, and is free and open to the public. To learn more about Collective Show, please visit us online at www.collectiveshow.org

***
Public Hours Opening Reception: Thursday, January 20, 2011, 6-9pm Exhibition Hours: Friday, January 21 to Sunday, January 23, 2011, 12-6 pm and Thursday, January 27 through Sunday, January 30, 2011, 12-6 pm

Location
995, 997 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012

Bart Exposito | @ Thomas Solomon Gallery

Thomas Solomon Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new works on paper by Los Angeles artist BART EXPOSITO. This is the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. The show will open at Thomas Solomon Gallery with a reception for the artist on Friday January 21st, 6 – 8 PM at 427 Bernard Street, Chinatown, Los Angeles.

Considered one of the most well regarded painters of his generation, Exposito has developed and maintained a unique voice in the milieu of abstraction. For more than a decade he has produced beautiful, subtle, intelligent works that evoke design and architecture, as well as nod to the hard-edged abstraction of his predecessors. After years of painting and drawing on parallel trajectories, in 2009/10 the artist turned his attention to paper as a distinct medium, elevated from its often subordinate position within the art hierarchy that privileges ephemera and concept within the contemporary dialogue. "Paper Primitives" as an exhibition title implies that drawings are preparatory, “primitive” paintings; but also alludes to characteristics of history and language, unaffected, original, not derivative of another form. Rather than subject his practice to a bifurcation between “study” and final work, Exposito has developed a technique and mastery of material that produces works on any scale, on canvas or paper, that share the same DNA. Using both wet and dry media in harmonious partnership and to wonderful formal effect, painting is revealed as drawing and drawing is revealed as painting, and the traditional lines between them begin to dissolve. Yet the immediacy and purity of the medium, however, signify that drawing is, as the exhibition title proposes, the form from which all others have been derived. The exhibition will include a collection of new works (all 2010/11), mostly on paper, and for the first time preparatory studies, inviting the viewer for the first time into his practice. The installation will carry the viewer from pencil sketches – the most immediate and perhaps most pure works an artist can create – to mature, exquisitely rendered images in acrylic and pastel on paper and canvas. Themes of landscape, architecture and figuration will be visible throughout, and formal and conceptual connections will be made across works in all media.

Bart Exposito was born in Amarillo, Texas. 
He received his BFA from the University of Texas, Austin (1998) and MFA from California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA (2000). He has exhibited nationally in galleries and museums including the Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, California; University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles; Black Dragon Society, Los Angeles; Creative Artists Agency, Los Angeles; Claremont Graduate University; Galerie Grimm/Rosenfeld, Münich, Germany; and Galerie für Gegenwartskunst, Bremen, Germany. In 2009, Exposito was included in the exhibition Abstract America at the Saatchi Gallery, London (catalogue). Public collections include Bank of America, Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Ohio and Saatchi Gallery, London. Bart Exposito lives and works in Los Angeles.

Charles Irvin | Opening

Charles Irvin | Ride the Fantasy
January 8 - February 5
Opening Reception Saturday, January 8th 7-10pm

Come with me take my hand we will see
Right here now is a place that is free
What you feel to be real is your right
Happiness is hidden in plain sight

Ride the Fantasy is Irvin's second show at WPA and features recent paintings and prints.

The message is mystical, the medium is physical.
Stuff of the earth, depict signs of the birth
of the Aquarian Age.

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