Amanda Turner Pohan's Maize Meditation Contemplates The Future Of Corn, Presented By Overnight Projects

Overnight Projects presents Maize Meditation, a performative installation by New York based-artist Amanda Turner Pohan at McCarthy Art Gallery in Colchester, Vermont. For the month of September, Pohan will transform the McCarthy Art Gallery at Saint Michael’s College into a library of archival materials documenting a timeline of corn cultivation, from the agricultural practices of members of the Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation of Vermont to the rise of American agricultural biotech corporations. To mark the final year of harvest of the 66 acre cornfield leased from St. Michael's by a local farmer, this project invites participants to attend an event in the gallery on the weekend of the fall equinox. This event will draw connections between Native agricultural practices and the techniques that produce the genetically modified corn consumed today.

ART REVIEW: Jonny Negron @ Chateau Shatto Gallery in Los Angeles

 
 

From afar, Jonny Negron’s paintings at Chateau Shatto are not unlike tastefully illustrated advertisements for some unnamed tropical paradise. Look closer at these picturesque scenes, though, and it becomes clear that “Small Map of Heaven” documents waters engulfed with trash, beachgoers undergoing trauma, and a faded pink bathroom as a site for tears.

The Puerto Rican born, Brooklyn-based artist references the delayed response to the destruction in Hurricane Maria’s wake. An abundance of flora envelops the gouache paintings. Although beautiful, these omnipresent plants swarm and tighten their grip on whatever is in their way, suggesting nature’s revanchist desires in an era of climate change.

Negron, who has a background in comic book illustration, cites Japanese woodblock prints, or ukiyo-e, as inspiration. In Generator, a submerged spectre faces a Champion generator on the ocean floor, peering at the one device, now useless, that could have saved it’s flesh and bones. Hints of the 18th-century artist Maruyama Okyo’s woodblock prints of yurei (ghosts) come to mind.

Like the apprehensive face in Paul Gauguin’s gouache painting Breton Girl By the Sea, the windswept shore and balmy night in Bonus reminds us that often no setting, no matter how idyllic, can brighten whatever internal issue eats at us. The cartoonishly-chiseled man, eyes focused nowhere, sits on the beach in a daze.

A man weeps in a cloying bathroom in To Live and Die in LA, grasping the same plants that have been present in the other waterlogged paintings as puddles of water sparkle on the tile floor. Los Angeles, too, experiences destruction--albeit from fires due to forest encroachment and rampant home-building.

Water is always present throughout “Small Map of Heaven”--although it can offer relief from the debris and destruction on land, it is also the source of such peril.

“Small Map of Heaven” runs from July 14th - September 1st, 2018 at Chateau Shatto (1206 S. Maple Ave, Suite 1030, Los Angeles, CA, 90015)


Liam Casey is a freelance writer, researcher and DJ from Los Angeles. In addition to being a contributor for Berlin Art Link, he also has a background in housing and urban planning, co-developing a think-tank on Los Angeles’ housing crisis. He is also a co-organizer and resident of the queer collective Bubbles.


Tyler Matthew Oyer Launches “Calling All Divas” Print Edition @ Oof Books

OOF Books hosts the launch of Tyler Matthew Oyer's CALLING ALL DIVAS print edition. An installation in the bookstore was accompanied by a reading and screening event on Friday, August 10. The poems are reflections on / conversations with queer, femme, HIV+ radical inspiring individuals. This edition is made up of poems for Kembra Pfahler, Ron Athey, James Baldwin, Paul Thek, Grace Jones + Keith Haring, Jack Smith, Charles Ludlam, and David Wojnarowicz. These works dance with themes of legacy, inheritance, fandom, idol worship, archiving and tenderness. photographs by Lani Trock

"Separation" Group Show @ Tin Flats In Los Angeles

Separation is a group show fueled by the trauma unfolding at our borders. AVA has invited artists to respond to the border crisis and examines different ways separation has existed as a political strategy in American history. "Separation" is on view through August 26th at Tin Flats 1989 Blake Avenue, Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock

Maceo Paisley And Katie Malia Present Line Steppers @ Marciano Foundation

Line Steppers, a performance by Maceo Paisley and Katie Malia, unfolds within Albert Oehlen/Peppi Bottrop: Line Packers”. Paisley and Malia’s navigation of a social space in the gallery adds a layer of commentary on labor versus expression in the world of art and entertainment. Curated by Brian Getnick. photographs by Lani Trock

Group Show “How They Ran” @ Over The Influence

Taking the name from the second chapter of Germaine Greer’s landmark text “The Obstacle Race” from 1979, “How They Ran” brings together a selected group of LA-based artists whose diverse practices represent the heartbeat of the Los Angeles art scene today. Greer’s book presented an art historical account of artists who are missing from academic literature and how they overcame historical obstacles to achieve notoriety anyway. Through this lens, Over the Influence will present a group exhibition of LA-based artists from different backgrounds, practices, and generations. "How They Ran" is on view through September 5th at Over The Influence 833 East 3rd Street Los Angelesphotographs by Lani Trock

Beside Myself Group Show Opens @ JTT In New York

Through their very gothic and physical imagery of mutation, fragmentation, disintegration and masquerade, the works in Beside Myself position themselves as objects in opposition to the self-same body; by presenting themselves as its shadow. This show demonstrate the ways in which art maintains not just the historical but also the magical ability to conceive of expansive and malleable identities in the midst of all those that society and culture prescribe. Beside Me is on view through August 3rd at JTT Gallery 191 Chrystie Street New York. photographs by Adam Lehrer

Dennis Koch Solo Exhibition @ Luis de Jesus in Los Angeles

Beyond the Funny Farm! Crypto-K, Cutouts, Cut-ups, Copies, Mirrors, Membranes, and Temporal Algorithms marks Dennis Koch's third solo exhibition with Luis de Jesus. In this exhibition, Koch creates a mind-map of relationships that find, build, and amplify meaning in the form of sculptures and drawings. Wooden newsstand-like sculptures display 100 vintage copies of LIFE magazine, each carved page by page to reveal interior images. Known as the first all-photographic American news magazine, LIFE revitalized itself during the 1960s in response to the popularity of television media. Koch's interest in LIFE as a cultural artifact stems from a time-parallel between contemporary political upheaval and the equally tumultuous events of the 1960s. The exhibition is on view through July 28 at Luis de Jesus 2685 S La Cienega Blvd. Los Angeles. photographs by Summer Bowie

Third Magazine Celebrates Launch With TRIO @ ICALA

TRIO showcases three modalities of performance in music, art, and dance that reflect the diversity of POC and queer voices championed by Third—a magazine and public programming initiative that fosters conversations and collaborations among experimental artists. TRIO is the inaugural event for Third Presents, a series of live events at various partner sites.

  • AKUA is a musician, singer, songwriter, and producer based in Los Angeles. Canada-born with Ghanaian roots, AKUA has moved beyond the experience as Solange’s former background singer to establish her own hypnotic sound. Her new record Them Spirits will be released this Fall.
  • Samantha Blake Goodman is an interdisciplinary choreographer and community organizer. She is the founder of MAPS (Movement Arts Performance Space) dedicated to cultivating the contemporary and traditional arts of the Afro-Latinx and Caribbean diaspora in Los Angeles.
  • Sebastian Hernandez is a multidisciplinary artist whose works range from drawings to video to performance. They cultivate an embedded connection to their indigenous Aztec/Mexica heritage and the history of the brown body in relation to the U.S.–Mexico borderland. Sebastian’s latest work Hypanthium will be featured in the upcoming NOW Festival at REDCAT.

photographs by Lani Trock

Drake Carr Presents "Gulp" @ The Hole In New York

Drake Carr presents Gulp, a new series of figurative sculptures composed in two parts. Like the composition of an album, Carr’s sculptural ensemble segues between genres, time signatures, and themes to populate a scene built of multiple tracks. Irregularities in scale and texture animate and describe the boundaries between each of the figures, casting kaleidoscopic patterning as the crux of the soiree’s representational and interpersonal logic. Stuffed and dressed, bodysuits and armatures shuffle and skip (like a scratched CD) in a warp of orientations. Gulp is on view through August 12th at The Hole 312 Bowery New York. photographs by Adam Lehrer

Aaron Fowler's "Donkey Nights" @ Salon 94 Bowery In New York

Donkey Nights is an exhibition of new work by St. Louis native, Aaron Fowler. His massive, theatrical assemblage-paintings, made from discarded objects and unconventional materials, are sourced from his local surroundings. Through a layering of castoff furniture, paint, and collaged elements including iridescent CDs, mirror shards, wigs, water bottles, LED lights and sneakers, Fowler meticulously constructs his altar-like tableaux.  Religious icon painting comes to mind as do the combines of Robert Rauschenberg. In each of his layered, embellished works, Fowler constructs a personal narrative, both real and imagined, which comes alive through the materials he so carefully chooses and the subjects he celebrates. Portraits of the recently deceased, depictions of incarcerated family members, memorials to friends lost in acts of violence populate his work, as do fantastical scenarios incorporating historical figures, role models, and current public figures. Donkey Nights is on view through August 10th at Salon 94 Bowery, 243 Bowery New York. photographs by Adam Lehrer

Opening Of Homestead @ OOF Books in los angeles

OOF Books presents "Homestead": a solo show featuring the work of artist and sculptor Chris Zickefoose. Zickefoose utilizes materials made readily available due to rapid development. In the Mojave desert there is a transformation occurring—old homestead cabins are being demolished or renovated in order to accommodate a growing desire to occupy the Joshua Tree area. Architectural debris piles up on these re-developed properties. Homestead encapsulates these fragments, paying homage to the past while also welcoming the future. Zickefoose removes the found materials from their context, allowing them to transcend themselves and take on a metaphysical utility. His sculptures challenge the ways in which we assign meaning and value to the physical world. Homestead is open through August 5th 2018 @ OOF Books, 912A Cypress Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90065, Photos by Lani Trock. 

Fourth Annual MAK Games @ The John Lautner Designed Sheats-Goldstein Residence In Los Angeles

The MAK Games features semi-finals and final tennis tournament matches, followed by a Pro-Am match, followed by a dance party in the incomparable “Club James” hidden below the infinity tennis court. The players come from the worlds of art, design, architecture, and entertainment. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper