Materiality is the Impetus of Perrotin's Pacific Abstractions in Los Angeles

text by Mia Milosevic

Materiality lays at the center of Perrotin’s Pacific Abstractions. The use of material fluctuates between artists, but the physicality of abstraction remains distinctly intact. 

Lee Bae uses five different forms of wood to construct his charcoal ink on paper. An ode to movement embodies the work, where motion is inextricable from risk. Each charcoal stroke is entirely reliant on the mobility of Lee’s artistic hand—no gray-hued ribbon is ever erased or redone. The movement of material is the final product. 

Naotaka Hiro’s corporeal paintings are imbued with a kind of where-the-wild-things-are sexual innuendo. The work’s technicalities deconstruct the body, and then reinstate it with a phallic abstraction that is just discernible enough to make the body knowable. Two perfect, symmetrical holes perforate the bottom of his Untitled (Uproar). These circular lesions mark the negative space the artist inserted his legs into as a processual requirement. The alteration of the canvas threatens prescribed limitations of material—Hiro’s anatomical segmenting shatters the fourth wall of space. 

Kazuo Kadonaga’s Wood No. 5 Cl is an intricately constructed log made from paper-thin slices of real wood. The veneer slicer he used to create these vellums pays homage to his upbringing in forestry. The trunk’s growth rings explicitly mimic the surreality of Earth’s extraordinary constructions, made with the caliber of precision and detail generally credited to the hands of the divine. Alas, we may come to question Kadonaga’s mortal statehood. The portrait of an axed tree excavates a visceral reaction: Should we mourn the losses wrought by Big Paper or must we instead celebrate post-natural invention? By virtue of materiality, reincarnation is imminent. 

Pacific Abstractions is on view through November 9 @ Perrotin in Los Angeles, 5036 W Pico Blvd

Melanie Baker's The Optimates @ Cristin Tierney in New York

The Optimates presents three distinct scenes: a person stands at a podium; a man, seen from behind, speaks to someone unknown; and a group of men huddle in conversation at a window. The works are large in scale; some exceed life-size. All are made with charcoal, graphite and pigment on paper. Two are mounted on panels, and the other is presented loose, pinned to the wall.

Baker crops her images to draw attention to specific details. It isn’t immediately apparent in every work who the subject is, but signifiers indicate the immense power the subject wields. They wear dark suits and crisp white shirts, and several are pictured in richly adorned rooms. These are the people, we are meant to intuit, who possess wealth, class, and authority. They are also, clearly, all middle-aged or older white men, and Baker provides just enough context clues to suggest that they are either the focus of attention, or the ones cutting the back room deal. The exhibition title is a further nod to their status; the Optimates in ancient Rome were conservatives who favored rule by oligarchy and opposed immigration and assistance for the urban poor.

The Optimates will be on view throughout February 22 at Cristin Tierney 219 Bowery, Floor 2 New York, NY. photographs courtesy of the gallery

The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles Presents Paul McCarthy: Head Space, Drawings 1963–2019

The first comprehensive survey in the United States of drawings and works on paper by the Los Angeles–based artist Paul McCarthy (b. 1945, Salt Lake City), Paul McCarthy: Head Space, Drawings 1963–2019, reveals a rarely examined aspect of the artist’s oeuvre. Produced in thematic cycles, McCarthy’s drawings share the same visual language as the artist’s sculptural and performance works, addressing themes of violence, humor, death, sex, and politics, and featuring extensive art historical and pop-cultural references. By presenting his expansive career of more than five decades through the focused lens of drawing, the exhibition offers a greater understanding of this influential artist and social commentator.

Paul McCarthy: Head Space, Drawings 1963–2019 features 600 works on paper selected from McCarthy’s archive. The works incorporate and utilize a variety of mediums, including charcoal, graphite, ink, marker, and collage, as well as more unorthodox materials such as ketchup and peanut butter. A consummate and accomplished draftsperson, McCarthy approaches his daily drawing practice as a way of thinking—a blueprint for projects and a tool to flesh out complex ideas. Since the 1970s, McCarthy has also incorporated drawing into his performances, implementing it as part of an action and often drawing in character. In recent years, this practice of drawing in character has become central to his large-scale video performance projects, such as WS White Snow (2012–13), CSSC Coach Stage Stage Coach (2017), and NV Night Vater (2019–). In a process McCarthy terms “Life Drawing, Drawing Sessions” the artist and his actors produce drawings in costume among the props and simulacrum of his film sets. These works bring together the materials and crude gestures that have been present in the artist’s work for the greater part of his career.

Paul McCarthy: Head Space, Drawings 1963–2019 will be on view throughout May 10, 2020 at The Hammer Museum 10899 Wilshire Boulevard Los Angeles, CA. photographs courtesy of the gallery

Dorothea Tanning: Worlds In Collision @ Alison Jacques Gallery In London

Alison Jacques Gallery is pleased to announce the solo exhibition Dorothea Tanning: Worlds in Collision. The exhibition features a rarely displayed body of late work dating from 1981 to 1989, which is being shown together for the first time in the United Kingdom. It includes large scale works on paper in media as varied as graphite, charcoal, crayon, watercolour, gouache, and collage, many of which focus on imagery of the bicycle which preoccupied Tanning at this time. The exhibition coincides with the publication of the monograph Dorothea Tanning: Transformations by Victoria Carruthers, which will be released by Lund Humphries on 31 January 2020.

Worlds in Collision will be on view through March 21, 2020 @ Alison Jacques Gallery 16-18 Berners St. London W1T 3LN. photographs courtesy of the gallery

Lee Krasner: Living Colour @ Barbican Art Gallery in London

The first European retrospective of Lee Krasner’s work in over fifty years is now showing at the Barbican Art Gallery in London. Lee Krasner: Living Colour features nearly 100 works made throughout the artist’s career, including self-portraits, energetic charcoal life drawings, as well as her acclaimed “Little Image” paintings. As one of the pioneers of Abstract Expressionism, Krasner created pieces reflecting the feeling of possibility and the spirit of experimentation in post-war New York. Krasner’s talents have often been eclipsed by her marriage to Jackson Pollock, however, this exhibition celebrates the career of a formidable artist dedicated to her dynamic, abstracted vision.

Lee Krasner: Living Colour is on view through September 1 at Barbican Art Gallery Barbican Centre, Silk St, London. photographs courtesy of Barbican Art Gallery