Group Show : A Cloth Over a Birdcage @ Chateau Shatto In Los Angeles

In 1974, American poet John Ashbery composed a long form ekphrastic lyric occasioned by the painting, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, by the minor late Renaissance master, Parmigianino. The original circular composition was meticulously rendered in 1524 on a convex panel whose diameter measured no more than 24.4cm, or just shy of ten inches. With its extravagantly curved perspectives, this remains a virtuosic feat of the medium made more so by being performed on such a tightly delimited stage.  

It was for this reason that Ashbery found therein not an enigma but a pearl – a concise distillation of the plight of the artist whose hand is distorted by the world even as he, in turn, seeks to distort it by capturing its reflection. It is a chiasmic conundrum with the inward pull of a compact atomic core.

In its totality, Ashbery’s words would come to encompass a surface-area that far exceeds Parmigianino’s diminutive masterwork. Through that medallion-like portal he enters into expansive ruminations that span questions of memory, pathos and empathy all the while outlining a sweetly abbreviated ontology. As he writes:

But it is life englobed.
One would like to stick one’s hand
Out of the globe, but its dimension,
What carries it, will not allow it.

The artists in Château Shatto’s forthcoming exhibition share Ashbery and Parmiagianino’s affinity for revelations in miniature guises. Their output ranges from the modestly scaled to the truly petite and they embrace this limitation for their own idiosyncratic reasons. Some uncover respite from the heroic demands of the monumental; others an opportunity to work through ideas and impulses to be articulated later in a distended tableau. Some find purpose in offering peeks of private inner worlds or are galvanized by the economy of restrained abstraction; while others still harness the gravitational pull of locket-size images which are almost devotional in their allure.  Whatever their instinct, they craft ‘superficial but visible cores’ that propose an entirely different type of viewing. Arresting in their potency, these works demand an embodied and sustained perusal that, at its best, draws the viewer in slowly and deliberately not unlike thread through a needle’s eye. A Cloth Over a Birdcage is on view through September 7 at Chateau Shatto 1206 S. Maple Ave, Suite 1030, Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of the gallery

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.

10 Art Shows To See In Los Angeles Right Now

1. Forbidden Fruit, a solo exhibition of neon and sculptural works by Patrick Martinez at New Image Art 2. Rainbow Body, a solo exhibition of rainbow splashed canvases by Millie Brown on view at 8473 Melrose Place 3. A Lil Taste of Cheeto in the Night, Parker Ito crams in canvases and sculptural renderings at Chateau Shatto 4. Grounds and Figures, Diana Al Hadid shows her mylar sculptures at OHWOW 5. Jerry Hsu presents some of his 'Nazi Gold' for A Love Like Mine Is Hard to Find at Slow Culture 6. Tomoo Gokita shows some of his strange and beautiful portraits for Besame Mucho at Honor Fraser 7. Andrew Gbur shows some of his Face Paintings at the Team Gallery bungalow in Venice Beach 8. Alien Flowers, an exhibition of exciting works by Joseph Arthur at Gallery Go 9. Glen Ligon says goodbye figuratively and literally at his exhibition ending this week at Regen Projects 10. Eric Stanton and foot fetishist Elmer Batters (long dead) get weird at the Taschen Books gallery