Hannah Greely is known for her imaginative sculptures of commonplace objects that teeter on the edge of the absurd, the artist’s works are simultaneously imbued with a sense of ambiguity and humor, fantasy and reality. At turns uncanny and surreal, Greely’s subjects are both of and outside of this world. For this exhibition, the artist has created a colorful environment in which distinct works can be read in a loose narrative. Among the works on view are a standalone door, whose knobs, hinges, nails, and accessories are inlaid into the surface, denying the structure its traditional functionality. Elsewhere, suggestions of the home and built environment are echoed in a tabletop vase with flowers and wilted tools. Here, the vase becomes a domestic toolbox in which all elements playfully conform to the logic of plant life. Parker Gallery is open Thursday–Saturday, 12–6pm and by appointment. photographs courtesy of Parker Gallery
Hammer Projects Present: Max Hooper Schneider @ Hammer Museum In Los Angeles
Artists are often likened to inventors or scientists, and in the case of Max Hooper Schneider the comparison is more than metaphoric. Schneider’s background in landscape architecture and marine biology strongly informs his artwork. Research and scientific investigation are key to his process. He explores the relationships between philosophy and nature, the personal and the political, destruction and construction, and what he calls nonhuman and human agents. Blending his diverse areas of expertise, his idiosyncratic sculptures, installations, and drawings challenge conventional systems of classification, suggesting a worldview that strives to dislocate humans from their assumed position of centrality and superiority as knowers and actors in the world. Schneider created a new immersive installation for his Hammer Projects exhibition, his first solo museum show. The exhibition is on view through September 1 at the Hammer Museum 10899 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of the gallery
Wendy White Presents "Racetrack Playa" @ Shulamit Nazarian In Los Angeles
Wendy White’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, Racetrack Playa, features new paintings, sculptures, pigment prints, and a site-specific installation. The exhibition takes its name from a three-mile dry lakebed in Death Valley National Park where sliding rocks or “sailing stones” have inscribed mysterious linear imprints on the landscape. Using this scarred landscape as a metaphor for our current times, the works in Racetrack Playa explore power, entitlement, and imperialism via the aesthetics and evolution of American car culture. Racetrack Playa is on view through May 25 at Shulamit Nazarian 616 N La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
Leah Guadagnoli Presents "Soft Violence" @ Asya Geisberg Gallery In New York
Soft Violence is an exhibition of sculptural paintings by Leah Guadagnoli. With a sparer touch than her prior work, the artist has presented a sort of exaggerated logo, a calling card of absurd proportions, with textured panels, upholstered shapes, and painted canvas uniting to form a streamlined rectangular result. Whereas her recent work incorporated digitally-printed patterns on fabric and eclectic juxtapositions, this series has a reined-in seriousness that belies gaudy Miami sunsets and remaining hints of "Saved by the Bell", and its heightened simplicity acts as a cohesive statement on abstraction's potential as graphic power. The images seem familiar, but they are a design for a non-existent entity - fully empty, thwarting connection. Soft Violence is on view through February 16 at Asya Geisberg Gallery 537b West 23rd Street, New York. photographs courtesy of Asya Geisberg Gallery