Robert Colescott's "Women" Opens @ Venus Over Manhattan

Robert Colescott: Women traces the development of the artist’s depictions of female subjects over the course of his sixty-year career. Serving as a coda to the recent, critically-lauded traveling museum retrospective Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott, this presentation charts the evolution of Colescott’s ambitious practice through some thirty works produced between 1955 and 1996. Organized in close collaboration with The Robert H. Colescott Separate Property Trust, Venus Over Manhattan’s exhibition is the first to trace the development of Colescott’s representations of women through major works from key moments in his career.

Robert Colescott: Women will be on view at Venus Over Manhattan’s downtown location at 55 Great Jones Street from November 15, 2022 through January 14, 2023.

 
 

"Concrete Island" Group Exhibition @ Venus Los Angeles

"Welcome to Concrete Island: an overlooked city within a city, an entropical paradise where leisure is lean. Careen off the highway and into the cushion of your airbag to arrive at this bleak no man’s land, where you’ll be marooned in plain sight. No one will hear your cries against the tide of commuter traffic lapping at the shores of our deserted island, nestled between two lanes of howling interstate. This vestigial location is your vacation destination, boasting all the sights and specificities of any cultural petri dish. Come and brave this new world. This here and now – this moment – could last forever." Concrete Island, the first curatorial effort of Aaron Moulton, brings together over thirty mostly LA-based artists who have worked around the theme of JG Ballard's book Concrete Island (1974). Ballard’s tale reinterprets the contemporary city as a savage ecosystem where survival is an avant-garde condition. The protagonist is thrown from his urban reality to be marooned on a desert island in the middle of the city. The character is forced to endure a Robinson Crusoe-esque journey emulating humankind’s will to survive in the face of adversity. Concrete Island will be on view until May 13, 2017 at Venus Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Billy Al Bengston's Motorcycle Paintings Exhibition @ Venus Over Manhattan in New York

Venus Over Manhattan gallery is exhibiting both old and new works by legendary L.A. artist Billy Al Bengston. The show features 12 paintings from the “B.S.A Motorcycle” series from the 60s, where various motorcycle parts are isolated and presented on the canvas against abstract backgrounds. These paintings made Bengston a voice to be reckoned with in the Pop Art movement and appeared in the 1974 American Pop Art exhibition at the Whitney. Also included in the exhibition is the original motorcycle that inspired the series. Bengston’s new works that are on display feature his signature Chrevron motif in piercing blue tones. In true Pop Art manner, he originally painted the Chevron logo with lacquered spray paints, being one of the first artists to trade in the traditional oil on canvas back in the 60s. In his new pieces, however, Bengston comes full circle by using acrylic on canvas and leaving the glossy Pop Art behind for a softer finish.  The exhibition will be on view until November 2, 2016 at Venus Over Manhattan in New York. text and photographs by Helena Calmfors

Adel Abdessemed "From Here to Eternity" @ Venus Over Los Angeles

Venus Over Los Angeles presents From Here to Eternity, an exhibition of new work by Adel Abdessemed. The exhibition is his first major show in Los Angeles and features a series of nearly 100 black stone drawings on paper and military tarpaulin. Adel Abdessemed’s new series is named for the famous 1953 film best known for the scene in which Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kiss passionately on the beach as waves crash over them. As a child in Algeria, Abdessemed viewed such western films under the edit and strict censorship of the Algerian government, who cut out any scene that portrayed physical contact between the sexes. Abdessemed is known for embracing themes of history, religion, and politics in his artworks. Though perhaps best known for his video, sculptural, and conceptual art, Abdessemed has chosen to distinguish his Los Angeles debut show by exclusively exhibiting drawings on paper and military tarpaulin. From Here to Eternity will be on view until December 20th, 2015 at Venus Over Los Angeles, 601 South Anderson Street, Los Angeles, CA

Here Are 11 Things You Need To Know About the Artist H.C. Westermann Before Seeing His Retrospective in New York →

"See America First," a comprehensive exhibition of sculptures and drawings by the late, great H.C. Westermann, is on view now at Venus Over Manhattan. The installation features a wide range of Westermann's work, spanning from 1953 to 1980. Clock here to read eleven things  about the artist before seeing the exhibition. 

Dan McCarthy's Psychedelic Ceramic Sculptures On View Now @ Venus Over Los Angeles

Venus Over Los Angeles presents a new, exciting batch of ceramic sculptures and paintings by Dan McCarthy. The Facepots are the largest the artist has created to date, some weighing in at over 75 pounds. Also on view is a series of new paintings--lightning bolts, clouds, and rainbows paired with Haiku-style speech bubbles that illustrate the artist's California upbringing. On view until November 1 2015 at Venus Over Los Angeles, 601 South Anderson Street, Los Angeles.

Katherine Bernhardt: Fruit Salad @ Venus Over Los Angeles

Venus Over Los Angeles presents, Katherine Bernhardt: Fruit Salad, a large mural covering the exterior walls of the L.A. gallery; a public iteration of her signature wildly colorful still life patterned paintings. Fruit Salad will serve both as Katherine Bernhardt’s first foray into executing a public mural, and as a prelude to her upcoming solo exhibition at Venus Over Manhattan in September. Katherine Bernhardt’s recent series of paintings offer vibrant portraits of objects that exemplify the casually quotidian in acrylic and spray paint. She covers her canvases with a painterly hodgepodge of commodity items such as fruit, cigarettes, junk food, and objects of New York’s day-to-day that float against richly colored, striking backgrounds that themselves seem to push forward and demand the viewer’s attention. The patterns emerge without source material, purely from the artist’s thoughts and imagination, and driven by her experiences. With this in mind, the pieces become part of a larger portrait of the artist herself to be pieced together by the viewer. The often times random assortment of objects relate to one another in a way that is presumably deeply personal to Bernhardt herself. In fine Los Angeles fashion, the exhibition will be on view indefinitely. photographs by Sara Clarken 

Dan Colen 'Viscera' Opening at Venus Over Los Angeles

Venus Over Los Angeles presents Viscera, an exhibition of three new bodies of work by Dan Colen in the gallery's incredible new location in Downtown L.A.'s arts district. Each element in Viscera elicits questions about the behavior of physical forms as they come into contact with metaphysical experience. An exhibition highlight, "Canopics" is a series of sculptures cast from the negative space formed by roadside guardrails mangled in automobile accidents. The series title refers to basins used in ancient Egyptian burial ceremonies to contain the viscera, or vital organs, of the dead. As with Colen’s "Miracle" series, "Rainbow Paintings" are based on stills from Fantasia (1940), which the artist sees as Disney’s most abstract film, whose vignettes “address the many guises of creation itself.” There is also a unique sound element Psychics (Interstellar Medium?, which is comprised of a series of recorded psychic readings, documented over a ten-month period beginning in the summer of 2014. Viscera will be on view until June 27th, 2015 at Venus Over Los Angeles, 601 South Anderson Street, Los Angeles, CA.