As Adam McEwen’s title suggests, anxiety resides even in the most common images and objects. His art draws attention to the vestigial dramas of daily life; the forgotten is memorialized, the subliminal laid bare. Narrative flow is tempting to seek yet impossible to find. See more exhibition images here. "Nighthorses" is on view through June 9 at Gagosian Gallery 456 North Camden Drive Beverly Hills. photograph by Oliver Kupper
BEYOND THE STREETS (BTS) is the premier exhibition of graffiti, street art and beyond, celebrating the soaring heights to which the world’s most recognizable modern art movement has risen. BTS is a groundbreaking multimedia showcase of paintings, sculpture, photography, installations and more throughout 40,000+ sq ft of industrial indoor and outdoor space. The exhibition is curated by Roger Gastman, with additional curation by Evan Pricco, Caleb Neelon, and David Villorente. Beyond the Streets is on view through through July 6 at Werkartz 1667 N. Main Street, Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Kupper
Mindy Shapero’s anthropomorphic sculptures are like figures emerging from such night visions. Imagined though also strangely familiar, her large-scale works are totemic, suggesting archeological ruins or manifestations of Jungian archetypes. Made with humble materials like spray paint and bits of hand-painted cut paper alongside more opulent materials like richly pigmented felt and gold leaf, it is Shapero’s aesthetics of relentless accumulation that give her works their energy, as hundreds upon thousands of tiny bits grow into human and architecturally scaled objects. Portals and radiating forms, concentric rings and infinite stripes, a hypnagogic hallucination of shapes and colors beckon us into what might be the artist’s dreaming mind turned inside out in a flash of infinity. Second Sleep is on view through June 10 at The Pit 918 Ruberta Avenue, Glendale. photographs by Lani Trock
In Venusian Weather, Nye explores humanity’s struggle to control its relationship with nature via the Andromedans’ perception of environmental disaster on Earth. As a student of mythology and science fiction alike, Nye looks both backward and forward, challenging the notion of linear time in the centerpiece of Venusian Weather, an architecturally-scaled, cosmographical frieze that describes what is and what has been at stake on Earth through the Andromedan gaze. Inspired by Mark von Schlegell’s 2005 novel Venusia, Nye portrays the world as a hologram, represented in her paintings as gridded non-spaces that recall Star Trek’s holodeck virtual reality environments. The grids mingle with and interrupt depictions of transformation and flux amid multiple realities. Nye’s brightly hued, eloquently painted compositions conflate the chaos of present-day Earth with dreams of a radiant future on Venusia in a hopeful vision of love, peace, and environmental harmony. Venusian Weather is on view through June 10 at The Pit 918 Ruberta Ave, Glendale. photographs by Lani Trock
Woman and Women expounds upon Martinez’ interest in exploring alternate histories where women, particularly women of color, are not excluded from specific cultural narratives typically associated with privilege. Through her paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, Martinez blends past with present and future, combining classical architectural elements with contemporary pop cultural references to create the settings for her portraits, landscapes, and still lives. Her flat, bold style recalls iconic predecessors like Matisse, while her subject matter prioritizes brown bodies that have been heretofore omitted from these kinds of images. Woman and Women is on view through June 9 at Ochi Projects 3301 W Washington Blvd, Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock
On Saturday April 28th, Navel LA celebrated the launch of MAPS, Movement Art Performance Space. MAPS was founded by Samantha Blake and is dedicated to cultivating the contemporary and traditional arts of the Afro-Latinx and Caribbean diaspora in Los Angeles. The launch featured three dance performances by Samantha Blake, Chris Bordenave and Vera Passos (respectively), along with a film screening by Nery Madrid, singing by Felicia ‘Onyi’ Richards, costumes by Gabrielle Datau + Jiro Maestu (Poche) and Desiree Klein, and still photographs by Russel Hamilton, shot during the film’s creation. You can read our interview of Chris Bordenave from our Winter 2017 issue here. Navel LA is located at 1611 S Hope Street Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock
"Character Study" presents new work that explores the artist’s relationship to color and light, as well as his interest in cycles and patterns as they relate to time, matter, and pop-culture. In the first part of the exhibition, iconic cartoon characters cast from vintage patches, enlarged to a fantastical scale, appear familiar and playful as they hang throughout the gallery. Some of these appropriated pop-images, such as Bart Simpson, Bugs Bunny, and Felix the Cat, are from of the artist’s own childhood collection of patches that covered the Jansport backpack he owned during his school years in the 90s. "Character Study" is on view through June 9 at Morán Morán 937 N. La Cienega Boulevard Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Kupper
Ibid Gallery presents the debut US solo exhibition of Sydney-based painter Wayne Magrin. At the center of Magrin’s large-scale paintings are larger-than-life characters engulfed in dramatic scenarios. Magrin began painting to tell stories, and soon after discovered the potential for images to transcend narrative. Whether dropping in on a monstrous wave in Portugal or dancing on sleepy waves in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, Wayne depicts how malleable time becomes when met with adrenaline and bliss. A linear narrative is sensed in each picture without needing to flatten the moment into words – there is already enough belief in the painting. The Far Away and the Familiar (Narrative Paintings of Surfers, Sailors and Bushrangers) is the first in a series of solo exhibitions curated by Julian Schnabel for Ibid Gallery in Los Angeles. The exhibition will be on view until June 30th, 2018 at Ibid Gallery. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
"Often times in my work the body and the landscape become so interconnected it is difficult to figure out where bodies start or end, whether they are landscapes or bodies to begin with. Starting with raw canvas, I begin working from the inside out. I employ a technique that stains the images from the backside of the canvas, until it slowly seeps through to the front. Through the staining of the canvas I am confronted with the fluidity of the mark making, and the idea that both the internal and the external are intrinsically connected." "From Inside; The Out" is on view through May 12 at New Image Art 7920 Santa Monica Boulevard Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock
In One in the mouth and one in the heart, his solo show at Skibum MacArthur, Pinhassi prods us to confront our notions of the salacious and taboo, the social mores and religious dogma that shape our reactions, and the pavilions we architect to house and hide our wants and, at times, shame. The exhibition is on view through May 19 at Skibum Macarthur 1989 Blake Avenue Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock
Depicting a strange and mysterious world, Naudline Pierre’s paintings cobble together a personal mythology full of characters paused in intimate scenes. The characters within these works play parts in this parallel reality flavored by the influence of Pierre’s puritanical Protestant upbringing. Touch Not My Beloved presents these scenes of protection and affection from a parallel reality, only accessible, the artist believes, through the act of painting. "Touch Not My Beloved" is on view through May 12 at New Image Art 7920 Santa Monica Boulevard Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock
In this particular body of work, Kat Olschbaur explores motifs typically associated with the American West; as the name of the show and the artist’s painting style signal, however, the meaning of these images are multi-tier. Many of Olschbaur’s native association with riders on horseback are apocalyptic, deadly, seductive, or indicative of insanity. "Wilde Reiter" is on view through May 20 at Oof Books 912A Cypress Avenue Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock
Every two years, MoMA’s celebrated New Photography exhibition series presents urgent and compelling ideas in recent photography and photo-based art. This year’s edition, Being, asks how photography can capture what it means to be human. The exhibition is on view through August 19 at The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53 Street, Manhattan New York. photographs by Adam Lehrer
Seven hundred years of sculptural practice—from fourteenth-century Europe to the global present—are examined anew in this groundbreaking exhibition. Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body (1300–Now) explores narratives of sculpture in which artists have sought to replicate the literal, living presence of the human body. On view through July 22 exclusively at The Met Breuer 945 Madison Avenue New York. photographs Adam Lehrer
In the fallout of a broken heart, specific and at times odd provocations emerge to elicit bittersweet emotions- the smell of a candle, a cat food commercial, a house with a triangular window. It changes person to person, but our brains insist that we ascribe emotional significance to seemingly unrelated, otherwise trivial occurrences. Ammon Rost's paintings for Rudder document a production of unforeseen romantic narratives, where every inclusion, every stroke or line or erasure either comes directly from a real experience, or becomes a representation of one. Every mark a memory. "Rudder" is on view through May 5th at LTD Los Angeles 1119 South La Brea Avenue Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock
I AM THE HOUSE continues Ray’s interest in the fetishization of objects and the construction of female identity through high-contrast, monochromatic photomontages and suspended metallic sculptures. Throughout this series, she situates the body as a vessel, one that carries life, physical memories, and emotional fortitude.
Employing a wide array of images and materials, these new works usher in various references to transformations that occur during the initial and end stages of life. Eggs, flowers, and desiccated corn signify the fragility of existence, while portals, crushed beer cans, and cacti complicate the references to beauty and luxury that have long been staples of the artist’s visual lexicon.
The exhibition is on view through May 26 at Shulamit Nazarian Gallery 616 N La Brea Avenue
Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock
Charlie Le Mindu's NOIR is an exhibition and rooftop performance, presented by /THE LAB/ by Please Do Not Enter, of raw sculptures; through literal extensions of his existing work with the human form, he explores the competing forces that drive our daily lives and relationships. The exhibition will be on view until May 18th at /THE LAB/ by Please Do Not Enter, 649 South Olive Street Los Angeles CA.
Peter Shire, noted local sculptor and ceramicist known for his zany post-modern teapots and his connection to the 1980s Memphis Milano design movement is showing is new solo-exhibiton called “Drawings, Impossible Teapots, Furniture & Sculpture.” The exhibition is on view through May 12 at Kayne Griffin Corcoran, 1201 South La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles.
Lauren Halsey’s dream-world is cosmic, funky, carpeted, and technicolored; an atemporal, fantastical, and hyperreal vision of black liberation which she conjures via site-specific installations that celebrate her childhood home. Click here to read more.
These stanzas of Wanda Coleman’s reach across time to help locate the work of Los Angeles-based artists Mario Ayala and Greg Ito. Following in the tradition of the city’s unofficial poet laureate, Ayala and Ito explore the ecology of symbols distinct to their birthplace, elevating and reconfiguring the ubiquitous visual language and objects central to the experience and mythology of Los Angeles. Sun Sprawl is on view through April 28th at Club Pro 1525 South Main Street, 3rd Floor Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock
