Warning: Flashback Catalyzed by Inhalation of Eraser Shavings

Currently, in the Orange County Museum of Art's current exhibition, The Avant Garde Collection, artist Vija Celmins has a piece that draws you in with its realism, makes you spend some time with it due to its scale, and takes you to a place of nostalgia. Her sculpture–acrylic on balsa wood–entitled Eraser is a large, hyperrealistic rendering of a Pink Pearl eraser–smudge marks and all. She made it in 1967, but it really connects to anyone of any age. A commanding universality emanates from the piece, immediately filling me with a blushing smile as I recall grade school and the presence of this icon of childhood and learning. Just as the artist did, I had a Pink Pearl eraser in my pencil box, which layed in my desk cubby; it seemed like school supplies held so much more importance back then–I had an array of pencils, erasers, pens, highlighters, sharpeners–the list goes on. Now, anything will do. Any pencil I can get my hands on will suffice; my main issues are the intangibles of formal education and beyond: making decisions, managing time between subjects and between school in general and my personal life, brainstorming ideas in order to make things that matter to me. But the simplicity of a Pink Pearl eraser brings me and I think probably a lot of people back to an unpolluted and unburdened place of honesty and curiosity–light-heartedness and hunger for joy quenched by the smallest things. Even if just for a few moments, Celmin's larger than life sculpture brought me to a joyful place I hadn't visited in a long while, one that I can learn from and maybe collect some shavings. Erasers change shape as they're used and as they age, just as I've molded and changed probably since I last used a Pink Pearl; I guess we can find solace in the fact that whoever or whatever we become is in our hands, literally, and if we make mistakes we can start over and write something new.

Life Transmissions: An Endless Cycle

LIFE TRANSMISSIONS

Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman University
October 6 – November 2, 2014

Chapman University's Guggenheim Gallery has been transformed into a stage that presents  the works of eleven artists: Bas Jan Ader, Sarah Bostwick, Joshua Callaghan, Megan Daalder, Karl Haendel, Mary Kelly, John Mills, Jed Ochmanek, Gina Osterloh, Robert Rauschenberg, and Peter Wu. Collectively, their creations connote a cyclical nature which permeates art and life itself--perhaps inextricably.

As I walk into the gallery space--soaking up the visuals coming at me from all angles--I feel at peace. Although surrounded by an array of visual stimuli, it all seems to be working together to bring forward a certain message. So, I continue forward and take a closer look at each artwork--letting their impact percolate.

A massive cloth hangs in the anterior corner of the gallery space, catching my attention. In Joshua Callaghan’s piece, Focus, he imprints in charcoal a life-sized Ford Focus on a piece of 20’ x 26’ linen. The artist takes a mechanical object, the function of which is manifest in its three-dimensionality, and takes away its function by spitting it out in a different dimension. In the process, he alters its purpose. Without its power, the car fades into the background, as a literal flat backdrop for the energy in the surrounding space. A car literally has a transmission—the mechanism that transmits power from the engine to its wheels. The transmission gives the wheels power, and the human driver reigns supreme; Callaghan's entertainment of this literal and very conceptual idea is attention-grabbing and intriguing, all the while visually interesting. 

On another wall, hangs three of Gina Osterloh's pieces: on three colored acrylic panels, she creates photographs that mimic infinity walls—the staple of classic pictorial space since the Renaissance. She has painted wonky grids on the panels, thereby controlling the viewer’s perspective and even distorting it. By distorting or changing the form of the visual transmission of spatial reality, the artist alters our understanding of the very backdrop of our visual fabric and realm. 

John Mills, his painting on the wall besides Osterlohs',  simulates scribbles into imagery, or verbal language into visual language, in his piece MD 20/20—perhaps the most classical of the exhibition in his reference to early modernist vocabulary. The oil and graphite work is a meditation on language. Filled with loopy, curly shapes or signs, it evokes a resemblance to letters. In viewing this piece, one may be inspired to reflect on his or her own response to the written word as well as the surrounding visible world. It is a catalyst for personal discovery and the cycle of life. 

At the center and heart of the exhibition, Mary Kelly presents motherhood in Post-Partum Document: Introduction, from 1973.  She displays her son’s wool nappy liners stained with remnants of bodily excretions—mucus, urine, saliva—all of which have been transferred from the infant’s body to the cloth, now art. Kelly’s literal creation, her child, transferred signs of its existence to the piece which explores the relationship between artist and son during formative moments of linguistic development. During this period, Kelly simultaneously is experiencing a sense of loss, once again representing a chain of transmittance in multiple senses. She incites life, the baby produces indexical traces of its existence, and the mother creates art with those remnants, which in turn influence others. As a viewer, we too are affected by this piece; we may go on to create, act, or interact—perhaps with a new perspective. Here, Kelly has chronicled the chain reaction that lies at the core of the exhibition.

Jed Ochmanek relies heavily on the sun, just as humans do for survival, for his artistic process in achieving his work, Polarity. Putting down a layer of oil paint each day on site, Ochmanek relied on the harsh sunlight of Joshua Tree to expedite the drying of hundreds of layers of thinned oils that comprise his works. He has created a sort of gradient, which almost seems to display the visible light spectrum: characteristic of the very element which defines the process and enables the creation. The result is a rusty, moody atmosphere that reflects how the external forces erode the surface of the paintings, channeling classical abstraction. The artist builds life on aluminum and lets the world give it new life.

Sarah Bostwick’s Norm explores life after dark in a small, white plaster piece. Hanging on the bleak gallery wall, this piece might at first be disregarded. However, when you wait for the shadows to emerge its depth and dimensionality will jump out at you. Bostwick’s casting and carving process has resulted in a precise architectural relief of the Norm’s Restaurant sign, surrounded by unaffected white space that we read as “empty.” Just as a gallery wall could appear bleak and empty, the shadows of what is hung on it are what give it life. Norms is a source of life, and an instrument for transmission--of food, hope, light during darkness. Bostwick's piece translates this in a compelling, subtle fashion.

Two videos are included in the exhibition: one by Megan Daalder and one by Bas Jan Ader. Pictured on a television set, Ader’s 1971 silent video, Nightfall, shows the artist in a garage—an interesting mixture of indoor and outdoor environments. We are not sure if it is nighttime outside, or if the nightfall exists only within the confines of the artist’s consciousness. The action consists of Ader struggling to lift a block of concrete, which he attempts to balance with one hand before dropping it onto a luminescent light bulb laying on the floor, and then the second—crushing them and eliminating the light they convey. It appears that the artist deliberately tries to portray a sense of personal strength and control throughout the process of willingly surrounding himself by total darkness. We don't really know his purpose; maybe he'd rather be blind to his burdens than for them to remain apparent; or maybe the hopelessness that accompanies the weight of earth’s nightfall catalyzes a personal darkness that he has no choice but to accept. Regardless, the video is extremely captivating and eerie, transmitted through the signals of the television. 

Life and art and art and life are endless spirals. Forget about which came first, the chicken or the egg; the reality is they are inextricably intertwined. A collage made from what was once a 3-D box, a cloth smeared with the life size image of a Ford Focus, the idea of conceiving a child turned into a physical reality, a television which by nature transforms the moving three-dimensional world into a flat, two-dimensional world for convenient viewing, photographs of marker drawings, traces of objects and reliefs in plaster, oil on aluminum, oil on canvas—all are part of an endless cycle: a process that trickles down from source to source to creation to creation, back to the source. Art is not a recreation of life, but a synthesis of all of its aspects—a multidimensional living entity. Art oscillates between the world as we find it, and the world as we create it. Life Transmissions has the power to both inspire reflection and creation, immersing the viewer in the very cycle of the artistic process and life itself.

Who Are You?: The Failure of Abstraction

Sayre Gomez

"I’m Different"

François Ghebaly Gallery

2245 E Washington Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90021

October 10 – November 22 2014

Press Release

Walk into a tangible netscape, (now François Ghebaly Gallery transformed by Chicago native Sayre Gomez). Surrounded by white walls, you are a blue, faceless mannequin, sat there in such a way that you want others to perceive you. You're in an outdoor environment, standing on a floor covered with wood chips and trash, showered with several sonic timelines coexisting simultaneously. You've walked into the main gallery space––the installation. 

On the walls, hang several paintings that have been made using airbrushed paint, as used on cars or buildings, further adding to their outdoor aesthetic. These paintings depict outdoor scenes pulled from imagery the artist found online, as well as window scenes looking out at nature. These window paintings are redolent of art historical classics, such as Matisse's window paintings.  This allusion supports the artist's notion that humans are intrinsically unoriginal or that an effort to be original will undoubtedly fail; everything is derived from something else, whether that's something we've seen on the internet or in a text book or on the street.  

In the next room, the smaller, indoor gallery space, hangs a large square painting titled "Generation Gap." It reads, "All you need is love," mirrored by the text "I hate myself and I want to die" just underneath, atop a moody, hazy, blue and black backdrop. The piece's orientation could be switched, so that the face-up message would change. This piece is intriguing, and funny at first. I'm sure it could be read to mean many different things, as all of Sayre's work could. Keeping consistent with the other works' themes of identity, this piece could underline how music has an effect on identity. If someone identifies themselves to be a fan of The Beatles, and outwardly shares this identifying characteristic, they are essentially hanging up a huge painting that reads "All You Need Is Love." "Hey, look at me; love is my philosophy." Conversely, if someone's a ravid Nirvana fan, they're putting themselves out there to be perceived as a whole different kind of person. (Not that you can't like Nirvana AND The Beatles). At the end of the day, the point is that the interests we "share" with the world, whether that be on social media or in conversation or by our clothing aesthetic, shape the way others perceive us. Often times, we consciously mold this regard or perception.

Speaking of molding...on two European style coffee tables in the same room, sit bronze casted items one may find laying on the coffee table in any affluent home; a spilled wine glass, an iPhone, an iPad, a stack of books. What's on your coffee table in your apartment? Let's say you have a book about classical music or jazz sitting on your coffee table. Do you play jazz piano? Did you invent opera in the 17th century? You have a wine glass, a designer watch layed out. Both of these items were made in a factory. Millions of others identical to yours exist. Are you really that different? I know I'm not.

The world that Sayre has created is brave. It forces us to reevaluate ourselves and our motivations, and search somewhere deeper than our Facebook profiles to find what makes us "different." 

It's meta. It's fresh. His world feeds back into what its criticizing, or at least commenting on. A gallery is essentially a coffee table, displaying things that it identifies with or wants to be associated with. Visitors of the gallery will undoubtedly snap pictures of the exhibition with their iPhones, and post them to their social media profiles. Why?

My Facebook––an abstraction of myself–– fails to accurately depict me. I look better in my profile picture than I do on an everyday basis and I only choose to share somewhat "interesting" things about my life, and interests I think are safe to say will be approved of. The bands and movies I like don't define me. The next person I click on probably shares 3/4 of my "interests." The things that truly define me are intangible, and transcend something I can post in a status or set on a coffee table. 

Penone : A Timeless Odyssey Through Nature

Giuseppe Penone: Ramificazioni del Pensiero/Branches of Thought

Gagosian Gallery
456 North Camden Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210

September 5 - October 18, 2014

Giuseppe Penone was a force in the "poor art" movement of the 1960s and 70s. This movement responded to the artificiality of "pop" and the extreme plainness and harsh nature of minimalism. He strived to make art connect with the natural world, as we can see in this exhibition through his use of trees and marble. His career is defined by asking very simple questions:  What is time? What is sculpture? What's important about his questions is that they last throughout time and serve as precedents. His works are very simple, but reveal a lot of meaning about the fundamental aspects of life such as origin, age, mass, and form.

In one piece, titled Door Tree––Cedar, we see a tree with a six foot hole carved into it. Penone reveals the tree at a young age in this hole, perhaps at 15 years, depicting how it may have looked at this time. As a painter may create a portrait of a child and then one of that child as an adult, Penone has sculpted an organic depiction of life throughout time; amazingly, he has documented the dynamics of age in one piece.  Another piece shows marble cut away at by water. By portraying the effects that water has on solids, he presents the idea that things in nature have relationships with one another.  The form of marble responds to water beating against it; time as a force has an effect on the growth of trees. Analogously, humans mature with time and outside forces affect our appearance.

The Gagosian Gallery itself is extremely vast and open, with a lot of natural light peering through windows as well as soft lighting set up to illuminate the artwork.

It seems that with a tree as his muse, Penone is inspired by growth. Nature grows, evolves, and develops. So do we. As a collective human race, we travel through time and are connected by it.  Penone's work is universal: it binds together members of the human race.  But it doesn't stop there:  with its potential to affect the way viewers respond to the nature around them, this show may inspire them to find commonalities in all forms of life.

Doritos and Diet Coke

Katherine Bernhardt

Doritos and Diet Coke

September 6 to October 18, 2014
China Art Objects Galleries
6086 Comey Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90034

Originally from Clayton, Missouri, New York based artist Katherine Bernhardt leads viewers of her exhibition at China Art Objects through time and space with large-scale, playful acrylic paintings.
Her paintings are arranged in two open concept rooms, with one or two  96"x120" painting to each wall.  The gallery space is well lit:  a skylight in each part of the gallery in conjunction with bright colors and cheeky subject matter create  a playful, upbeat vibe.  At first or even second or third glance, Bernhardt's work seems simple––even comical.  But it's that and so much more: it presents a nostalgic yet relevant, brutally honest, socio-political critique that maintains a relatable, humorous, air. The viewing experience is fulfilling but not overwhelming, achieved by the gallery's uncluttered, open display of Katherine's simple, analytic works.

The paintings depict modes of consumption––from "tajines" to "amphora" to capri sun juice boxes to cans of diet coke. She doesn't stop with drink, but includes an array of indulgences in our consumerist society––computers, cigarettes, hot dogs, french fries, and hamburgers. Although we must consume food and drink in order to nourish our bodies,  consumption within American society is driven by corporate profit rather than consumer health. So the focus shifts from nourishment to unhealthy indulgence, motivated by alluring advertisements, billboards, and commercials. Bernhardt's large, graphic patterns mirror these repetitive, persuasive advertisements. However, she depicts the analogy in an interesting way that differs from pictures in magazines: her portrayals of consumerist objects are not romanticized. Her brush strokes seem arbitrary and messy; she presents the objects as they are--flat, with no real emphasis on one object. Additionally, her titles for the paintings are extremely straightforward, showing that she isn't trying to fool the audience into believing what she is depicting is some idealized, promising product. Doritos and diet coke are just doritos and diet coke. They're not some "fulfilling snack" and "refreshing beverage." Magritte, C'EST une pipe, and Katherine Bernhardt won't lie to you about it.

This show is fantastic. It's the perfect balance of playful and serious. Bernhardt's work is very accessible which allows its impact to be far reaching and great. Her paintings––captivating on so many levels––convey a dialogue; one that is personal to the viewer regarding themselves and their own personal vices, but also one that comments on a consumerist society that we get sucked into. If you want to see a light-hearted yet analytical exhibition about which you can laugh and connect, this exhibition is more than worth visiting.

Sniff the Space Flat on Your Face: Jeffrey Vallance

Jeffrey Vallance

Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman University

Sniff the Space Flat on Your Face

August 25-September 25, 2014

Jeffrey Vallance is a contemporary artist from Redondo Beach, California, born in 1955. He attended California State University Northridge, where he received his BA in Art in 1979, and then the Otis Art Institute for his MFA in 1981. He now lives and works in Los Angeles. His work is a melting pot of performance, installation, object-making, curation, and writing. Vallance is currently teaching a course titled "The Art of Infiltration" at Cal Arts. Infiltration art is denoted as "a branch of Intervention Art in which artists collaborate with institutions, communities, politicians, religions, museums and pop-culture figures outside of the traditional art world." Vallance's projects are highly conceptual and implicative in nature and can be analyzed to mean much more than meets the eye; because of its applicability to politics and human nature (among other disciplines), his work is intensely fascinating and captivating.

Two of Jeffrey Vallance's pieces are currently a part of Chapman University's Guggenheim Gallery exhibition, Sniff the Space Flat on Your Face. Celebrating irrational, surrealist art and dismissing rational models of art as ‘imposed by the limitations of man’s consciousness upon the unlimited variations of his internal and external world' (Stanley Krippner, ‘Die hypnotische Trance, die psychedelische Erfahrung und der kreative Akt’) the exhibition is appropriate for artists like Vallance. Jeffrey's pieces, along with the other pieces displayed, are definitely not limited by the status quo or common approaches to art or politics. The titles of his pieces are Blinky Bone in Greek Reliquary, and Cock Rooster, both from 2008.

Both pieces rest unassumingly in the gallery. Cock Rooster, the bust of a cloth rooster-shaped men's g-string is hung on a wooden plaque like a hunting trophy which sits on a small jutting wall near the entrance of the gallery; Blinky Bone in Greek Reliquary is an ornate metal and glass funerary votive inlaid with red velvet which holds the bone of a chicken leg sits on a white cubic pillar. The reliquary box is treated almost as an artifact, definitely of great importance. It is lit to reflect this, as well as given its own space on the pillar which sits in the gallery away from the wall. It feels independent and solitary from the other pieces in the gallery, giving it a sense of sacredness and seriousness. Then, once you look into the box and distinguish what is actually inside, your first reaction is a comic one. All of Vallance's work seems comic to begin with, but with further thought and reflection, it contains deep social and political commentary. 

                                                 

Here, what looks like the leftover bone from your El Pollo Loco 10 piece legs deal is set in a sacred Greek Orthodox funerary votive. Placed in a venue of respect and dignity, as a loved one or even a saint would be, the viewer is forced to reevaluate his or her perspective. Now, Blinky--an anonymous chicken Mr. Vallance bought at Ralph's supermarket and brought to a pet cemetery to be given a proper burial (as he explains on Late Night with David Letterman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15mGxWJpkDY)--is given value as a life that deserves respect just as a human's would. His humanization of an animal that we treat inhumanely and slaughter en masse each day for our own personal gain characterizes the modern Occidental way of life as hypocritical and heartless. Vallance's sociopolitical critique is not a joke. Blinky is very real, here for you to see. He may even make you think twice at the grocery store.

This display of Vallance's art is ingenious. The pieces are unassuming and so still and solitary that they go unnoticed until pointed out or fallen upon. This gallery experience is the perfect analogy for Jeffrey Vallance's work: at first glance it can be pushed aside as "funny" or "bizarre." Upon further observation, however, one cannot escape its significance--a significance with implications that directly impact the viewer.