dayoutlast: February 2014

dayoutlast is a record of my direct engagement with mostly contemporary art, mostly Los Angelean.

As this blog has evolved since its 2010 inception, so has my perspective. What I once perceived as central within the investigation was what was central, literally, within the photographic frame that I shared here. While still an important consideration, such thinking has also given way to more peripheral considerations, ones also accompanied occasionally by text (written manifestation of thought) and the oscillations between them. What's missing here are larger unknowns surrounding issues of presentation and representation; the amount of time and space it actually takes to accomplish such first-hand observations; and the quandaries between documentation and interpretation.

Despite my attempt to communicate here with image and text what is essential in some respect about the artwork, neither representation should ever be considered a substitution for the primary viewing experience. Of course, occasionally there are exceptions.

Most of the time, these posts are merely remnants---residual fragments---from my last day out.

--Justin Lowman

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Joel Kyack @ Francois Ghebaly

Samara Golden @ Night Gallery

Back Seat Dodge becomes front seat Beamer. Post event. Interstices. Prohibitive labyrinth. Insulative barrier. Confusion of interiority/exteriority. Exquisitely rendered portraits (Odd Nerdrum). Part of the show? The afterglow. Hackneyed sunset imagery. Very specific details (one cigarette in an ash tray). Inversion. Disorientation. Conflated kitchen (kitsch?) consumption. Stuffed animal (childhood talisman) becomes suggested smorgasbord. Heat lamps. Accoutrements of domesticity. Mass consumption and bourgeois desire. Classic struggles... Chronos devours her young.

Morgan Fisher "Exterior and Interior Color Beauty" @ China Art Objects

Fortunate to have seen what I would call the first part of this show at Bortolami last fall (see my other post here), it was nice to see the exterior continuation. Morgan's methodical exploration and evolution of color, painting, and place has been an enjoyable one to learn about. It's a story worth revisiting from the beginning. Unfortunately, I can't find any good online sources to link, but suffice it to say that his interest in how paintings situate within a specific context of display is now historic in multiple ways (personal to his family, pertinent to his own trajectory, and, certainly, to other artists with similar concerns not exclude the likes of Lascaux). If you find any early images of Fisher's work, do pass them along. I wouldn't mind seeing them again.

Note: The following two photos happened to catch my eye when browsing the gallery desktop for more information. The purpose of the show(s) is sufficiently written about else where. I felt these two pages captured a bit of the flavor.

Matt Connors "Complaints III" @ Cherry and Martin (2732)

Not given much time to view this work properly (read: slowly as I typically would) due to a just after-hours generous staff accommodation, I was forced to take this in more like a painting, one holistic view of a single dimension. Somehow this seemed fitting as it pertains to Connors' work which is a painting practice that seems to often account for, at some level, the conditions of the space of presentation. While the work installed drew attention to the contours of the exhibition space with a display of color that seemed arbitrary (what I liked best in some sense), I was also taken, not surprisingly, by how such a discrete installation brought attention to the subtlest of lighting conditions, something no camera could enjoy, certainly not one small enough to fit in my front pocket.

Supports/Surfaces is Alive and Well @ Cherry and Martin

Louis Cane

Toile découpée, 1974

oil on cut canvas

15.75 x 30 inches

Noam Rappaport

Untitled (Red and Green), 2013

oil and acrylic on canvas on metal

59.75 x 40.5 inches

Noam Rappaport

Standing Lamp #2, 2010

Wood, electrical components, 40w frosted light, bulb, steel

92 x 39 x 25 inches

Jennifer Boysen

Untitled, 2014

Pigment, tempera on canvas

99 x 77 inches

Claude Viallat

1970/045, 1970

Tint on beige sheet

85.75 x 67 inches

Isabelle Cornaro @ LAXART

Brendan Fowler "New Camera" @ LAXART

William Lamson @ Honor Fraser

Untitled (mylar), 2011

HD Video

TRT: 3:44 minutes (looping)

Action for the Delaware, 2011

HD Video

TRT: 14:09 minutes (looping)

Presented and listed as two separate video installations, I was more interested in how they were interacting together, flowing in and out of one another by contrast, saturation and aridity, resolve and resignation. How streaming time can be considered between various densities (water and human v. air and trash) and how one can defy the limits of the other is interesting. The heavier stands by illusion on the surface (trying hard in my mind not to think about Jesus and George Washington); the lighter one glides along, suspended, personifying freedom. Against/With the currents, the message seems to be the same here: whichever way it goes, it's a solitary pursuit.

Katy Cowan "Wedge," 2013, cement, hand-loomed weaving, and fabric dye. 50 x 25 x 3 inches @ ltd los angeles

Given to a conversation of architectural contingency of the past (the artist's studio remnants) and present (gallery installation) and provisionality, I was taken by the one here that stands on its own. I started my day thinking about how color holds the world together. This sculpture was my first interaction with the "outside" world and I found its concrete application (pun intended) to be a pleasant continuation of said thoughts. Not only is such a thread of inquiry part of a current trend, but it's also timeless.