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.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Adriana Varejão "Interiors" @ Gagosian | Beverly Hills


Rome Meat Ruin, 2017
Oil on aluminum and polyurethane
100 3/16 x 18 1/8 x 10 1/4 inches








Fabricated ruin. Grid awareness with color variation in grout and tile. Color as surface or substance; continuous or variable, a matter of perspective and distance?






O obsessivo, 2004
Oil on canvas
110 1/4 x 88 9/16 inches




O illuminado, 2009
Oil on canvas
90 9/16 x 220 1/2 inches








Perspective. Geometry. Roman bath... blood bath.  
Labyrinth of unknowns. 


Green Sauna, 2003
Oil on canvas
76 3/4 x 114 3/16 inches








Reconciling curvilinear/rectilinear within image as well as work itself. 
Round corners of painting frame itself; columns. 
Darkness foregrounds interior light; value reveals depth. 
Flatness/depth in a Minecraft world. 
Cf. Analia Saban architectural interiors (also using bath/shower as subject). See here.






A diva, 2004
Oil on canvas
104 5/16 x 86 5/8 inches


Work that unfolds slowly over time with respect to spatial perception itself a function of light; internal light. Therefore, by extension when I stand before the work, whatever dimension it takes, I am in the dark/ness as viewer. 



The Guest, 2004
Oil on canvas
18 1/8 x 27 9/16 inches

An internal violence percolates and is most noticeable when inside uncontrollably becomes outside.


O mistico, 2005
Oil on canvas
35 7/16 x 28 3/8 inches

Painting the negative space (inverting the painting process to call attention to how the relationship between tangible surface and less tangible space are not so easy to perceive as it may seem within a continuous web). 

cf. Mondrian below



cf. John McCallister below. also here





Ruina de charque, 2001
Oil on wood and polyurethane
21 5/8 x 81 1/2 x 63 inches





Tile signifies refined process and order above an organic, meaty underneath. 
Interior space as both body and architectural layer.



Ruina de Charque - Nova Capela, 2003
Oil on wood and polyurethane
47 1/4 x 104 5/16 x 22 1/16 inches





Interior is either homogenous or heterogeneous, classical or Baroque, a continual movement between such poles, dependent on time and relative spatial position as it pertains to artwork and/or body of artworks.



Overall, I was less interested in these three wall works, the most recent ones in the show. Even though they seemed to make sense as a kind of evolution where interior space bursts forth in relief (a space between 2 and 3 dimensions), they come across as simultaneously decorative and regressive with respect to natural and pictorial space. An image of cracking seems clear enough in its referents of decay and decline within substance. Unfortunately, I keep thinking about the paintings of architectural interiors as well as really old oil paintings, especially the ones with so much surface cracking.


Blue Song - LA, 2017
Oil and plaster on canvas



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