dayoutlast: May 2013

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

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

"Painting In Place" (Part 1 of 2) by LAND @ Farmers and Merchants Bank, Downtown Los Angeles

A quick survey of this very ambitious show, at least in theoretical terms, left me wondering about the results (and certainly I was not surprisingly beleaguered by my inability to fully navigate and study the situation. After all, it was opening night, and things filled in quickly). Said disclaimer implies that I will return for a more careful investigation and report at a later date. In the meantime, below are some images of work that I felt took the premise of the show (paintings engaged with a sense of place) in a direction that I had hoped for, especially given the idiosyncratic nature of the site, a bank ruin. I suppose it would be too easy to jab with terms like "bank art" or "bankable art." On the other hand, I'm suspecting there to be some "paintings" here to be "banked on" literally as they court inter-dimensional reception, i.e. time displacement, flow, and currency.

Vincent Szarek, Untitled, 2013, Urethane
on Aluminum, 35x94x3

Kate Shepherd, Tall Boy, Central Park, 2013,
Acrylic paint on laser cut plywood, 29 1/2 x 17 1/2

Kate Shepherd, A Monogram of Bones and
Candlesticks, 2013, Acrylic paint on laser
cut plywood, 70 x 52

Matias Faldbakken, Remainder, VXII, 2013, Ceramic Tile
Left wall: 84 1/2 x 109
Right Wall: 84 1/2 x 115

Nate Lowman, Sitting on a Ruin, 2012,
Acrylic, dirt, and dental floss dipped in
oil paint on canvas, 85 1/4 x 74 1/2

Saturday, May 18, 2013

"Station" @ Parthenia Projects

"Station"
A. a place or position in which a person or thing is normally located.
B. a place equipped for some particular kind of work, service, research, or the like: geophysical station; radio station et al
C. Archaic. The fact or condition of standing still
D. a song/album by Russian Circles
E. a martian friend of Bill & Ted's
F. a one-day only, two-and-a-half-hour art event at Parthenia Projects involving body movements of Oguri plus a collaborative sound-installation between Brad Laner and Justin Lowman that accompanies an evolving site project of light and material interventions---Barn Rays.
G. None of the above
H. All of the above

Sunday, May 5, 2013

MURAL for sound. @ The Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook

Jim Denley and Kim Myhr in collaboration with Matt Barbier, Ted Byrnes, Archie Carey, Claire Chenette, Daniel Corral, Jonah Levy, Heather Lockie, Jake Rosenzweig, and Greg Stuart.

Photographic stills from a meandering musical performance seems silly at best given the range of sounds over time in such an all-encompassing environment. On the other hand, certain moments were worth trying to capture.