dayoutlast: October 2015

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, October 31, 2015

Julien Bismuth "Steganograms" @ The Box

"I started to laugh at my own joke,

then I started to writhe for some reason." 2015

Variable

:, 2015

Two holes of the same diameter

separated by an interval equal to

twice that diameter

Variable dimensions and materials variable

Rebecca Morris "Rose Cut" @ 356 S Mission Road

I can't quite decide how these paintings hang together as whole in such a large vacuous space. They instantly reminded me of the first ones that were shown there, the first ones ever publicly displayed there to my knowledge. They were the Laura Owens paintings that inaugurated the space, her space. So, big paintings in a big place that function visually on any scale in terms of content, likely macro. Grids and relations, abstractions and decorations... Patterns. Or not.

Heather Brown "Bedfellows" @ Monte Vista Projects

Sortes, 2015

Oil on canvas

60 x 84 inches

Bedfellows VI, 2015

Ink on paper

24 1/4 x 24 1/4 inches

Snares, 2015

Oil on canvas

60 x 60 inches

How abstraction and figuration can be sutured and conflated through activity such as group groping is worth considering as body and mind interact and reflect continuously. Titles reinforce the connections and flat-bed picture plane comes to mind also, one that is simultaneously flat and deep.

Steve Roden and Alexandra Grant "These Carnations Defy Language" @ Pasadena Museum of California Art

Steve Roden

Spinning Straw Into Straw, 1-7 2015

Acrylic and oil on canvas

Alexandra Grant

I was born to love not to hate, (2), 2014

Mixed media on paper backed with fabric

Steve Roden

late march or early april, 2015

Pencil, sumi ink, crayon, frottage, gesso, acrylic

Steve Roden

leftovers / rightovers, 2015

Collage, crayon on magazine images

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Mark Hagen "Schmanthropocene" @ China Art Objects

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