dayoutlast

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, March 19, 2016

Jibade-Khalil Huffman "What Can I Say About That Suit (That Hasn't Already Been Said About Afghanistan)" @ LA >< ART

Untitled, 2016

Three channel video, MDT

Duration variable

First Person Shooter, 2016

Single channel video, sound

TRT: 23 minutes

James Welling "Choreograph" @ Regen Projects

4176, 2015

Inkjet on rag paper

Framed Dimensions: 43 1/4 x 63 1/8 inches

Image Dimensions: 42 x 63 inches

0371, 2015

Inkjet on rag paper

Framed Dimensions: 43 1/4 x 63 1/8 inches

Image Dimensions: 42 x 63 inches

Somehow the title of this show, "Choreograph," commingled with the medium, photograph, certainly linguistically. Somehow the composition of bodies moving in space is similar to that of capturing light. I get it as ntegrated layers merge this idea in the final works. Unfortunately, I was left wanting more of the abstract palette that I have come to expect from Welling in terms of color and subject. While there's nothing wrong with exhuming an old idea nor trying something new, I'm not entirely clear how these transition from, say, the Phillip Johnson "Glass House"series. Then again, parts of this sequence are obvious, the transparency and setting. This awkward transition leads me to be curious about what's next, if one could propose something so linear within the context of "light writing" that is to say photography as choreography.

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Julia Rommel "A Cheesecake With Your Name On It" @ Overduin & Co.

Cuter by the Day, 2016

oil on linen

86 x 71 inches

The Helgas, 2016

oil on linen

85 1/4 x 72 1/4 inches

Water Tower, 2016

oil on linen

79 1/4 x 56 1/4 inches

The Lavender Lilacs, 2016

oil on linen

71 1/2 x 53 3/4 inches

Punkin Chunkin (Hydraulics), 2016

oil on linen

77 1/2 x 78 3/4 inches

Two Dentists, Six Architects, One Experimental Musician, 2016

oil on linen

81 x 82 inches

Two Apartments, 2016

oil on linen

71 5/8 x 57 inches

From a grouping of paintings that insisted so adamantly about their flatness in reference to what looks like formerly stretched linens; shapes and sizes like windows yet opaque; and one-liner titles also referencing places; I could not help but notice their acute relationships to the external structures of the space, namely how the light and shadow forming on the translucent windows of the gallery and how light fixtures overhead seemed to frame, reflect and integrate the works in a greater complexity of depth than anything that seemed to be actually proposed. These things happen. They're hard for me to ignore sometimes, and that can be a good thing for my interests as edges and transitions here seem to allow for such musings.