L.A. Louver Journal

Founded in Venice, California in 1975, L.A. Louver is committed to contemporary art through a distinguished exhibition program of Los Angeles based and international artists.

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Nothing about the conditions of the past three months has been ordinary, and all of us at L.A. Louver wish that you and yours have been keeping healthy and safe. Every day, we have been seeking hope where we can find it – in new information about overcoming the challenges of COVID-19, and in the prevailing outcry against racial injustice across our country and around the world.

We also find hope in reconnecting with you, as L.A. Louver reopens to share two extraordinary exhibitions:

Tom Wudl: The Flowerbank World and Don Suggs: Face-Off

L.A. Louver is now open by appointment through Friday, June 19, 2020.

Our new hours are Monday – Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Our priority is to ensure that your visit is as safe and pleasurable as possible. We have implemented protocols informed by our public health authorities, including extensive cleaning; requiring face coverings of all guests, colleagues and vendors; social distancing; and limiting the number of visitors.

To make an appointment, please email [email protected], or call us at 310-822-4955. Same-day requests are possible. Please provide your full name, telephone number, and your preferred day and time to visit the gallery. We will respond promptly to your request.

We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you soon.

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Annals of Gallery History

In 1992 L.A. Louver presented the monumental exhibition Poem Makers: Wallace Berman, Jess, and George Herms which showcased the limited-edition facsimile version of Wallace Berman’s Semina; an underground art and poetry publication in nine volumes created by the iconic California assemblage artist of the Beat Generation between 1957 and 1964.

Each of the nine volumes of this handmade and limited-circulation journal consisted of an unbound packet of poems, photographs, and graphics. The assemblage artist printed the journals by hand using a tabletop platen press, individually typesetting the poems and writings within interior pockets together with photographs and original artworks. He then distributed these intimate journals to an ever changing personal mailing list of friends and acquaintances.

The publication focused on representing the artistic and literary avant-garde which resonated within the Beat Generation and the then fledgling and marginalized artistic community in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Berman selected the contributors which included figures as diverse as William Burroughs, Jean Cocteau, David Meltzer, Philip Lamantia, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, and Walter Hopps. The publication also reprinted the works of 20th century literary figures central to the Beat movement such as Antonin Artaud and Herman Hesse. Berman himself also contributed poetry under the pseudonym Pantale Xantos.

Semina’s very first volume landed the artist in hot water when, in 1957, Berman was arrested and convicted for obscenity over the contents of the journal which was on display in a show of his work at Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. In a note glued to the back of Semina Two, Berman described how the Vice Squad “confiscated Semina One which was exhibited as an important part of a work entitled ‘Temple.’ Brought before the righteous judge Kenneth Holiday [sic], who, taking the allegorical drawing in question out of context declared me guilty of displaying lewd matter. I will continue to print ‘Semina’ from locations other than this city of degenerate angels.” Semina’s itinerant history between Los Angeles and San Francisco thus began until its reconciliation at L.A. Louver three decades later.

The production of the facsimile version by L.A. Louver took four years to complete and was supervised throughout by Berman's fellow artist and friend, George Herms. Intimately familiar with Berman's entire oeuvre, Herms painstakingly oversaw the publication to ensure its veracity to the original.

“Poem Makers” contextualized Semina by exhibiting the volumes alongside artworks by George Herms and Jess, as well as original documents, photographs, and archival materials on loan from the Berman and Patricia Jordan archives of the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art. This four-year collaborative effort was praised by Paul Karlstrom, director of the AAA, who wrote to L.A. Louver after the show’s opening to express that the show was a “highly effective demonstration – among the best [..] ever seen – of what the Archives does and how archival documents relate to and illuminate works of art.”

The success and timeliness of the exhibition was evidenced not only in the resounding praise it received from art writers and critics, and the debate it spurred in the press, but also in the endearing attention and review that it attracted from fellow poets and poetry publications including Vincent Katz (1960- ), Bill Berkson (1939-2016), and Poetry Flash magazine.

A film & poetry evening was also held at Beyond Baroque in tandem with the exhibition, featuring poetry recitations by Michael McClure and David Meltzer, as well as screenings of films by Larry Jordan, Stan Brakhage, and Wallace Berman.

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We’re kicking off our Monday Mantra series to infuse your week with a little mindfulness and self-care. Today, we’re setting our intentions while contemplating Tom Wudl's sublime painting, "One Hundred Trillion Concentrations" (2015).⁠⠀ This painting's organization recalls traditional Tibetan mandalas, which serve as visual aids for meditation. Like a mandala, the work's central image is surrounded at each corner by echoing but distinct forms. A net of flowers is cast over the entire surface. The Avatamsaka Sutra, a seminal text for the artist and his work, refers to flowers as a symbol for wisdom and spiritual development. Here, they exist independently, but when combined together form a collective whole that emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things.⁠⠀ As many of us are confined to our homes this week, let's remember our fundamental connectedness, and the wisdom and development that can be found in quiet moments.  Swipe up in our story to learn more about Wudl's exhibition "The Flowerbank World," featuring works by Wudl inspired by the Avatamsaka Sutra, presented alongside works by other artists that have embraced the sacred in their artistic output -- from Kandinsky and Agnes Martin to an Australian Aboriginal painting and a Tibetan Thangka. ⁠

Learn more here. 

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How are you self-isolating? Alison Saar shared her quarantine book and music picks with the Los Angeles Times.

"I started a book that’s somewhere between prose and a novel, “The Blue Clerk” by Dionne Brand. There are a few others on the shelf. It’s nice when the kids are around because they can expose me to new music. I’ve been listening to Sunny War, an artist from Los Angeles, and digging Yola and rediscovering the work of Jackie Shane."

Discover more: 📖The Blue Clerk - Duke University Press ☀️Sunny War - Tiny Desk at NPR 🎤Yola - "Ride Out in the Country" ✨Jackie Shane - The New York Times

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With the gallery closed to public, we'll be sharing online resources related to our exhibitions and gallery program through our website and social media channels. So please, keep following along with us! 

Here's a view of our current show "Don Suggs: Face-Off," an exhibition of paintings by Suggs that were previously never shown publicly. While appearing lighthearted upon initial encounter, their subjects, at times, touch on the political but moreover, speak to the human condition. His facility as a draftsman, colorist and painter are confidently expressed in every mark and gesture, from subtle tonal arrangements and painterly streaks, to bold vibrant contrasts and agile calligraphic lines. 

More images and info here.

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Sculptor Matt Wedel has returned to his ceramic roots. Known for his monumental sculptures that push the material limits of clay, Wedel has focused his technical prowess into a new series titled “The Face Bowl Project.” Formed by hand using the pinch pot technique and finished with brilliantly colored glazes, Wedel has painted a different face into each bowl with hair cascading on all sides. As functional objects, they embody the same aesthetic sensibility and facility of making that Wedel has cultivated in his sculptures.

As the artist states, “I love the directness of the pinch pot. They are unencumbered by art which humbles them as objects. When they are held, you can feel the hand of the maker. As a canvas they represent the foundation of culture itself. In many ways they are the origin to who I am as an artist and more directly, employ the same technique that I use to make sculpture. 

“Similar to a potter, I am in love with the labor of making. It is the exploration of thought through form and the constant search for clarity about the world. Each work is like a puzzle piece to a larger story that is unfolding. They are markers of thought in a process of knowing. 

“Over the past five years I have been creating a series of sculptural head forms by painting the features with ceramic pigment. All of this is part of a larger process of acknowledging the presence of my hand in the gesture of color. I imagined the faces being deflated or pushed in on themselves. This series of bowls are a reflection of this idea with their concave faces and hair wrapping around -- a moment of thought in the studio. 

“Over time my interest in vessel making and its history have informed the way I understand my work as a sculptor. They are the objects of culture, which has everything to do with the figurative work that I make. They are an entry point into ceramic history and an abundant resource of material and cultural knowledge to work from as an artist. Lastly, they are a connection to my father and my formative years in his pottery studio. They are the things that I love and are a continual reminder about the joys of making.”

Produced in limited supply. Please contact [email protected] for pricing and availability. 

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For nearly two decades, Mark di Suvero’s public sculpture “Declaration” has cut a welcoming shape in the skyline of Venice Beach. The “V” shaped arms reaching out from this 62-foot sculpture beckon out to the boardwalk, providing a rendezvous point for friends as well as a shady respite for those sun-drenched and foot weary.  And those uses are fitting, as fraternity among humankind is exactly what is at the heart of this massive steel giant. “Declaration,” Mark di Suvero said of the sculpture, was “named for the Declaration of Independence—particularly Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s version, with its emphasis on equality and its application to everyone.”  Read along to follow “Declaration” through some of the historical highlights of its nineteen years in the vibrant community of Venice Beach.

2019: On December 21, 2019, the sculpture was thronged by tens of thousands as a rally for Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders featuring U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took place at its base. 

While this event on Venice Beach buzzed with collective excitement, there is rarely an uneventful moment in the shadow of “Declaration.” Located between the Venice Beach Skate Park and the Venice Beach Basketball Court the sculpture can be seen fanning off yoga classes, skate videos, basketball games, dance classes, street performance and all varieties of outdoor public activities this unique beach neighborhood offers. Indeed, the sculpture welcomes over a million visitors to Venice Beach every year.

2004: On June 16, 2004, the Olympic torch landed in Los Angeles on its worldwide tour leading up to the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Actor Sylvester Stallone began the historic torch relay on Venice Beach, flanked by onlookers and presided over by “Declaration.” 

2001: In the aftermath of the September 11, L.A. Louver banded together with Otis College, Beyond Baroque and Venice Family Clinic, to hold a night of poetry and elegiac protest in response to the attacks. Serving as a platform to share and elevate the voice of the community, the event “Where are the voices?,” took place on December 11, 2001, in the shelter of the enormous sculpture.

Some voices from that night:

Sammy Hoi, President of Otis College: 

“Tonight we stand beneath this magnificent sculpture by Mark di Suvero entitled “Declaration.” Like the sculpture’s feelers and hopeful form, we inspire to reach upward, higher, to understand, and to make our own declaration.”

Lewis MacAdams, poet: 

“Security? None of us ever bargained for security. And none of us ever got it either. Responsibility? Now we got to stand up here in the middle of the night with the police looking at us like we were deadmen or dupes. Nicaragua, Granada, Panama, El Salvador, Iraq, Afghanistan We are a peace loving people.  Is there anybody I’ve left out? And no, I am not a patriot, though I’m  loyal to the Lakers and the L.A. River. I am a citizen of the earth.”

Hear a complete audio recording of this event here. 

In May of 2001, Mark di Suvero installed “Declaration” as part of the 22nd Venice Art Walk, a fundraising initiative of the Venice Family Clinic, a local organization that provides quality health care to low-income and uninsured individuals and families, even to this day. “Art is a gift which we give to others,” said the artist at the time of the installation. Little did anyone realize, the temporary loan would become a staple of the Venice Beach skyline for the next 19 years. In 2018 the artist commented on its decades of time on the beach, “The people of the city of Venice really respond to it. They understand that it’s a way of living in space, this open space that is California, with beaches, and health and craziness. That they enjoy it is the most important part of it.” You can see the rest of this interview here. 

1991: After 2 years of campaigning and letter writing to city officials, permission was finally granted to allow Mark di Suvero to install two of his large-scale sculptures on Venice Beach, “For Gerard Manley Hopkins” (1989) and “Letter to The World” (1989). This marked the first time public sculpture was permitted on Venice Beach. A decade later, “Declaration,” followed the bureaucratic path hewn by these two original public works on the boardwalk.

Now, Venice Beach may lose a landmark and this powerful legacy championing the spirit of this unique community.  For our ongoing archive of materials related to “Declaration,” you can visit: www.declaration.lalouver.com

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It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our dear friend, Leon Kossoff. He was 92 years of age. “Our thoughts are with his friends and family, who along with his beloved hometown of London, were the essence of his being,” says Peter Goulds, Founding Director, L.A. Louver.

One of Britain’s greatest artists, Kossoff was known for his paint-laden canvases and vigorously gestural charcoal and pastel drawings. His early cityscapes give us a potent vision of a ravaged post-war London, and over subsequent decades, his more recent depictions captured the rejuvenation and light of the city. Kossoff also drew and painted the figure and was renowned for his unsentimental portrayal of the human condition. He worked from life, and those who sat for him were family members and a small group of close friends and models. A fervent champion of figurative art, Kossoff found kinship with the School of London, a postwar generation of painters that embraced figuration and landscapes in an era of abstraction and conceptualism, and whose members included Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, David Hockney, R.B. Kitaj and Euan Uglow.

Kossoff relentlessly pursued painting and drawing, as well as printmaking, to comprehend his changing world. He used paint to build heavily impastoed compositions through a rigorous process of repeated application and removal. While he never considered himself a gifted draughtsman, it was the act of drawing and his love for the medium that allowed Kossoff entry into his subjects. “Drawing is a springing to life in the presence of the friend in the studio or in the sunlit summer streets of London… painting is a deepening of this process.” He studied the Old Masters with enthusiasm, and maintained a lifelong habit of frequenting London’s museums where he would spend hours contemplating and drawing from beloved works of art by Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Poussin, Rembrandt, Rubens, Constable and Cézanne.

Kossoff was born to Russian Jewish immigrants in East London in 1926, and was raised on the borders of Islington, not far from Shoreditch where his family owned a bakery. At the age of nine, Kossoff visited the National Gallery of Art where he saw Rembrandt van Rijn’s painting Woman Bathing in a Stream (1634), a defining moment that remained a guiding presence throughout his life.  

In 1945, he commenced military service for three years with the Royal Fusiliers (2nd Battalion Jewish Brigade), in Italy, Holland, Belgium and Germany. Thereafter, he reengaged with his youthful passion for drawing and resumed his studies at St. Martin’s School of Art in 1949 (where he had taken classes 1943-45), and attended evening classes at Borough Polytechnic with David Bomberg. From 1953-1956, he studied at the Royal College of Art, London.

Exhibiting in London since the late 1950s, Kossoff had his first solo museum show at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London in 1972, and gained an international presence in 1981 with his inclusion in the exhibition Eight Figurative Painters: Michael Andrews. Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, William Coldstream, Lucian Freud, Patrick George, Leon Kossoff, Euan Uglow at Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT (traveled to Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CA), which presaged numerous group shows in places as far afield as Australia, Germany and India in the decade that followed.

Kossoff represented Great Britain at the 1995 Venice Biennale exhibition (traveled to Kunstverein Düsseldorf, and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam 1995-96), and in 1996, Tate presented a major solo retrospective. A painting survey presented by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark, traveled to Museum of Modern Art Lucerne, Switzerland in 2004/2005. Exhibitions of Kossoff’s old master–inspired works have also been staged at The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The National Gallery, London and National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

L.A. Louver was first to present Kossoff’s work outside of the UK with This Knot of Life: Paintings and Drawings by British Artists in 1979, the same year we began our representation. Over the past 40 years, the gallery has featured Kossoff in over a dozen group shows and five solo exhibitions, including Leon Kossoff: London Landscapes in 2014 (co-organized with Annely Juda Fine Art, London; Galerie Lelong, Paris and Mitchell-Innes and Nash, New York). The exhibition centered on drawings and paintings made of his beloved London, which Kossoff has described so: “Ever since the age of twelve, I have drawn and painted London… the strange ever- changing light, the endless streets and the shuddering feel of the sprawling city linger in my mind like a faintly glimmering memory…”

While we will miss Leon greatly, we are fortunate that his pictures remain with us, imbued with his quiet, resolute, gentle, passionate spirit, and his keen intellect and sensitive eye. They will forever glimmer with memories of his London and his vision of humanity.

Leon Kossoff is survived by his wife Peggy, son David, four grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

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Tradition, textiles and tagging: Gajin Fujita’s “Xing the River Styx”

In his new work “Xing the River Styx” (2018), Gajin Fujita makes reference to a woodblock print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) titled “Kishin Omatsu Shirosaburo o Korosu Zu” or “Picture of the Demon Omatsu Killing Shirosaburo.” The work dates back to 1886 and depicts the 14th-century legend of samurai Shirosaburo at his moment of death. According to folklore, the woman responsible for his killing was a ghost of his deceased wife. It is believed that she was murdered by the samurai, and here she reemerges to seek revenge. Posed as a maiden needing assistance across the river, she manages to lure the samurai to carry her to the other side. Fujita has long admired the work of Yoshitoshi for his realistic depictions of people with emotive qualities of expression. The tension in this scene is palpable. While adhering to Yoshitoshi’s exact figural composition, Fujita removes the characters and supplants them into his own picture plane. On wooden panels, finished with white and gold leaf, they float amongst graffiti-style markings written by himself and longtime friends and members of his graffiti crew K2S (Kill 2 Succeed), Defer, Prime and 382.

The garment patterns are either slightly altered from the original, or completely rehashed. The red sunflower textile that trails behind the female figure is true to Yoshitoshi’s composition, but which Fujita graphically enhances with sharper forms and deeper contrasts. However, her blue kimono is completely derived from his own imagination. To characterize her as a ghostly apparition, Fujita drapes her in Halloween motifs that connote trickery, witchcraft and the supernatural. Because all color is applied with spray paint through cut-out stencils, patterns can often pose a challenge in the artist’s process. For the Halloween pattern, the artist created two stencils for the pumpkins and two for the bats. By alternating the stencils, he multiplied the imagery across her clothing, while paying special attention to the creases and folds. Executed in an indigo palette of blues, the artist makes reference to traditional Japanese shibori textiles. In the male’s garments, Fujita adheres closer to the original with a traditional woven-like Japanese pattern, but in a different color palette of greens and golds. To achieve a seamless repetitive pattern, Fujita designed a specialized vinyl stencil of a small section of the pattern. Through repeated application, he strategically executed the overall design, carefully comporting to the clothing’s drapes and folds.

The crow in the lower left-hand corner is a Fujita addition, placed as a portent of the scene at play.

While the work’s title “Xing the River Styx” makes reference to Greek mythology, Fujita was also inspired by the ’70s cult classic samurai film series “Lone Wolf and Cub,” particularly the second in the series titled “Baby Cart at the River Styx.”

IMAGE: (top) Gajin Fujita, Xing the River Styx, 2018, spray paint, paint markers, 12k white gold and 24k gold on four wood panels, 48 x 64 in. (121.9 x 162.6 cm); (bottom) Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892), Kishin Omatsu Shirosaburo o Korosu Zu or Picture of the Demon Omatsu Killing Shirosaburo, 1886

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Leon Kossoff created his etching in response to The Holy Family on the Steps, 1648 by Nicolas Poussin, owned by the Cleveland Museum of Art. When included in the 1996 Poussin exhibition at the Royal Academy, London, Kossoff incised a zinc plate while working directly in front of the painting.

The composition depicts Mary, Joseph and the Christ Child, with Elizabeth and John the Baptist. A consequence of the printing process, Kossoff’s etching is a reverse of the Poussin. Kossoff had no intention to copy the old master, rather to find points of intersection, his draughtsmanship providing a means to “move about in its imaginative spaces” (Kendall, Richard. Leon Kossoff Drawings and Prints after Poussin, London: Merrell, 2000. Print).

In 2000, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art organized two concurrent exhibitions surrounding Kossoff’s drawings and etchings made after Poussin. In a rare interview, Kossoff talked to the Los Angeles Times about the process of making these works: 

"I just planned to get as close as possible to the paintings, through drawing. I feel I'm experiencing the paintings in a down-to-earth way that makes [them] real for me. [And] they keep my own drawing on the move. You’ve got no chance to change your mind with the etching, while drawing is endlessly restating. Plus, with etching, you can’t really see what you are doing very clearly, it’s all intuition.”

IMAGES: (top) Leon Kossoff (British, 1926-), The Holy Family on the Steps, 1998, etching, plate: 15 15/16 x 23 7/16 in. (40.5 x 59.5 cm), paper: 22 3/16 x 29 13/16 in. (56.4 x 75.7 cm), Edition of 20

(bottom) Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594-1665), The Holy Family on the Steps, 1648, oil on canvas, framed: 103.5 x 135.3 x 13.3 cm (40 11/16 x 53 1/4 x 5 3/16 in.), unframed: 73.3 x 105.8 cm (28 13/16 x 41 5/8 in.), former: 72.3 x 104 cm (28 7/16 x 40 15/16 in.), The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1981.18

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"America made me great."

So says artist Rina Banerjee, reflecting on her immigrant upbringing in New York and Philadelphia's Fox Chase neighborhood, in an interview for the catalog of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts' new exhibition, "Rina Banerjee: Make Me a Summary of the World." It is a statement not of egotism, but of slightly grudging gratitude that despite the prejudice and wrong-headedness she encountered, America gave her the opportunity to become herself.

This mid-career retrospective, the largest show ever devoted to the Indian-born American artist, threatens, at least on paper, to be almost too timely. Her issues — globalism, identity, world trade, change in the natural world, the spread of culture, disease, ideas, and money — are the stuff of each day's headlines.

Fortunately art, when it is good, is not about issues. Instead, it offers visions, ways of looking at the world that reconfigure our thoughts and unleash a flood of feelings.

-- Thomas Hines, Philly Daily News

Read more here.

Rina Banerjee: Make Me A Summary of the World is on view at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts through March 31, 2019. 

Future venues:

Co-organizer San José Museum of Art, California (May 18 - October 6, 2019)

Fowler Museum at University of California, Los Angeles (December 8, 2019 - May 31, 2020)

Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Tennessee (July 24 - October 25, 2020)

Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (February 18 - July 11, 2021)

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Alex "Defer" Kizu is a well known graffiti artist who has created "sanctioned" works for exterior facades as well as interior gallery walls. Defer has been a part of the the Los Angeles street art scene since the mid 1980s and is one of a handful of artists who has also embraced a gallery career. Defer moves easily between the worlds of street art and contemporary art, painting with a fluid style that juxtaposes colorful abstract gestures with his personal typography— visually akin to gangster Cholo writing. At L.A. Louver he brings the outside in, or perhaps it could be said, the inside out. His installation in L.A. Louver's Skyroom, “Immersive,” fills the walls and floor with an all over pattern in predominantly blue and white tones, augmented by bits or green and ochre. I recommend visiting the work at different times of day with varying cloud cover in order to fully appreciate Defer's understanding and treatment of the space. In harsh light, the white brush strokes reflect the sun which cascades across half the floor. Along the edges where the wall meets the floor, there is a swash of darker blue that functions as an outline. In the center of the south wall pink paint enters into the composition, contrasting the cadence of the gyrating and undulating white and blue curves. The gallery website posts an enticing video of the artist at work; dipping his brush into white paint, methodically filling in the blue wall with assured gestural lines. What is most striking about this installation is not only how it melds with the actual sky, which happened to be a cloudless blue when I visited, but how Defer painted the walls to capture the gradation of the space in both sun and shade. The Skyroom is a modest-sized enclosed balcony on the gallery's second floor with high walls that cast dramatic and ever changing shadows as the sun moves from east to west. Taking advantage of the shadows tonal variations, Defer created a complex work that balances the relationships between light and dark. It is remarkable that in just three days, he filled the space with undulating and intricate lines, creating a sensational work that, while rooted in abstraction, simultaneously alludes to language. While the criss-crossing curvilinear strokes suggest letter forms and words, there is no definitive message other than the power of art to evoke a wide range of emotions in both the creator and the viewer. - Jody Zellen, What’s on Los Angeles

Alex “Defer” Kizu is on view through October 20, 2018.  

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RICHARD DEACON & SUI JIANGUO

6 September – 20 October 2018

Reception for the artists: Thursday, 6 September, 6-8pm

L.A. Louver is pleased to present a two-person exhibition with British artist Richard Deacon and Chinese artist Sui Jianguo. The installation includes new and recent works in clay, wood and stainless steel by Deacon, and over 40 bronze and galvanized photosensitive resin sculptures by Sui. This is the artists’ first collaborative presentation in the United States.

Sui Jianguo and Richard Deacon first met in 1999 when Deacon proposed a sculpture for a public site in China. Sui sat on the selection committee. From this time onwards, Sui and Deacon have maintained a friendship as well as lively ongoing dialogue about issues relating to sculpture. Sui recalls: “I remember the first time [Deacon] visited me at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, he immediately photographed the classroom’s decrepit ceiling that with age had paint peeling off of it and curling onto itself. The following year, he made a series of works using laminated wood curling into itself. This is something that left a deep impression on me.”

Despite living and working at opposite ends of the world both geographically and culturally (Deacon is based in London, England, and Sui in Beijing, China), the artists’ parallel trajectories of sculptural practice and academia have created many points of intersection. Generationally close (Deacon was born in 1949 and Sui in 1956), both artists pursued sculpture at university, have exhibited worldwide, and are professors at prestigious institutions. While both have acquired a fundamental awareness of what it means to be a “sculptor,” they have eschewed normative modes of conceptualizing and executing sculptural objects.

Often referring to himself as a “fabricator,” Deacon has described his works as being “assembled from parts,” rather than traditionally carved or modeled. In a series titled Fold in the Fabric, Deacon has constructed a variety of geometric configurations from solid, unfinished wood blocks, each cut to the same length. Rather than carving away material, Deacon has joined the blocks together, combining them in different formations. The act of making is present, evidenced by the adhesive substrate dribbling between the connective joints. Further, Deacon has assigned a specificity to their display, setting them on top of wood tables of his own making: the crudeness of the sculpture’s raw material contrasting with the polished wood on which they rest. “Deacon has an innate talent for creating objects,” says Sui. “He is particularly good at making strangely shaped works based on the characteristics of the materials he uses.”

Sui has created works of similar scale by distilling the act of sculpting to an essence: pinching and grasping material form. “He has been willing to periodically upend all that he has learnt and to operate with new sets of principles, although carrying forward into changed circumstances his accumulated technical knowledge,” states Deacon. “He doesn’t pretend to start as a beginner.” In his series titled Planting Trace, Sui begins each work by pressing a small mass of clay with his hand; the pliant material captures the variegated surface of his skin. Using advanced 3D scanning and printing technology, Sui translates the clay imprints to a larger scale, magnifying every trace of his bodily impression with precision. The majority of sculptures are rendered in galvanized photosensitive resin, while others are cast in bronze, including a form that measures 12 ft. (3.5 m) tall: a monument to a gesture.

An equally towering stainless steel sculpture by Deacon is positioned in counterpoint to Sui’s large form. New Alphabet GHI (2018) derives from an initial 26 drawings that Deacon developed into a whole vocabulary of metal reliefs, and which he has now made increasingly complex as a layered, freestanding construction.

A dialogue occurs between the two artists’ sculptures, which are interspersed throughout the gallery. While diverse in their outputs, the conversational manner in which Sui and Deacon’s works occupy the space bring similarities to light – explorations through thematic variations, an intensity of technical proficiency, a sensitivity to spatial relationships and an approach to materiality that goes beyond the surface. “Our relationships are deeper than simple friendship,” says Deacon. “They are rooted in joint artistic and intellectual practices and fed by great mutual respect.”

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EVOLVER Film Night and Summer Party

Outdoor screening • Drinks and snacks • Music

Wednesday, August 8, 6-9pm

Featuring Matthew Brandt, Gaijn Fujita, Ben Jackel, Laura Krifka, Heather Gwen Martin, Kim Schoenstadt and Matt Wedel, these short films document the artists at work in their studios, providing insight into their processes and environs. The selected films (2011-2017) were produced by L.A. Louver in conjunction with Rogue Wave, our ongoing curatorial initiative for emerging artists working in Los Angeles and international artist projects. The program will be screened in our outdoor courtyard and upstairs viewing room, while the galleries will remain open until 9 p.m. Visitors are encouraged to view the films at their leisure, and experience the final iteration of our rotating group show EVOLVER. Refreshments will be served Validated parking EVENT IS FREE. RSVP REQUESTED Please rsvp through Facebook; [email protected]; or [phone]

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Per Kirkeby (1938–2018)

“On 9 May, the Danish artist Per Kirkeby died at age 79 after a long illness.  . The many approaches available to Kirkeby’s work reflect his unlimited exploration of art forms and the energy with which he worked. Kirkeby’s art is not intellectual or conceptual in nature – everywhere, it has great and immediate visual accessibility – but, as he insisted, art and the power of the image are always up for discussion in the existential space where the artwork meets the viewer.” -- Poul Erik Tøjner, Frieze Magazine

We had the privilege to present two solo exhibition with Per Kirkeby, in 1997 and again in 2005. Images included are from his 2005 solo show, described by David Pagel of the L.A. Times as: “Neither expressive nor bombastic, they're not touchy-feely explorations of the artist's emotions. Yet there's plenty of room for affect, for finding connections and metaphors for human struggles and sentiments.” 

Visit our website for more on the artist. 

IMAGES: (top to bottom) Portrait of Per Kirkeby in his studio, date unknown; L.A. Louver installation images “Per Kirkeby,” 2005; Per Kirkeby, “Untitled (PK05 10),” 2005, oil on canvas, 78 3/4 x 98 1/2 in. (200 x 250 cm), Private collection

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Over an artistic career that spanned six decades, Henri Matisse worked as a painter, sculptor, muralist, designer and printmaker. While he displayed a deft proficiency in a wide range of mediums, Matisse described drawing as “the purest and most direct expression of my feelings.” Through examining his printmaking practice, we can imagine the firsthand translation of the drawn image to the printed sheet. 

Henri Matisse: Works on Paper, 1913-1948 includes 19 works on paper that exemplify Matisse’s enduring fascination with both drawing and printmaking, and the varied stylistic approaches he employed to depict his subjects. 

On view 24 January - 3 March 2018. Click here for an online e-catalogue. 

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ART NOW LA

Deborah Butterfield: ‘Three Sorrows’The Equine Transformed

by Jody Zellen

Deborah Butterfield‘s exhibition at LA Louver begins outside the gallery with Kelly Canyon, 2016. At 98″ high x 86″ long, this cast bronze horse originally constructed from disparate pieces of wood faces the wall as if to say, “Let me be, I am content in this concrete courtyard. The wood used in the creation of my structure might come from Kelly Canyon, Idaho, but it has been transformed and now I am a stoic, solid presence guarding the entrance to the gallery.” Butterfield’s other works, located in the sky-room and on the second floor also suggest this idea of transformation.

Throughout her long career, Butterfield has been assembling large and small-scale horses from found objects – specifically different kinds of wood, which are then cast in bronze to create freestanding sculptures, each with a unique structure and personality. Butterfield uses the horse as another artist might use the figure.

Her sculptures are representations: self-portraits and metaphors for myriad emotional and physical states. Each horse is constructed from actual wood, and then documented, disassembled and cast in bronze. The sculptures are then given a patina that approximates the tonalities of the original, making it appear as if the works were made of wood, not bronze.

What is most striking about her latest work, Three Sorrows (quake, tsumani, meltdown from Gretel Ehrlich in Facing the Wave), 2016, is that Butterfield branches out in an exciting new direction – incorporating debris from natural disasters into the work as well as scattering this detritus on the floor around the sculpture. The work takes its title from Facing the Wave, Gretel Ehrlich‘s accounting of the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima earthquake and tsunami.

Collecting fragments that washed ashore in remote Alaska islands, including bits of plastic and marine scraps that found their way across the ocean, Butterfield has created an emotionally charged work. As always, the physical horse stands tall.

It is a regal subject, though in this instance many of its internal parts are assembled from pieces of blue plastic and dried out buoys rather than cast bronze, giving the animal an aura of tragedy. The creature is surrounded by well-worn and disintegrating fragments from another time and place, infusing it with a sense of loss and melancholy.

Butterfield has an intuitive knack for knowing what pieces of twisted and knotted wood will define the uniqueness of each horse’s presence and personality. Sometimes she combines numerous smaller pieces to build up an area, such as the back legs in Elkhorn, 2016. At other times, the body and head of the horse contain larger pieces of refuse like in Kōkai, 2017, where Butterfield has incorporated large sections of yellow trash. All horses, like all people, are not the same, and Butterfield recognizes these differences, thinking of each work as a specific representation that transcends place and time. They become figurative works with spiritual and emotional resonance.

Deborah Butterfield: Three Sorrows is on view through January 6, 2018.