ART TO SEE IN LOS ANGELES
I saw some art this weekend and thought I’d share... Images above are, from top, artwork by Annelie McKenzie and Elliot Hundley, and both exhibitions were great inspiring shows that I’d recommend checking out if you are in the Los Angeles area this month.
Annelie McKenzie Man in Canoe and Grizzly @ CB1Gallery
“In the party game Who’s Coming to Dinner? participants are asked to choose any number of dinner guests, famous or not, from any period in time, and imagine what the party would be like. Annelie McKenzie’s exhibition is her personal variation of that game, except that she has imagined a museum exhibition, choosing artists—famous or not, from any period in time–and they become her “Old Masters.”
McKenzie’s practice is not to create exact replicas of their works but is more interested in creating cover songs or valentines: loose impersonations made in order to ponder, revel in, decorate, and pile onto the imagery of the originals. Artists referred to in this collection include the women of Beaver Hall (a Canadian painting collective from the 1930s), Rosalie Filleul, Gladys Johnston, and the artist’s mother. The paintings in the exhibition are in playful dialogue with each other as they are mirrored, repeated, confirmed, and transformed.”
Exhibition is on view until July 17th, 2016.
Elliot Hundley There Is No More Firment @ RegenProjects
“Known for his dense multimedia compositions that reference both art history and mythology, Hundley’s work weaves together scenes from the past with familiar imagery taken from the contemporary world. Whereas previous bodies of work have focused on classical Greek tales such as Euripides’s tragedy The Bacchae, this exhibition presents a shift in subject matter, moving from antiquity to the modern, and is loosely based on Antonin Artaud’s play There Is No More Firmament. Devoid of a traditional narrative structure and identifiable protagonists, the play utilizes visuals, sound, gesture, and language to confront the viewer and create an impactful, visceral state of chaos.
Referencing similar mechanisms employed in Artaud’s theory of the Theatre of Cruelty, Hundley intricately crafts his tableaux from a wide-ranging selection of materials and sources. Each billboard collage represents a different state of anxiety – of surroundings, society, the body, and of being and mortality – and features a synthesis of painting, drawing, sculpture, collage, photography and performance. Beginning with an elaborate photo shoot in which his friends and family are cast to embody characters or ideas expressed in the narrative, the resulting photographs are blown up, cut up, and affixed onto the surface of the works. Through a process ranging from gradual accumulation to spontaneous mark making, Hundley builds up the surface of his works using paint, magazine cutouts, fabric, straight pins, found objects, and other materials sourced from his extensive archive. These formally elaborate constructions play with abstraction and representation, inviting the viewer to create narrative and meaning.”
Exhibition is on view until June 18th.
