calendario eventi  :: 

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5/2/2005

Two exhibitions

UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Thing. New Sculpture from Los Angeles - Hammer Projects: Adam Cvijanovic

Thing. New Sculpture from Los Angeles
February 6 - June 5, 2005

Los Angeles, CA—The Hammer Museum will present the exhibition THING: New Sculpture from Los Angeles, featuring 20 up-and-coming, Los Angeles-based artists whose innovative and provocative works reflect the energy and originality of L.A.’s lively art scene. Most of the approximately 45 objects on view, dated from 2001 to 2004, have never before been exhibited, and over half were created specifically for the exhibition. The sculptures range from intimate works including realistically painted plastic and bronze casts to complex, mixed-media pieces including a startling full-scale low-rider car constructed completely of wood and clay and a junk-filled, artificial rock sliced like a precious stone. Organized by the Hammer Museum, THING will be on view in the Museum’s main galleries from February 6 through June 5, 2005.

Los Angeles has become a defining force in international contemporary art. THING: New Sculpture from Los Angeles provides a chance to examine how the range of often provocative sculpture and objects being produced by L.A.’s younger generation extends local traditions and lineages, and also taps into and shapes broader cultural streams.

”By presenting the most recent, innovative sculpture being made in L.A., THING captures the incredible vitality, diversity, and quality found throughout the city’s studios,” said Ann Philbin, director of the Hammer Museum. “THING continues the Hammer Museum’s recent tradition of organizing an exhibition every two years that presents the best new work being produced by today’s generation of artists.”

THING: New Sculpture from Los Angeles follows the Hammer Museum’s previous invitational exhibitions—Snapshot: New Art from Los Angeles (2001) and International Paper: Drawings by Emerging Artists (2003). THING is organized by a curatorial team led by James Elaine, curator of Hammer Projects, with co-curators Aimee Chang, curatorial assistant at the Hammer Museum, and Christopher Miles, independent curator, critic, and assistant professor at California State University, Long Beach. Accompanying the exhibition will be a full-color catalogue with an essay by Miles and extensive entries on each artist written by the curators and Hammer curatorial intern Matthew Thompson.

The exhibition is sponsored by The Fellows of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Additional support provided by the Murray and Ruth Gribin Foundation and The Fifth Floor Foundation.

The exhibition title, THING, was inspired by the exhibition’s emphasis on works that reflect a sculptural practice rooted in the production of objects—or things—rather than environmental installations. The objects are often representational and referential, including occasional anthropomorphic qualities. The works on view can be loosely organized by several primary interests and categories: objects that reference familiar shapes and qualities; objects that mimic familiar items; sculptures that incorporate and assimilate actual objects from the surrounding environment; and works that are grounded in architecture and the architectural model. Jedediah Caesar’s concrete orbs filled with studio junk and resin are commercially sliced and polished like geodes. Matt Johnson mimics ordinary objects by painting cast bronze and plastic to painstakingly replicate mundane every-day objects. Chuck Moffit combines a Ford automobile engine with other materials in an abstract construction. Among the artists who employ architectural language and ideas, Aragna Ker’s brightly painted structure is simultaneously reminiscent of a coffin and a church.

Artists included in the exhibition are Lauren Bon, Jedediah Caesar, Kate Costello, Krysten Cunningham, Hannah Greely, Taft Green, Matt Johnson, Aragna Ker, Olga Koumoundouros, Renee Lotenero, Nathan Mabry, Rodney McMillian, Chuck Moffit, Kristen Morgin, Joel Morrison, Michael O’Malley, Kaz Oshiro, Andy Ouchi, Lara Schnitger, and Mindy Shapero.

The artists represented in THING were selected after hundreds of visits to studios and exhibitions conducted by the curators throughout Los Angeles County during the past year and feature recent graduates of the many local colleges and universities whose strong fine arts programs are a central component of the city’s rich cultural landscape.

The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center is operated by the University of California, Los Angeles. Occidental Petroleum Corporation has partially endowed the Museum and constructed the Occidental Petroleum Cultural Center Building, which houses the Museum.

Hammer Projects: Adam Cvijanovic
Feb 6 - Aug 7, 2005
Adam Cvijanovic's large-scale landscape painting spans the Hammer Lobby Wall, evoking the Hudson River School and 19th-century cycloramas. His room-sized installations—made of smaller Tyvek panels mounted side-by-side—portray beautiful, yet charged natural scenes that challenge the seemingly sacred divisions between mass-produced and the unique, the decorative and the profound.

Image: Hannah Greely - Muddle - 2004 - coconut fiber, silicone glue. Astrup Fearnley Collection, Oslo, Norway. Photo by Joshua White.

UCLA Hammer Museum - 10899 Wilshire Boulevard - Los Angeles
Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, 11am–7pm; Thursday, 11am–9pm; Sunday, 11am-5pm; closed Mondays, July 4, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.
Admission: $5 for adults; $3 for seniors (65+) and UCLA Alumni Association members; free for Museum members, students with identification, UCLA faculty/staff, and visitors 17 and under. The Museum is free for everyone on Thursdays.

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