Three exhibitions
dal 3/6/2005 al 25/6/2005
Segnalato da
3/6/2005
Three exhibitions
Raid Projects, Los Angeles
Gridlock: an exhibition of contemporary manifestations of the grid. Rather like a ghost at the feast high modernism's regular grid is a hovering presence in all of the works included. In Augusta Wood's photographs of for-now-unpeopled places words are inscribed into snow and chalked on sidewalks. One text, spelled out at knee height in magnets on a fridge door, reads 'I'll be alright, but thank you'. Emilio Garcia explores that which is 'non-excess' to both the traveler and to his sculptures.
Gridlock: works by Jeremy Kidd, John Lyon and Christine Morla in the Main Gallery
Augusta Wood: in the Project Room
Artist-in-Residence Emilio Garcia: Non-Excess Baggage in the North Gallery
'Gridlock': an exhibition of contemporary manifestations of the grid.
Rather like a ghost at the feast high modernism's regular grid is a
hovering presence in all of the works included. But, if the modernist
grid was a eulogy to flatness that simultaneously asserted some stable
(if chilly) universal structure, then these works propose a more complex
configuration of coordinates. Here right angles often wilt, spaces bulge
like so many well-fed stomachs and horizons multiply. Having invited the
specter to sit down and talk, Kidd, Lyon and Morla engage in a trio of
cross-referencing conversations with the old ghost that are by turns pithy,
analytical, flirtatious and challenging.
Jeremy Kidd's recent works have asserted the existence of a universal
intelligence that, contrary to the supposedly disinterested force represented
by the grid, expresses itself as aberrations in the regular surface patterns
of our built environments. With his new body of digitally manipulated
photographs this disorderly and desiring 'natural force' has become
equated with human subjective perception. Containing up to one hundred
thirty-second exposures Kidd's images of subtly distorted and multiplied
landmarks are 'fictional realities' - expressions of the ways in which
perception interprets, processes and accumulates impressions of
experience. Kidd's extensive exhibition record includes UFO at the
University of Colorado and tour, Pop Surrealism at the Aldrich Museum
of Contemporary Art, CT; and shows at the Laguna Art Museum, CA;
Littlejohn Contemporary, NY; and the Caroline Wiseman Gallery, London.
Inspired by the clan history of Scotland and the distinctive tartans that
designate each familial grouping, John Lyon's rich plaid paintings take
on the grid as both functional entity and narrative structure. At the
same time, by distorting the plaid and curving its regimented lines, he
causes the space between the lines to swell. That which familiarity
indicates should be flat - the tartan pattern - and that which is known
to be flat - the painted surface - begin to undulate under the influence
of illusion. A recent graduate of Claremont Graduate School, Lyon has
shown his work at the Rhode Island School of Design, Chicago's
Labotomy Gallery and Concrete Walls in Los Angeles.
Referencing traditional crafts and children's pastimes Christine Morla's
vibrantly-colored woven paper and palm fronds 'mats' are pinned, taped
and glued to the wall. Creating a first impression of over-spilling
abundance the paper edges curl off the walls, but underlying the playful
profusion is a rigorous structure of warp and weft and a sophisticated
and highly selective approach to pattern and color. Morla's work has been
presented at venues that include Crazy Space Gallery, Highways
Performance Space and Patricia Correia Gallery in Santa Monica; the
Armory Northwest in Pasadena and Art Frankfurt, Germany.
In Augusta Wood's photographs of for-now-unpeopled places words
are inscribed into snow and chalked on sidewalks. One text, spelled out
at knee height in magnets on a fridge door, reads 'I'll be alright, but
thank you'. In another toothpaste smeared on a bathroom mirror states
'the search for lost things is hindered by routine habits'. Embedded in
Wood's elegant images, which are redolent of Sunday evening reverie,
the texts sometimes suggest themselves as thoughts that have been
left and lost, sometimes as injunctions whose meanings are rendered
both sharp and elusive by an aphoristic poetry.
Placing himself and his work in the context of constant travel Raid Artist
In Residence Emilio Garcia explores that which is 'non-excess' to both
the traveler and to his sculptures. At once skeletal and fulsomely pod-like
Garcia's forms emerge from the artist's experience that, in a peripatetic
life, all but the essentials must be shed. Emilio Garcia has previously
been a resident at the Vermont Studio Center.
Raid Projects is a non-commercial artist-run project space and curatorial
organization that is dedicated to promoting the exchange of cultural
products and ideas through various curatorial models on a regional,
national and international basis. Every year we host 8 projects in our Los
Angeles gallery, 3-5 projects at alternative, commercial, institutional,
and/or appropriated spaces world-wide, and a year-round Artist In
Residence program.
Image: Augusta Wood
Opening: on Saturday June 4, 7-10pm.
Raid Projects
602 Moulton Ave, Brewery Complex - Los Angeles
Open Saturday, 12-5pm and by arrangement Mon-Fri.