Group Show - Greater L.A.

I don't know if it was just the humidity that was getting to me or the very unpleasant moment of Time-Square crowdedness that had descended upon Soho on a holiday weekend, but by the time I reached the "Greater L.A." group exhibition, my expectations were sky-high.  I was hoping that it had been worth the battle to get to see a spectacular show.  I was disappointed.

I was really excited to see this show which had taken over the 2nd floor of 483 Broadway (at Broome).  This is the first survey I know of in the last ten years in New York that was supposed to represent Contemporary art in Los Angeles.  The survey had both a good mix of established and emerging artists.  The title, "Greater  L.A.", is probably based on the "Greater New York" show that is held at the P.S.1 on a five year basis which basically gives a snapshot or takes the pulse of contemporary art at that moment in and around NYC.

If this is the state of Contemporary art in L.A. - well, then it looks a bit lackluster to me.  However, I think I know enough that's really not the case.  There are very exciting things going on it L.A. and I love that there is completely different set of cultural perspectives, a whole different "American" experience there, and the ideas of individual, isolation, industry, growth, history, art practice and process and Conceptualism is completely separate than our East Coast mind-set.  And I think this was not really successfully presented in this exhibition and I think there was a lack of "craftsmanship" overall.

I read somewhere that the exhibition was planned and executed within a couple of months and it certainly has that feel to it.

But if you know me, you know that I don't like to focus too much on the negative, and there were certainly works that were worth seeing (or worth seeing again).  These were the real highlights for me in the show.....


Alex Prager

I have been drinking the Alex Prager Kool-Aid for a while now and I am not going to stop anytime soon.  She is hot, hot, hot right now - which in my book, is not always a good thing, but she is one of my favorite photographers at the moment and I will continually sing her praises.  These works are from the "Week-end" series of 2009 that I am very familiar with and I think it would have been a huge catastrophe had they not included her work in this show.

Prager is a self-taught photographer whose influences are obvious - you can see the stylings of Hitchcock, Crewdson and Sherman for sure - but the combination of their techniques with her own style, enigmatic narrative, tension of retro with the contemporary against the Los Angeles backdrop makes these works intriguing, sexy and magnetic.  Prager photographs young attractive women, primarily actresses, who are wearing wigs and vintage clothes against a contemporary backdrop. She then manipulates the images.  There is a wonderful cinematic quality to the work with added mystery in terms of what the women are wearing (clothes from the 60s and 70s) juxtaposed to contemporary objects (cars, signs, items).  She also has appropriated and set forth her own visual language that continues through her pictures.  These highly stylized scenarios with high-keyed colors (see other works in this series - link below) are melodramatic, sinister and striking.

In these particular photos, which are the nocturnal scenes of the series, the "bad girl" is played up next to the "forlorn ingenue" in a separate photograph - is this the land of broken dreams?   There is a sense of isolation in an urban environment - something I think that we New Yorkers can relate to.  I love the primordial fire in the last photograph against the manipulated layered parking lots.  What is going on here?  We can keep guessing and making up our own story about it - but we will never know for sure.

I believe her work keeps getting more interesting - especially with her new foray into film.  I can't wait to see what comes next.

Link to more Alex Prager photographs


Melanie Schiff

These are a few examples of photographs that I saw at this exhibition by this artist.  This is the second time that I see them because I also saw them in 2009 at Horton Gallery in Chelsea.   I am not entirely crazy about this photographer's entire body of work, but I absolutely love this series of "contemporary landscapes" that the artist has done.  I love this idea of the lost areas in our cities and the intense graffiti covering these tunnels, ramps and manmade ditches.

The photographs of these "found spaces" are not only photographed quite well, but are layered in meaning.  They can be thought about in terms of a graffiti culture - there is a sort of immortality of one illegally laying his mark or "tag" on the concrete - however this is quickly covered by someone else and there is a sort of tribute to the passage of time.  We can talk in terms of man vs. nature as these manmade areas that we have carved into the land seem to be defunct and abandoned and not even being used anymore.  You can also compare these to the important American landscape photographers and painters that have been capturing our country's beauty over the last two centuries.

I would love to see the photographer explore this series further and see them in a larger scale.

Link to more Melanie Schiff photographs

Karl Haendel

Here are a few examples from graphite drawings from the series "All the Clocks in My House" dated 2010 that were show in this exhibition.  How can you not love these?!  They are more stunning in person for sure.  I believe the artist literally took photographs of the clocks in his house and drew from the photographs.  There is an incredible precision to the drawings that only when you are up close to them can you distinguish them from actual black and white photographs.  I love his use of cropping and perspective here.  More importantly, I enjoy the concept of capturing time or the idea of the passage of time or how we spend time in our personal life.  Would love to see more work by this artist - I believe there is a show planned for his work in the fall of 2011 at Harris Lieberman.

Mark Grotjahn

There are three small, jewel-like colored pencil drawings by established artist, Mark Grotjahn.  As you know, I am not a huge fan of abstract art, but I have always loved all the works by Grotjahn.  Unfortunately, I cannot find the exact images that were in the show, but this is very, very similar to the works that are there.  He is a true colorist and although over the years he has built upon and developed the same visual model and system, its hard not to continue to be intrigued by his work.  I am crazy about the color and the cold, straight-forward formalism.

Currently, there is an exhibition at Anton Kern in Chelsea of new work by Grotjahn.
Link



Also there are also some works by Carter Mull, Jonas Wood and Sterling Ruby that you shouldn't miss if you go.

Its worth stopping by if you are in the neighborhood to see the works that I mentioned above.  I do hope that they continue this exhibition on a regular basis, because its great to break out of our East coast mentality and see a different perspective (just with better execution).

Link to exhibition - wish the site was a little bit better in terms of showing the actual works in the exhibition (be sure to check the days and hours they are open before you go  - not normal gallery hours)