January 19th, 2012
If you’re in Los Angeles tomorrow night, make sure you stop by OHWOW gallery for the opening night of our friend Daniel Arsham’s latest exhibition. Entitled “the fall, the ball, and the wall,” this is Arsham’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, and features everything from two-dimensional work to sculpture, installation, public art, and performance, in an effort to (re)consider architecture, the natural world, and the manner in which they interact. The show illustrates the artist’s continued interest in manipulating architecture and in challenging expectations of accepted realities.
Arsham (who we profiled in Corduroy Issue #8) presents three bodies of work, like structural interventions that cause walls to appear in a state of flux, as if they are melting or dripping. They speak to the notion of architectural rigidity and of a partition’s standard presentation.
With a new series of work on canvas, meantime, Arsham depicts realistic building constructions, which include elements that spell out words (like “UH HUH,” image seen at left). And his aestheticized sculpture and installations realize hypothetical architectural elements and counterintuitive designs, queuing new possibilities and coercing material to behave in unexpected and atypical ways.
Whether through his solo creations or collaborations with architects, dancers and choreographers (like his good friend Merce Cunningham, whose set pieces from his final performances will be on display), Arsham presents work that undoubtedly possess visual drama and evoke a visceral response. And we encourage everyone to see and experience it for themselves.
Daniel Arsham’s “the fall, the ball, and the wall” runs until February 16th at the OHWOW Gallery, 937 N. La Cienega Blvd. in Los Angeles. The opening reception takes place this Friday from 6-9 pm.
Tags: Daniel Arsham, Los Angeles, OHWOW Gallery
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January 18th, 2012
Interdisciplinary artist Guy Laramee’s 25 years of artistic practice have been predominantly inspired by culture and its dynamic nature. Cultures constantly change, some evolve, while others become antiquated and fall into extinction.
The artist’s latest series, entitled “The Great Wall,” seeks to further explore the erosion and accumulation of culture. Laramee has imagined an underlying narrative for this work, which tells the story of a plan to build a wall around the United States of America — so as to “protect the land from barbarian invasions” — and how this wall ultimately isolates Americans from the rest of the world while sapping the country’s remaining cultural and natural resources.
Featuring encyclopedias meticulously carved and reworked into new and interesting forms, the series is a testament to the idea of discarding culture. Laramee slowly but surely removes layer after layer of these once-indispensable books, repurposing an object which many believe has become obsolete due to technological advances.
However, through his work, Laramee ultimately concludes he is just as clueless as the rest of us; the artist has no definitive idea as to how culture will evolve, and it’s this uncertainty which makes his work so inspired. Find out more about Laramee’s project HERE.
- James Lavapie
Tags: Guy Laramee, James Lavapie
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January 14th, 2012
Phaidon Store SoHo’s annual warehouse sale and markdowns have begun. Swing by for some great deals on rare, out-of-print, classic best-sellers, as well as newly released titles. A new delivery of books just arrived the other day and we got a sneak peek of the titles available. The sale stock includes…
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Tags: Phaidon
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January 10th, 2012
LA-based painter Leo Eguiarte is on the cutting edge of modern symbolism with his colorful and imaginative paintings. A graduate of the Art Center College of Design, the artist’s latest series showcases his experimentation acrylic on canvas, tackling a range of issues from modern warfare to the nuclear family and religion.
The series, aptly titled, “Gateway to Heaven,” abstracts notions of religion, faith and salvation. What decisions must we make on our respective paths to the afterlife? Eguiarte seeks to answer this question through his vivid and intensely visual paintings, which invoke at once feelings of distress and serenity.
Eguiarte’s heavy use of color helps to convey a sense of the surreal nature to our conceptions of the afterlife. After all, no one really knows what happens after we die; this uncertainty allows the artist a certain measure of freedom. The result is a hyper-stylized conception of life after death and the mark of something bold and powerful arriving in the contemporary art world.
- James Lavapie
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December 20th, 2011
We are simultaneously horrified and captivated by the visceral and dark paintings of Prague-based artist Josef Bolf. The artist’s work deals with issues of catastrophe, despair, isolation and, in some cases, sheer horror.
When we first saw Bolf’s work, we were immediately confronted with a very palpable sense of death and decay, the result of an etching technique the artist uses. However, Bolf’s paintings are more than simply cliché caricatures of darkness, they truly evoke the inherent fear and sadness we all have experienced.
Our personal favorite is an oil and ink on canvas work, entitled “Glued Eye.” Bolf depicts the indiscriminate face of a deformed child suffering in the context of destruction. We love the tension created by Bolf’s renderings of extreme innocence and corruption.
Bolf draws heavily from his past, dissecting his traumatic experiences and personal demons on the canvas. However, what makes the artist’s work so compelling is the universal nature of the subject matter. Bolf’s work is as much an expression of his past as it is the expression of an entire generation, and that perhaps, is what makes it all the more frightening to bear.
- James Lavapie
(Above credit: Josef Bolf, Glued Eye, 2011 / Oil and ink on canvas / 30 x 20 cm)
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