TOMOKO OBANA AND TORU OTANI

Posted on 2022-07-11

Tomoko Obana and Toru Otani do not know each-other, however their artistic procedures are neighborly, relishing delight in cartographic compositions, found forms and in rich color; earthy to Victorian from the hands of Obana, and from Old World towards Fauve in the hands of Otani.

For her vitrine sculptures, Tomoko Obana collects vintage, industrially produced wares such as water and perfume bottles, jugs, bud vases and more. She makes a mold of these found objects by which she produces one hundred casts; ten each of ten different types of clay slip, kiln fired with various woods, amounting to one-hundred unique “ash glazed” iterations. The artist contemplates the nuances of sooty and dappled surfaces of her objects and settles on arrangements which may, in the Western canon, resemble the paintings of Giorgio Morandi, but which, for the artist, give a nod to the aesthetic disciplines of Japanese Ikebana flower arrangements or dry, rock gardens.

Opposite – Toru Otani, Game Board for a Game of Unburnable Stones and Tigers, 2015

Exhibition runs through to August 27th, 2022

Nonaka-Hill
720 N. Highland Ave.
CA 90038
Los Angeles

www.nonaka-hill.com

  

BARRY MCGEE – EVERYDAY SUNRISE

Posted on 2022-07-11

Taking inspiration from his native San Francisco, as well as the places he has resided in throughout his artistic career, McGee constructs site-specific installations that evoke his playful investigations into space and the unending dialogue between art and life.

Opposite – Untitled, 2022

Exhibition runs through to September 8th, 2022

Perrotin
Seoul 1F 5 Palpan-Gil
Jongno-Gu Seoul
South Korea

www.perrotin.com

  

NIKOLAI ISHCHUK – TILT/SHIFT

Posted on 2022-07-04

The title of the show, referencing the perspective control techniques of architectural photography, derives from a small series of geometric drawings made by Ishchuk in 2013-14 that precipitated subsequent work and to which the artist recently found himself returning. They resemble optical diagrams, only here bouncing lines refract into interlocking isometric volumes, suggesting multiple possible perspectives. The shapes in his drawings vibrate with a subtle jitter visible in the shading, made up of a myriad of small parallel pen strokes. Two of these drawings and one diptych are included as these investigations of the line, mark-making and demarcation were a precursor of works in the rest of the exhibition.

Opposite – ARCADIA (6), 2019

Exhibition runs through to August 21st, 2022

Marshall Gallery
2525 Michigan Ave. #A6
Los Angeles
CA 90404

marshallgallery.art

  

SEPAND DANESH – FEAR OF COLLAPSE

Posted on 2022-07-04

In his practice, Danesh uses drawing, painting and trompe-l’oeil techniques to provoke questions of the human condition. Danesh references his personal experiences and memories, and relates them to the grander memory of Human history to create short and unique narratives. In Fear of Collapse, each of Danesh’s paintings contain a character composed from cube-like shapes which he places in a corner, without a floor or a ceiling, to bring awareness to the condition of being trapped and wanting to escape.

Escaping has been an obsession of Danesh’s. To succeed in this, he draws countless numbers of small fragments of his life arranged with rigor in endless grids. Danesh explains, “Every time I feel trapped, images flicker through my head with high frequency. Those images assemble into a fast-paced inner movie that I know by heart. My years in Tehran, my parents, my house, the streets, the neighbors, the extremely violent elementary school of the post-war period I attended and my immigration from Tehran to Paris.” Danesh’s images are captured in his drawings during glimpses of time which creates an archive of ideas that then need a place to be stored. A place which encompassed both the feeling of being trapped and finding a way to escape.

Opposite – Collapse, 2022

Exhibition runs through to September 10th, 2022

Praz-Delavallade
6150 Wilshire Blvd
CA 90048 Los Angeles

www.praz-delavallade.com

  

DAN LEVENSON – TWO PROPOSALS TOWARD THE FORMATION OF A NEW ART SCHOOL

Posted on 2022-07-04

The imaginary State Art Academy, Zürich (SKZ), forms the basis of Dan Levenson’s practice as an artist. Through performance, video, installation, objects and paintings, Levenson expounds on the curriculum and philosophy of an institution that, although never existed, reflects on art institutions both past and present.

The first proposal, “SKZ Kindergarten Maquette,” takes the form of a miniature kindergarten classroom, itself an artwork, that is based on live interactive performances Levenson exhibited with children aged 2-9 in 2019 and 2020. The maquette contains miniature scale versions of the components of the live performances: flat-pack modernist children’s easels and mannequins wearing painting tunics. The mirrored walls of the classroom maquette suggest infinite expansion. Kindergarteners are gently introduced to the same strict formalist principles which form the basis of the advanced graduate program. An accompanying video documents the live performances.

Opposite – Video Still from SKZ Children’s Painting Workshop

Exhibition runs through to September 10th, 2022

Praz-Delavallade
6150 Wilshire Blvd
CA 90048 Los Angeles

www.praz-delavallade.com

  

LONNIE HOLLEY – WHAT HAVE THEY DONE WITH AMERICA?

Posted on 2022-06-27

Holley’s life and work read as a narrative retelling of Black American history—the residual effects of the Jim Crow era, the triumphs of the Civil Rights movement, and the struggles with false narratives around class mobility and race. Holley’s multidisciplinary practice seeks to educate viewers as a means of remedying the historical amnesia surrounding these topics. Rooting himself in the events of the past, the artist moves into the future—presenting synesthetic, multimedia work that visually engages its viewers with unique found objects and intricate motifs to subsequently inform on topics such as inequity and history as memory.

Opposite – Adding to the Foundation (Honoring Daddy James), 2021

Exhibition runs through to August 13th, 2022

Blum & Poe
2727 South La Cienega Boulevard
90034 Los Angeles

www.blumandpoe.com