February 6th, 2010 - April 3rd, 2010
The Box, 977 Chung King Road
Los Angeles, CA 90012
"Robert Mallary (1917-1997) was an artist interested in new materials and cutting edge technologies that would enable him to be on the forefront of art making. Freely blending figurative and abstract imagery in imposing, gritty assemblages Mallary created a unique body of work that is complex in material and form. The Box is pleased to bring the work of Robert Mallary to Los Angeles for the first time since 1954.
(the box, one of the most intersting art programs in los angeles.)
Robert Mallary was interested in exploring how different materials could be used to create a new type of realism. He began using polyester resin in the early 1950s when such materials were still experimental. This interest arose from his work in Mexico with Jose Orozco and Jose Siqueiros, activist artists interested in the idea of the artist as a worker in the modern world.
The exhibition at The Box will include some of these early pieces in which resin was mixed with dirt and concrete, creating three-dimensional wall pieces with thick, solid surfaces. These objects, made while Mallary was teaching at the University of New Mexico, are somewhere between painting and sculpture, presenting uneven textures that expose their ingredients̢۪ original dry state, yet still holding shape and allowing for some malleability of form. In one piece, Incubus (1959-1960), Mallary was able to create a dramatic black surface with a vacant line down one side with small blocks that break up the solidity of the strong black form.
The piles of sculpture in Mallary’s Massachusetts studio.
image via c-monster.. go here..
In the early 1960s Mallary moved to New York and began to incorporate debris collected from outside his SoHo studio, including wood, cardboard and other forms of paper. He used resin to stabilize these fugitive materials enabling them to hold complex shapes. Jouster, 1960, included in the exhibition, is an important early example of this work and was a centerpiece of the Museum of Modern Arts groundbreaking 1961 Art of Assemblage exhibition. In this piece the artist freely manipulated cardboard, tarpaper, wood, dirt, steel and resin to create complex layers and forms. The materials were folded, bent, ripped and in some cases meticulously placed in patterns, bringing forth individual profiles of each material that come together to create an intricate wall piece. To further complicate the surface, materials such as cardboard were coated in resin and then splashed with dirt creating an intriguing surface, for it is unclear if the dirt is part of the piece or not. Jouster is an early example of a form that Mallary would come to use often in his work: a heavier element on top with a bottom that comes to a fragile tip. This unusual shape, conveying both strength and vulnerability, is distinctly classical, and gives Mallary's work a formal elegance that contrasts markedly with the rawness of its facture."
go to the box for more info...
go to the c-monster for a great article!