3 shows.
"the los angeles weekend"

Zachary Leener: New California Pieces
at IKO IKO!

3 shows.
"the los angeles weekend"



1. Zachary Leener: "New California Pieces" Saturday april 2, 7 - 10 pm Unveiling of a new collection of ceramic sculptures, planters, ephemera, etcetera by artist Zachary Leener with a special furniture pairing by WAKA WAKA at IKO IKO.

I saw this show being installed today, and it left me speechless. Kristin and Zachary were so kind to give me a quick tour of these works! Zachary's ceramic sculptures were being installed inside WAKA WAKA's new furniture pieces. Zachary's work combines elements of play, ideas of the ridiculous, and clay formations in a manner that seems super familiar, and at the same time completely new to the mind. Two artists that come to mind are Richard Tuttle & Guido Gambone, but not really. Just go see this work! The colors alone are spectacular. Perhaps I can convince Zachary to have a conversation with YHBHS about some of these works.


2. Group show at Marc Foxx. This group show is only up for one more day, so this weekend, is it. Roger Hiorns' work in the back room is worth driving to see. (His work has been at Marc Foxx before, and he has shown at the Hammer awhile ago) Hiorns' work continues to confuse me...mystify me.... In the front gallery works by Jason Meadows and a soft pink painting by Hiroshi Sugito that make me feel wonderful.


3. Steve Roden at Susanne Vielmetter in Culver City, Los Angeles. His show, "stone's throw" is up until April 23, 2011 and not to be missed. This is on my agenda this weekend. Take a trip to his studio via Notes on Looking..... and peak at some of the works.












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Y H B H S (card catalog) selection 9

Steve Roden, artist, Los Angeles
"I honestly can’t believe that some of these forms have not been discussed as visual and material precedents for the architectural language of Frank Gehry, as well as so much contemporary sculpture. "













John Chamberlain:
T HE FOAM SCULPTURES



Steve Roden writes....“full disclosure: i’ve never been much of a fan of john chamberlain’s crushed car parts; and seeing a massive display of his works in downtown
marfa, showcasing the best of his work in the best of circumstances, still left me flat.


this past march i was an artist in residence at Chinati, and i spent quite a bit of time in the “reception area” - thumbing through various publications, trying not to blow my entire stipend. nevertheless, every time i was confronted with that large judd table covered in books, i consistently found myself eyeing this book on chamberlain’s foam sculptures (and here, i should add that i really love it when i have little interest in someone’s work and discover something about them that kicks my butt).


when i first saw the cover of this book, knowing only chamberlain’s metal sculpture, the image confused the hell out of me; and i assumed it was an incidental foam “maquette” that had been lying around the studio for years, but holy cow was i wrong!





























"the catalog - a beautiful hardback - is essentially a catalog raissone’ of an entire body of work that should absolutely be more well known. chamberlain has been making foam pieces since 1966, and has made over a hundred of them. the book documents 85 works extensively - including as much as 5 views of a single object.


these oddly tied pieces of foam are kinky, skronky, violent, cartoon-y, surreal, decaying, delicate, soft, light, erotic, genuinely weird and formally all his own. think ken price, early oldenburg, richard tuttle, caroll dunham, and a bit of hans bellmer, all tied into a pale Y E L LO W knot.


looking at these images i’m wondering why nobody ever mentions this stuff... so hopefully, this book will change that. i honestly can’t believe that some of these forms have not been discussed as visual and material precedents for the architectural language of frank gehry, as well as so much contemporary sculpture.


comparing the foam works with chamberlain’s better known crushed car parts, the foam pieces so much more radical, and similarly, much more complex. on one hand, they have their own material presence: foam tied with string (and sometimes stained); yet at the same time, they transcend their materials, existing as stunningly abstract mutable forms.”














Steve Roden is a visual and sound artist from Los Angeles. His work includes painting, drawing, sculpture, film/video, sound installation, and performance. Roden's working process uses various forms of specific notation (words, musical scores, maps, etc.) and translates them through self invented systems into scores; which then influence the process of painting, drawing, sculpture, and sound composition.

Steve Roden: In Between, A 20 year survey is currently on view until January 9, at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena. The show was curated by former LACMA curator Howard Fox.

Steve Roden, When words become forms is currently on view until December 19 at the Pomona College Museum of Art in Claremont, and features a large scale sound, sculpture, and film installation along with a new series of paintings inspired by a conversation with painter Frederick Hammersley.

He will have a solo exhibition at Susanne Vielmetter LA projects in March.















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Bruce Conner
"inkblots"

“If they give you lined paper, write the other way.”
-Bruce Conner

"He spent much of his artistic life eschewing museums, galleries, and collectors because he found them impossible to work with. Indeed, as is oft-noted, in 1967 he exiled himself from the “art business” for several years, supporting himself by working variously as a ticket clerk at a movie theater, a salesman at a “knickknack” shop, and as a janitor."




via sf moma
blog... here..
















"i've always felt that conner's work questions the idea of pure beauty, as much as it embraces it; and it contains not only the fluffiness of the spirit, but accepts and willingly inserts, the darker aspects of the spirit in heaping tablespoon doses. the ink blot drawings are the culmination of this for me. it takes a while to wander through them, and to discover both their beauty, and their darkness. they also seem to slyly question the idea that meaning in work is completely embedded and controlled by the artist, in that each one is populated by hundreds of tiny rorschach blots... the thing that more than anything else, is the most recognizable cultural symbol of a viewer creating meaning through his own inner desires... artwork as a trigger of self knowledge. by the time you arrive at the end of your their journey into one of these complex visual worlds, you will have seen, or found, more about yourself, and the artist, than you probably bargained for."




steve roden on bruce conner.
taken from here...






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