May 12th through June 23rd, 2012

The FROSTIG COLLECTION is pleased to offer a solo exhibition of works by Michael Kalish. Benefiting The FROSTIG COLLECTION. Curated by Kate Stern.

Opening reception on Saturday, May 19th from 4:00- 7:00pm. Artist talk at 4:30pm.

Shots, 1978, Mixed Media, 14 x 21 detail of 77 x 69 in.

New Exhibition at TAG Gallery
Also Featuring Artists: Katherine Kean and Betty Sheinbaum
April 24-May 19
Opening Reception | Saturday April 28th, 5 - 8pm
Artist talk | Saturday, May 12th, 3pm

at Suzanne Felsen

Suzanne Felsen designs begin with the cut, color and quality of the gemstones. She carefully selects each gemstone used in the collection by hand. Unusual and rare gemstones are often found in the collection along with unique cuts created by the designer. Combinations of riotous colors are framed by her streamlined settings.
Photo: amethyst and black spinel 18k white gold ring.

@ Shoshana Wayne Gallery, B1
May 12 - July 14
Opening Saturday, May 12

Shoshana Wayne Gallery is pleased to present a new body of work by Dinh Q. Le. This exhibition will mark Dinh’s sixth show with the gallery.
The artist is known for his technique of weaving photographic images together; he continues in this tradition with this new series. Le investigates two highly intelligent cultures of the past: one of ancient Sumer, the other of 12th century Cambodia. Both cultures are remembered in his work through their remnants and ruins.
In his travels to Angkor Wat and its environs, Le photographed the relics of once majestic temples. Here he focuses on the rubble that now exists, stacking several images together one on top of another like rocks. Interwoven with the temple imagery are images of Cambodian citizens who were killed by the Khmer Rouge.
Sumer was once situated in what is now present-day Iraq. There are little remains from this civilization found on Iraqi land. The Sumerians are recognized to be one of the first contributors of written word; which is just one facet representative of this highly civilized people. Le traveled to various world museums and photographed artifacts from ancient Sumer now housed in museum collections. As with the previous photos, Le has taken images culled from the Internet of Iraqi and Afghan citizens and interwoven these portraits with the relics from Sumerian civilization.
The artist relates these two distinct groups from history- one an ancient civilization, the other an empire from centuries ago, and connects them through their ruin. Both peoples achieved great heights of mastery and success; propelling humanity forward as evidenced in the remains of beautiful temples, and a systematized writing and numeric language with relevance reaching to contemporary society. Yet somehow, despite the dramatic greatness of each civilization and empire, there is an inevitable crash, where culture does not prevail. Each is humbled in history by recent events- one being the Cambodian genocide that occurred just a few decades ago, and the other, more recently by the troubled political climate in Iraq.
Le seeks to reconcile this difficult dichotomy with his poetic images of history and humanity portrayed in a monochrome of black and white.
This year Le will be featured in dOCUMENTA (13), Kassell, Germany andthe Kiev Biennial, Kiev, Ukraine.
Dinh Q. Le has exhibited nationally and internationally at the Venice Biennale, Italian Pavilion, Venice; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Asia Society, New York; Singapore Biennial, Singapore; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Museum of Fine Arts Houston; Houston TX; The Drawing Center, New York; SF MoMA, San Francisco, CA; Busan Biennial, Busan, Korea; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; Hayward Gallery, London, UK, among many others.
For more information please contact marichris@shoshanawayne.com

at Schomburg Gallery until June 16, 2012

at Santa Monica Museum of Art

A Public Art Installation Pairing L.A. Artist Peter Shire with Local Students
Santa Monica Museum of Art recently for the unveiled one of the Museum’s latest large-scale, public art installation Wall Works: The Walls Have Eyes, designed by Los Angeles-based ceramic artist Peter Shire and created with the work of local K-12 students.

On view through May 20, 2012, this public art project has transformed Bergamot Station’s G-Hallway into a site-specific installation that includes the work of more than 500 students who participated in the SMMoA project, provided free of cost to schools and classrooms.

For this 19th Wall Works project, Shire introduced students to the art of ceramics and provided instructions for the project in a video produced by the Museum. His studio, Echo Park Pottery, prepared ceramic discs for the students to paint and etch their interpretation of an actual or imaginary eye using two techniques: painting with liquid black underglaze pigment using a brush, and scraffito etching using a long hardware nail.

“We have other art experiences at school, but nothing like this,” said Teacher Anabella Fullerton of Edison Language Academy in Santa Monica. “It has been an amazing project for my students, who were very enthused by the video and the opportunity to have their work put into a kiln. And now to see their art on the walls of a gallery; this is a great experience for all of us.”

Alia Campanotto, 7, of Edison Language Academy, said she enjoyed becoming an artist through this project. “It was really fun. We got to see how a real artist makes his work, and then we got a chance to do it, too. Now I know how to work with ceramics!”

Shire said he selected “eyes” because “they are the most expressive part of the body. They are the window to the soul.”

Roxy Rong, 9, of Roosevelt Elementary School in Santa Monica, said she liked making the eye because it inspired thought on the kinds of expressions people make with their eyes. “I tried to make mine looking shocked because I like it when people look shocked,” she said opening her own brown eyes very wide. “Making this eye made me feel free – like a bird.”

Each student-made “eye” now hangs upon the Wall Works Gallery at Bergamot Station Art Center’s G-Hallway, adjacent to the Santa Monica Museum of Art, enlivening the space with a dynamic installation dotted with hundreds of eyes atop Shire’s vibrant signature brightly colored stripes —in this case of red and yellow. With The Walls Have Eyes, Shire presents a public art installation where the visitor looks at the art and the art looks back at the visitor.

“This is an extraordinary partnership in so many ways because everyone truly has to pull their weight to make this happen—the artist, Bergamot Station and its tenants, the students, teachers, schools, the Museum and our supporters,” said Asuka Hisa, Wall Works creator and Director of Education at SMMoA. “It’s always amazing to watch it come together even though we’ve been doing this for 10 years.”

SMMoA donated supplies, lesson plans, and instructions, including a Museum made video with Shire, to the schools. Wall Works: The Walls Have Eyes will be on display through February 26, 2012. To date, the biannual Wall Works has involved more than 5,500 students in grades K-12, 50 schools in five districts and 19 artists.

Shire (b. 1947) is a ceramic artist who founded Echo Park Pottery in 1972, where he has since been working at an intersection of craft, fine art, and industrial design. He has had forays into architecture, furniture making, and fashion, however he always returnsg to ceramics. He has produced a wide variety of projects that include two constant elements: clay and bright color. Shire, a native of Los Angeles, draws inspiration from his local surroundings and infuses it all with signature eclecticism.

Support for Wall Works is generously provided by Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles Art Commission, the Malkin Family, Target, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, and the Wayne and Shoshana Blank Family Trust.

at the Santa Monica Museum of Art

Isa Melsheimer: Vermilion Sands and Other Stories from the Neon West
April 14 - July 7, 2012

Opening Reception: Friday, April 13
6 - 7 pm Members’ Preview
7 - 9 pm Public Opening

Santa Monica Museum of Art presents Isa Melsheimer: Vermilion Sands and Other Stories from the Neon West, a never-before-seen installation that explores Hollywood’s cinematic heyday and its motion picture icons, investigating notions of glamour and luxury as they relate to characters, architecture, and locations in and around Los Angeles.Vermilion Sands and Other Stories from the Neon West, Melsheimer’s first American museum exhibition, will be on view in the Museum’s Project Room 1 from April 14 through July 7, 2012.

Santa Monica Museum of Art Deputy Director Lisa Melandri is curator of Vermilion Sands and Other Stories from the Neon West, in which the artist utilizes commonplace, and largely domestic materials, to create site-specific environments, including a mixture of altered and embroidered t-shirts, live plants, paper, pearls, yarn constructions, and cast concrete sculptures.

During a 2007 residency at Villa Aurora—a nonprofit organization located in Pacific Palisades dedicated to German-American cultural exchange—Melsheimer became interested in Los Angeles’s landscape and architecture, as well as the fictional and historical characters that inhabit these spaces.

Influenced by classic Hollywood films such as David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, and the stories of James Graham Ballard, Melsheimer examines the affects of architecture and location on Los Angeles’s glamorized cinematic figures; as well as the demise of those figures from lifestyles of fame and financial success. Melsheimer is particularly drawn to examples such as the Salton Sea, a former glamorous resort area new Palm Springs that has since degenerated into a kind of wasteland, and the character Norma Desmond—and her shabby mansion—from Wilder’s iconic film.

With Vermilion Sands and Other Stories from the Neon West, Melsheimer wants viewers to be aware that architecture is always representative—of ideas or subjects that permeate society. She asks viewers to consider: Which fictional and historical subjects are admired within Los Angeles? Why do residents emigrate from Los Angeles? What aesthetics characterize Los Angeles’s buildings; and what sentiments manifest in the region’s architecture?

Melsheimer (b. 1968) was born in Neuss, Germany, and lives and works in Berlin. She attended the Hochschule der Künste (Academy of Fine Arts), Berlin, and completed a master class with painter Georg Baselitz.

Melsheimer’s work has been shown in solo exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout Europe, including in Paris at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, in Nîmes at Musée d'Art Contemporain, in Vienna at Galerie Nächst St. Stephan, in Berlin at Esther Schipper Gallery, in Switzerland at Kunsthaus Langenthal, in Maastricht, Netherlands at Bonnefantenmuseum, and in Marfa, Texas at The Chinati Foundation. Melsheimer’s work has also been presented in numerous group exhibitions, including in Chamarande, France, at Domaine Départemental de Chamarande, in Berlin at Kunsthalle Autocenter, in Copenhagen at the Institute of Contemporary Art, in Istanbul at BM SUMA Contemporary Art Center, in Mexico City at Museo Tamayo, and in Philadelphia at Cereal Art Project Room.

Some content may be deemed inappropriate for younger viewers.

Support for Isa Melsheimer: Vermilion Sands and Other Stories from the Neon West has been provided in part by Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V.

at the Santa Monica Museum of Art

Back Gallery:
Park Studio: Complex Elements
April 14 - August 19, 2012

Opening Reception: Friday, April 13
6 - 7 pm Members’ Preview
7 - 9 pm Public Opening

Park Studio: Complex Elements is an exhibition of original glass-blown works by 24 high school student participants from Santa Monica and Watts who have participated in SMMoA’s distinguished, annual Park Studio interdisciplinary arts education program.

Complex Elements showcases an array of colorless, clear glass vessels in various sizes, forming an abstract sculptural arrangement. These unusual glass-blown forms are the result of a unique collaboration between students from Santa Monica High School, Olympic High School, and Virginia Avenue Park Teen Center, and students from the Watts Labor Community Action Committee’s (WLCAC) glass program. In addition, the exhibition will feature a film that shows the participants’ process of learning how to blow glass and the skill-sharing that develops between students throughout the program.

The free Park Studio: Complex Elements education program took place during the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s (SMMUSD) spring break, from April 2 through April 5, 2012. Held at the WLCAC’s glass studio in Watts, Park Studio: Complex Elements included a visit to SMMoA and the Watts Towers. Participating students learned the practice of glass blowing from WLCAC artist Jaime Guerrero and his assistant, artist Richard Franco, as well as from year-round students in the WLCAC glass program. All workshops included transportation, lunch, refreshments, and art materials.

Complex Elements highlights the collaboration between the disparate communities of Santa Monica and Watts. Students from Santa Monica are recruited from the Pico/Cloverfield neighborhood, Virginia Avenue Park Teen Center, Santa Monica High School’s Art Program, and Olympic High School (a continuation school where students are eligible for semester elective credit toward obtaining their high school diploma). Students from the WLCAC glass program will help to impart the knowledge of glass blowing to the youth from Santa Monica and will exhibit their work at SMMoA.

Each year, Park Studio explores themes that combine art and urban life. The glass blowing program in Watts works with at-risk youth to build confidence, pride, and skills to work collaboratively through the creation of glass objects. Glass is beautiful and fragile—a metaphor for high-school student’s transition from adolescence to young adulthood.
Park Studio, founded in 1999 by SMMoA’s Director of Education Asuka Hisa, is an innovative interdisciplinary art education program that serves the community. Through Park Studio, SMMoA brings local students and contemporary artists together for workshops, art history lessons and field trips to cultural sites, offering extraordinary extra-curricular opportunities to students for free.

Support for Park Studio: Complex Elements has been provided by the City of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Grant Program and the Eileen Harris Norton Family Foundation. In-kind support has been provided by Bergamot Station Arts Center, IZZE, Cliff Bar, Bergamot Café, and the Virginia Avenue Park Teen Center.

at the Santa Monica Museum of Art

Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe
April 14–August 19, 2012

Opening Reception: Friday, April 13
6 - 7 pm Members’ Preview
7 - 9 pm Public Opening

Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe is the first major solo museum exhibition for the New York-based multi-media artist. Best known for her elaborate paintings of African American women against the backdrop of décor recalled from her childhood, Thomas has created an all-new suite of works that examine aspects of landscape painting. She introduces a new model of trans-generational female empowerment as she explores interior and exterior environments in relation to the female figure. The exhibition opens at SMMoA on April 14, 2012 and continues through August 18, 2012. It will then travel to the Brooklyn Museum for display from September 28, 2012 to January 20, 2013.

Thomas is best known for her bold enamel and acrylic paintings adorned with rhinestones, glitter, and “bling.” Her subjects seem to have stepped directly from a 1970s Blaxploitation film, yet Thomas’s influences extend far beyond. Her oeuvre stems from her long study of art history and the classical genres of portraiture, landscape, and still life. Thomas’s layered facture process begins with a photographic portrait that is translated into a collage, and ultimately reenvisioned as a painting. Her imagery comprises careful borrowings from art history and from contemporary popular culture.

For Origin of the Universe, Thomas examines art historical constructs of feminine identity, sexuality, beauty, and power in 15 works in a variety of sizes, shapes, and media. Taking cues from Marcel Duchamp’s Étant Donnés: 1° la chute d’eau, 2° le gaz d’éclairage (Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas) and Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde (The Origin of the World), Thomas presents the female figure as the origin of the universe, focusing on how the female body both engenders and inhabits landscape. The works on view are in communication with one another—portraits of Qusuquzah and Din gaze out at modernist interiors and plein-air landscapes, all confronted by the artist’s arresting recreations of Courbet’s Origin.

In nineteenth-century visual culture, black female sexuality functioned as something to be rejected or disparaged, but Thomas reconfigures these historical tropes into contemporary statements of empowerment. By casting African American women as the “heroines” of her works, she makes a profound statement regarding gender and racial identity. Thomas’s dialogue with Courbet and Duchamp is a strong reclamation of history, reasserting the subjective nature of beauty. In addition to her paintings and photographs, she will create an installation in SMMoA’s Project Room 1, to reinvent Étant Donnés, where the “peep show” reveals the true surprise of a 70s-style paneled interior in the place of Duchamp’s splayed female body.

Some content may be deemed inappropriate for younger viewers.

Mickalene Thomas was born in 1971. She earned a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree from Pratt Institute and a Master’s of Fine Arts from Yale University. She has participated in residency programs at the Versailles Foundation Munn Artists Program, Giverny, France, and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, The Renaissance Society, Chicago, and MoMA PS1, New York, and is included in the important collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; The Museum of Fine Arts Boston; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe is organized by the Santa Monica Museum of Art; SMMoA Deputy Director Lisa Melandri is the exhibition curator. The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of free, engaging public programs and a full-color, illustrated catalog published by SMMoA and distributed by DAP. The publication includes an interview with the artist by Melandri; an essay that contextualizes Thomas’s work by writer/curator Sarah Lewis, Professor at Yale University School of Art; and an in-depth investigation of Thomas’s nineteenth-century influences by scholar Denise Murrell, a 2011 PhD Dissertation Fellow at Reid Hall of Columbia University in Paris.

Generous support for this exhibition has been provided by The National Endowment for the Arts, Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. Additional support has also been provided by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and Janine and Lyndon Barrois.

Sat. June 9 @ 6pm/Sun. June 10 @ 1pm

Due to the notification by the MTA Expo Light Rail Line of their plan to level the C Building to construct their Bergamot Light Rail Station, which currently houses SANTA MONICA AUCTIONS, ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY and TRACK 16, SANTA MONICA AUCTIONS will be presenting their final live, outdoor modern and contemporary public art auction at their C2 auction space where they have been holding their annual June auction going on 19 years. 

SANTA MONICA AUCTIONS will hold its last live public art on Saturday June 9th starting at 6pm & Sunday, June 10th, 2012 starting at 1 PM, C2 Gallery at the Bergamot Station Arts Center in Santa Monica, CA.

SANTA MONICA AUCTIONS showcases mid-career and established artists of all mediums including painting, photography, sculpture, drawing, multiples and prints.  The lot list for this sale is comprised of works by Andy Warhol, Ed Kienholz, David Hockney, Raymond Pettibon, Pablo Picasso, just to mention a few. 

Highlights of this auction include the seminal 1970’s silkscreen by Andy Warhol of Mick Jagger, signed by both.  In the 70’s rock vein is the very rare complete set of 5 of the hand pulled four-color silkscreens by rock icon David Bowie. Also, never seen before at auction is the 1971 one color silkscreen by Ed Kienholz in the editon of only 11 of the recently exhibited Five Car Stud.
 
Independently owned and operated for 26 years, SANTA MONICA AUCTIONS presents unique and rare pieces by local Southern California artists as well as international art celebrities. SANTA MONICA AUCTIONS’ keen eye for resilient and relative artworks, live-internet bidding with www.liveauctioneers.com and an electronic catalogue to accommodate last-minute consignments solidify its reputation as a buyer’s sale.  

Gallery C2 in Bergamot Station Arts Center is currently housing a preview of the auction.  The continually updated online catalogue may be viewed at www.smauctions.com.  

Press inquiries and those interested in consigning fine artworks may contact SANTA MONICA AUCTIONS at info@smauctions.com or (310) 315-1937.

***

Event:
SANTA MONICA AUCTIONS / Live Public Fine Art Auction
Date:
Saturday, June 9th @ 6pm & Sunday, June 10th @ 1pm
Location:
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Ave. C2
Santa Monica, CA 90404
Preview Display:
Gallery C2 beginning April 3, 2012
Gallery Hours: 1
1:00 AM – 6:00 PM; Tuesday – Saturday
Late night preview on Saturday, June 8th, 2012 until 9 PM

at ROSEGALLERY until May 8, 2012

Opening reception on Saturday March 31 from 6 to 8pm

April 20 - May 19, 2012. Opening Reception: FRIDAY, April 20, 6-8pm

Rosamund Felsen Gallery is pleased to present ABRACADABRA, an exhibition of new works by Kim MacConnel.  This will be MacConnel’s 6th solo exhibition at our gallery. ABRACADABRA features works of brightly colored, high-gloss enamel on board. The exhibition is made up of large, multi-part pieces composed of small individual panels, grouped and aligned according to pattern and size. In addition, the exhibition will include a wide range of smaller paintings.

Through the use of patterning, bright colors, and careful attention to surface and material, Kim MacConnel has consistently referenced non-Western and non-art practices and concerns. In doing so, MacConnel advocates for an expansion and disruption of the norms of previously sanctified high art orthodoxy, even while using many of its tropes.  

MacConnel's new work emerges from of a loosely defined set of rules that investigate the iterative process of making work under imposed restrictions.  MacConnel begins with a handful of patterns and panel sizes upon which to paint.  From within the finite number of combinations of pattern and size, MacConnel gets to work, hand-painting each pattern, without masking, often working on several pieces simultaneously. This part of the process is intuitive and without direction.  Once complete, there are no two pieces exactly alike, the works varying in color and character. From within a limited set of constraints, seemingly innumerable configurations appear.

Kim MacConnel lives and works in Encinitas, California. Recent one-person exhibitions include Salomon Contemporary in New York, 2012, and Quint Contemporary in La Jolla, 2011. MacConnel is Professor Emeritus of Art at UC San Diego.

Please join us at the gallery for a special artist talk with Kim MacConnel on Saturday, May 5 at 10am. This is a unique event held in conjunction with Craig Krull Gallery, where artist Nancy Monk will be speaking about her exhibition, Black Matter.

January 14 - February 28, 2012 - D5 Gallery

ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY presents
JUST OCCUPY - an exhibition documenting the Occupy movement featuring photojournalists Ted Soqui and Christopher Felver.

In the spirit of the Occupy movement, Robert Berman Gallery at Bergamot Station Arts Center will be holding a pop-up exhibition titled JUST OCCUPY featuring the photojournalistic, yet intensely striking photographs by Los Angeles photographer Ted Soqui. Soqui is a seasoned Los Angeles photojournalist, whose photographs were featured in the New York Times, LA Weekly and other international journals around the world.

Ted Soqui’s iconic photograph of the female protester with the 99% bandana, knit cap and shockingly intense eyes was chosen by artist Shepard Fairey for the cover of TIME magazine’s person of the year. The image is now the symbol for the Occupy movement, not only from Wall Street, but from Arab Spring to Athens to Moscow.

JUST OCCUPY will be the first exhibition and documentation of the Occupy LA phenomenon, which lasted longer than the Wall Street occupation, of which all images are intense, provocative and beautiful.

Also featured in JUST OCCUPY will be a series of photographic collages by photojournalist Christopher Felver, who is known for his documentary photographs of the beats, poets and musicians. These photos from his Ordered World series show a stark contrast to the narrative photos of Ted Soqui, yet have a different impact by showing the force of simple words when joined together such as: JUST PEACE, JUST WAR, JUST 99%, JUST OCCUPY.

JUST OCCUPY will open in conjunction with Photo LA on Saturday, January 14th, 2012.

EXHIBITION:
January 14 - February 28, 2012

RECEPTION:
Saturday, January 14, 7:00 – 10:00 pm
LOCATION:
ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Ave. / D5 Gallery
Santa Monica, CA 90404

GALLERY HOURS:
11 – 6, Tuesday – Saturday

RSVP:
310-315-1937

PRESS INQUIRIES:
Email: info@robertbermangallery.com

B7 Gallery / March 31 - April 28, 2012

Marla Rutherford’s work references many genres of photography – fashion, advertising, glamour portrait, fetish, film stills, Pirelli calendars – to present highly original fictional and performative portraits that play off incongruous worlds, often interrupting a domestic scene with a fantasy image or placing a seductive fetish portrait in a common- place, everyday scene.

Marla Rutherford’s photographs show a surreal universe that brings together groups of people from completely different worlds. The originality of her work resides in the juxtaposition of images of children or the elderly with portraits of people from the worlds of sadomasochism and fetishism. By making the latter group pose in ordinary surroundings, the photographer brings the strange and the banal together, and so allows viewers to feel more at ease when faced with people whose practices are seen as deviant. In her collection of brightly colored images, Rutherford uses a style close to advertising photography, which is intended to seduce the viewer. Portraits of people from a community that is a part of the counterculture of America are brought out into the light of day and treated as a subject as commonplace as a smiling baby or an old lady sitting in her living room.

EXHIBITION: March 31 - April , 2012
RECEPTION: Saturday, March 31, 7:00 – 10:00 pm
LOCATION:
ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Ave. / B7 Gallery
Santa Monica, CA 90404

Opening May 12, 2012, 6-8pm

Patrick Painter Inc. is pleased to present New Realities, an exhibition by John Miller that explores obligatory vagaries of emotional exchange vis-a-vis the pop mediation of reality.

New Realities features Miller’s recent series of paintings, Everything is Said. Sourced from a constant stream of available imagery, these works depict people crying on reality television. Their muted pallet removes the images from the tawdry glimmer of the mass media and renders them as hand-painted artifacts. With its ability to enact trauma – both real and fake -- for consumers, reality television has turned the capacity to emote into a viable career option, even a path to celebrity. The consumer, in turn, now watches human degredation and alienation as a form of entertainment.

The serial and formulaic aesthetic of Miller’s canvases becomes apparent in juxtaposition to the other objects in the space. In a gesture consistent with the artist’s sociological investigation into so-called middlebrow culture, Miller also displays two pieces of pre-fabricated furniture, a table and a dresser, in the gallery. The table is upside-down and across the room, the dresser sits on its side. Here, the organization of typical domesticity and the social usage of such spaces are literally turned askew. Two stacked pedestals suggest a parallel between the functionalistic design and purist esthetics.

A third element, wallpaper murals, contrasts with the paintings and furniture. With this Miller presents a mirrored image of a middle-class high rise collaged against a bodega doorstep. These images are vector-based prints taken from the artist’s ongoing series Middle of the Day, 1996-present, comprised of photographs shot between 12 and 2pm. Recognizing it as an ill-defined time of day, potentially devoted to either work or rest, Miller mines this daily time period for imagery that resists the spectacular, even when blown up to a mural scale. In conjunction with the furniture sculptures and paintings from TV, the wallpaper indexes a type of bifurcated space, at once both public and domestic.

This is John Miller’s second solo show with Patrick Painter Inc. His work is also currently on view in the exhibition American Exuberance from the Rubell Family Collection. A detail from one piece appears on the cover of the accompanying catalogue. Miller is the recipient of the 2011 Wolfgang Hahn Prize, which coincided with an exhibition at Museum Ludwig, Cologne. In 2009 the Kunsthalle Zürich held a retrospective exhibition of his work that was accompanied by a catalogue published by jrp|ringier. Miller has had solo shows at: Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Geneva (2004); Magasin-Centre National D'Art Contemporain, Grenoble, France (1999); and Kunstverein Hamburg (1999). He has participated in major group exhibitions at CAPC Musée D’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux (2010/11); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2010); and MoMA PS1, New York (2006). His work was included in the 1991 Whitney Biennial in New York and the 2010 Gwangju Biennale in South Korea. Miller’s forthcoming anthology of the artist’s criticism, The Ruin of Exchange will be published in June 2012.

Lora Schlesinger Gallery presents Peter Shire’s Cups, 1974 – 2012 featuring a body of work focused on more than 30 years of ceramic cups, that have never before been exhibited.

Peter Shire is recognized for being an innovative and unclassifiable artist. Since the 1970’s Peter Shire has been at an intersection where craft, fine art, architectural and industrial design collide. He is not a “traditional” ceramist and his ceramics push the boundaries and preconceived notions of clay. For nearly four decades Peter Shire has made a collection of teapots, cups and other functional items typically found in domestic settings with atypical designs. The works have challenged ideas of form versus function, and have become sculptural objects occupying domestic settings.

Cups, 1974 – 2012 is a body of work focused on Shire’s interpretation of a commonly used vessel, but are in no shape or form commonplace objects. A few of the works in the show have fragile thin walls that appear as if they could be easily chipped if touched by human lips. Their painterly surfaces and sculptural elements added or removed, give each cup an individual personality and sense of presence. Some of the larger cups have bases, handles and sculptural elements that look like assemblages or collages of ideas sculpted with clay. The cup Peach With Tamago Slice is an example of a cup that has been cleverly and colorfully compiled to create a playful construction whose changing surface and multiple textures propel the eye into multiple moments of discovery. Peter Shire’s work continues to challenge conventional mass produced objects with a keen sense of design and personal touch. He has built his career freely combining architectural concepts, design principles, fine art and craft without letting solemnity overwhelm the seriousness of play.

Lilla Bello Studio is a boutique floral studio, specializing in day-to-day florals, weddings, home installations and private events . We combine clean contemporary vessels with only the most premium lush florals, often with the unexpected succulent or silky orchid for that added touch. If you’re in the area, we invite you to come in and discover an array of fine gifts from gorgeous scented candles to one-of-a-kind vintage treasures.

Each floral arrangement is customized to our clients sentiment and budget.

Please order by 1pm for same day service. Local delivery within a 20 mile radius, Monday-Friday.

Feel free to call one of our design specialists to discuss your order: 310.453.3311

Order online: www.lillabello.com

Lanisha Cole Gallery, August 12- October 31

Artist Reception: September 10, 2011 6-9pm

Unjusa Temple
Ultra Chrome Print
47" x 37"

Christy Oates
September 1, 2011
Alder, Bubinga, Purple Heart, Wenge, Zebrawood
19.25 x 19.25 inches

at Gallery Luisotti until July 9, 2011

The objective coolness in these pictures renders color as an elemental form, one serving to further accentuate the contours of the scene. Brohm’s Ohio is a place of bleached house paints, washed bricks, and faint neon signs – colors of a distant fragment of time.

April 1 - 27, 2012 | Gallery A5

Lederle's paintings continue to evolve with dense color expanses woven into heavily textured line structures. The latest series entails a two-stage process, where at first a graduated color is applied with a traditional brush allowing for the distinct qualities of its stroke to emerge. The second stage is executed with a painter's knife often with ostensibly contradictory linear shapes and lines, imbuing it with the properties of rival perceptions taking place within the canvases. “Lederle’s work has a 3-D, almost architectural reality”, says gallerist Laurie Frank, “ achieved without employing geometry. He creates a progression of inner space expanse that the paintings invite you to enter as an explorer evoking the thrilling sensation of stepping on virgin ground.”

Hermann Lederle was born in Germany. He studied painting, photography and filmmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute. Recent exhibitions include shows at the Alicia Armstrong Gallery Palm Desert, the Copal Fine Art Gallery Palm Desert, the Solaris Gallery Los Angeles, the MVPA Artfest Los Angeles, the Paris Photo Gallery, and the Schroeck- Schmidt Gallery in Germany. He is also a celebrated director and production designer having worked with Michael Bay, Mark Romanek, Paula Walker, Erik Ifergan and Phil Joanou. He has directed commercials for AT&T, NFL/Seattle Seahawks, VoiceStream Wireless, Heineken and Bacardi Rum, to name a few.

www.frankpicturesgallery.com
310.828.0211

At FIG, April 18 - May 19.

Opening reception: April 20, 6-9p

until June 2, 2012

dnj Gallery is pleased to announce two upcoming exhibitions that will be on display
from April 21 through June 2, 2012. "Slick," by Annie Seaton will be exhibited in the
main gallery space. Gallery II will feature "Nature Morte" by Cynthia Greig.
The surf's always up for the figures in Seaton's "Slick." Armed with her camera, Seaton
becomes a "surf voyeur," capturing the variety of surf culture, from surf gangs to multigenerational
surf families. In "Slick" she again combines photography with painterly ink
washes to evoke the pure joy she associates with time spent at the beach. By focusing
on such positive emotions, however, Seaton is also responding to life’s difficulties and
constraints. Seaton says, “[l]ife comes in waves and all its crests and troughs;
sometimes pounding and ominous and sometimes gentle and heartening.”
Trained as a painter, Seaton has incorporated photographs into her work since 2008.
She has exhibited her work throughout the West Coast and Canada for the past
decade. Most recently, her work was included in the Carnegie Art Museum’s 2011
group exhibition, “Splash!” This is Seaton's second solo show at dnj Gallery.
In Gallery II, dnj Gallery will be exhibiting Greig’s work, in which she revisits her unique
method of photographing a three dimensional object while giving it the appearance of a
two dimensional line drawing. Greig uses ordinary house paint to whitewash objects.
After drawing crude outlines on these objects, she photographs them in still life
arrangements. By confusing two distinct means of representation–photography and
drawing–Greig explores the boundaries of photography and questions how we form our
beliefs about what is real or true. As Greig states, “’Nature Morte’ revisits the tradition
of still life to further explore the illusory and documentary nature of the photograph in
relation to the vanitas themes of death, decay, and ephemerality.”
Greig’s work has been exhibited widely throughout the country as well as
internationally. In 2011, the Oakland University Art Gallery in Rochester, Michigan, held
an exhibition of her work entitled, “Cynthia Greig: Subverting the (un)Conventional.”
Her photographs are included in the collections of the George Eastman House,
Rochester, NY, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, and the Museum of
Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL. “Nature Morte” is Greig’s second solo
exhibition at dnj Gallery. Greig lives and works in Detroit.

Until June 2, 2012

dnj Gallery is pleased to announce two upcoming exhibitions that will be on display
from April 21 through June 2, 2012. "Slick," by Annie Seaton will be exhibited in the
main gallery space. Gallery II will feature "Nature Morte" by Cynthia Greig.
The surf's always up for the figures in Seaton's "Slick." Armed with her camera, Seaton
becomes a "surf voyeur," capturing the variety of surf culture, from surf gangs to multigenerational
surf families. In "Slick" she again combines photography with painterly ink
washes to evoke the pure joy she associates with time spent at the beach. By focusing
on such positive emotions, however, Seaton is also responding to life’s difficulties and
constraints. Seaton says, “[l]ife comes in waves and all its crests and troughs;
sometimes pounding and ominous and sometimes gentle and heartening.”
Trained as a painter, Seaton has incorporated photographs into her work since 2008.
She has exhibited her work throughout the West Coast and Canada for the past
decade. Most recently, her work was included in the Carnegie Art Museum’s 2011
group exhibition, “Splash!” This is Seaton's second solo show at dnj Gallery.
In Gallery II, dnj Gallery will be exhibiting Greig’s work, in which she revisits her unique
method of photographing a three dimensional object while giving it the appearance of a
two dimensional line drawing. Greig uses ordinary house paint to whitewash objects.
After drawing crude outlines on these objects, she photographs them in still life
arrangements. By confusing two distinct means of representation–photography and
drawing–Greig explores the boundaries of photography and questions how we form our
beliefs about what is real or true. As Greig states, “’Nature Morte’ revisits the tradition
of still life to further explore the illusory and documentary nature of the photograph in
relation to the vanitas themes of death, decay, and ephemerality.”
Greig’s work has been exhibited widely throughout the country as well as
internationally. In 2011, the Oakland University Art Gallery in Rochester, Michigan, held
an exhibition of her work entitled, “Cynthia Greig: Subverting the (un)Conventional.”
Her photographs are included in the collections of the George Eastman House,
Rochester, NY, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, and the Museum of
Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL. “Nature Morte” is Greig’s second solo
exhibition at dnj Gallery. Greig lives and works in Detroit.

at Craig Krull Gallery

Show dates: April 14 – May 19th, 2012
Reception: April 14, 4-6pm

also showing: Nancy Monk "Black Matter"

Image:
Jenny Okun
"Teeth, Talloires France" 2009
archival pigment print
20 x 40"
edition of 10

@ Copro Gallery April 21 - May 12

Copro Gallery presents the group art exhibition, "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me" curated by Rob Wilson in association with David Lynch. This exhibition will celebrate the 20th Anniversary of David Lynch’s film “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me” (the prequel to the landmark television series created by David Lynch and Mark Frost).
participating artists include: Josh Agle (Shag) - Brett Amory - Esao Andrews - Glenn Barr - Chris Berens - Ben Balistreri - Tim Biskup - Megan Brain - Andrew Brandou - Chris Buzelli - Scott C. - Amy Casey - Nicoletta Ceccoli - Paul Chatem - Sas Christian - Colin Christian - Albert Cuellar - Lori Earley - Meesha Goldberg - James Hahn - Ryan Heshka - Stella Im Hultberg - Jessica Joslin - Andy Kehoe - Frank Kozik - Alice Lodge - Ver Mar - Chris Mars - Dan May - Jeff McMillan - Tara McPherson - Margaret Meyer - Billy Norrby - Annie Owens - Chris Peters - Dan Quintana - Carlos Ramos - Matt Rota - Anna Skarbek - Owen Smith - Nathan Spoor - Brian M. Viveros - Keith Weesner - Eric White - Pamela Wilson - Martin Wittfooth - Chet Zar - Rick Zar & more

ADC Contemporary & Building Bridges International Art Exchange presents “The Tree” curated by Anna
Dusi, an exhibition focused on Trees. This exhibition is in partnership with the Lucie Foundation as part of
MOPLA ( Month of Photography Los Angeles).
“TREE” A tree represents a vital and timeless symbol. Immerses in the mist of a dreamy and surreal
land, it is rooted in the earth dense with experience. The image of a tree extracts the essence of the
harmony, uneasiness, lack or abundance. It enjoys a privileged relation with the environment; it grows
and expands in our mental space to become a source of artistic inspiration, a monument erected to
protect our history. This exhibition offers cues and suggestions to deepen our understanding of the
relationship between man and nature through a vital plot that unfolds in front of our eyes in a intimate and
complex manner. These three photographers introduces us through their individual sensibility and
narrative intensity, to a natural element protagonist of the exhibition, a Tree.