AUCTION PARIS: PIASA shows emerging artists from Los Angeles
ART TALK – November 3d, 2015
VIEWING from November 4th to November 9th, 2015
AUCTION: @PIASA November 9th, 8pm
CATALOGUE: https://www.piasa.fr/sites/default/files/Catalogue_Vente_BLOODY_RED_SUN.pdf
“Bloody Red Sun of Fantastic L.A” curated by René-Julien Praz
Featuring 76 LA artists:
April Street, Amir Nikravan, Alexandra Grant, Nick Kramer, Devin Farrand, Nathaniel Mellors, Molly Larkey, Danny First, John Monn, Masood Kamandy, Amy Garofano, Josh Mannis, Peter Harkawik, Keith Varadi, Ben Wolf Noam, Benjamin Barretto, Peter Wu, David Hendren, Kristin Calabrese, Ruben Ochoa, Jennifer Boysen, JPW3, Amalia Ulman, Jesse Stecklow, Kristian Burford, Liz Glynn, Jason Bailer Losh, Ry Rocklen, Amanda Ross-Ho, Erik Frydenborg, Elad Lassry, Phil Chang, Brian Wills, Chris Engman, Stuart Sandford, Matt Lipps, Robert Schwan, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Daniel R. Small, Jason Yates, Kyla Hansen, Barry Johnston, Mario Ybarra Jr, Alessandro Moroder, Spencer Longo, Laeh Glenn, E.J Hill, Alexander Kroll, Dwyer Kilcollin, Joe Reihsen, Brad Eberhard, Matthew Chambers, Max Malansky, Joshua Nathanson, Matthew Carter, Dennis Koch, Channing Hansen, Amir H. Fallah, Raffi Kalenderian, Dan Levenson, Genevieve Gaignard, Joel Kyack, Claude Collins-Stacensky, Paul Pescador, Kate Bonner, Chris Coy, Matthew Brandt, Jed Ochmanek, John Knuth, Matt Connolly, Alex Becerra, Justin B. Hansch, Conor Thompson, Annie Lapin, Matt Lifson, Iva Gueorguieva.
“Bloody Red Sun of Fantastic L.A“
Text by René-Julien Praz
Signed, dated, titled and numered on the back
Edition 4/6
42.5 × 42.5 in
Courtesy of Luis de Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles
The emerging L.A. art scene shown for the first time in France at PIASA
“Once I’d thought of the title, Bloody Red Sun of Fantastic L.A., nothing could seem
more fitting. The sheer wealth of images that these words evoke portrays with surgical
precision the pathos of this mythical city, where glamour meets vulgarity and highbrow
culture, the mainstream. Only in L.A. could kitsch rub shoulders with the sublime and
seduction with repulsion: this city truly is a world of contrasts.
The struggles, clashes, hopes, ambitions and despair of millions of immigrants are
an integral part of the city’s DNA. The city is built from their blood and tears as they
fought and won their place in this multi-cultural Eldorado, facing lies and duplicity
with courage, commitment, intelligence and solidarity, to finally be able to live together,
whatever their colour or origin: Mexican, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Iranian… In
this great melting pot, the religious – Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Buddhists
and Muslims – live alongside agnostics and atheists on these lands of the American
Far West.
Oil on linen
Signed, dated and titled on the back
45 × 40 × 2 in
Courtesy of the artist
Jake Elliot’s 2014 short story, Bloody Red Sun of Fantastic L.A., took its title from the
lyrics of his favourite Doors’ song (a band which also started out in Los Angeles) and
he explains just how appropriate the title seemed to him and how it went way beyond
the face value of the words themselves.
Los Angeles, the City of Angels, where the Sun is the closest star and Hollywood the city of stars. My story takes place in the heart of this world.”
In 2006, the Centre Pompidou in Paris presented a grandiose exhibition: Los Angeles 1955-1985: The birth of an art capital, which documented, for near enough the first time in France, the cultural wealth of this city. A city of images: outrageous and elusive,
open, generous and above all indefinable, seeing the extent to which this metropolis
flirts with the very limits of what is possible.
As Bruno Racine (president of the Centre Pompidou from 2002 to 2005) explained
at the time:
It was high time to show the European public the importance and the specificity of a city that had been the birthplace of such a broad scope of art and which had, for so long, lived in the shadow of its rival, New York.”
Artistic creation today in Los Angeles is seen as a model, an alternative scene that retrospectively transforms our perception of American art, by taking it beyond the
theoretical and structural frameworks of identified movements. Reminiscent of its
urban model, which is noteworthy by its uniqueness, its immensity and multi-cultural
dimension, L.A.’s art stands out by its protean nature and a proactive dynamic that
means it is in constant renewal.
71 × 10 × 10 in
Courtesy of the Anat Ebgi Gallery,
Sensation of excessiveness
From assemblage to Pop Art, or from Minimalism to Conceptual Art, L.A.’s artists express this same sensation of excessiveness, a desire to mix and experiment with hybrid art forms. (Bruno Racine in Los Angeles 1955-1985: Naissance d’une capitale artistique published by Editions Centre Pompidou 2006).
You need to understand that the climate, together with the city’s geographical, urban, historical, human, social, economic and cultural features come together in a totally unique way. The effect of this concentration leads to this impression of immensity, to these spectacular juxtapositions, making it possible to portray the city itself by analyzing its art scene.
And yet these specific characteristics are not enough to explain an art form that has found a continual source of inspiration in its diverse interactions with the New York art scene, with both European culture and that of the cultural origins of its multi-ethnic population, whether from neighboring Mexico, other regions of North and South America, Africa or Asia. (Catherine Grenier in Los Angeles 1955-1985: Naissance d’une capitale artistique published by Editions Centre Pompidou 2006).
More than ever, Los Angeles is focusing on its artistic community; a mutation that began back in the 1980s, in parallel to the development of its museums, a period marked in particular by the opening of MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) that hosted an exceptional exhibition in 1983. Paintings and sculptures 1940 – 1980 brought together eight collections, including those of Dominique de Menil, Dr Peter and Irene Ludwig, Guiseppe and Giovanna Panza di Biumo, Charles and Doris Saatchi and the Weisman Family collection.
L.A.’s art draws its creative nourishment from the very complexity of this ‘city/world’, where underground movements mingle with more mainstream Californian culture and its communal expression, as seen in such makers of dreams as Hollywood and Disneyland.
The creation of a system of galleries and a network of collectors, combined with the increasing influence of the city’s art schools (USC, CALARTS, UCLA) have put Los Angeles under the spotlight on the international art scene.
I still remember my first experiences of the L.A. scene, which I first visited in 1980. I was fortunate in that I met some very generous people such as Rosamund Felsen, who used to show the works of Los Angeles’ most talented artists, first in her gallery on La Cienega Boulevard, then on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood after it moved. This incredible mentor was my passport to a unique community of artists.”
Rust on linen
Signed and dated on the back
18 × 24 in
Courtesy of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles
Los Angeles: cradle of the greatest contemporary artists
How can we ignore an art scene that gave birth to
Chris Burden, Charles Ray, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Jim Shaw, John Baldessari, Larry Bell, James Turrel, John McCracken, Robert Irwin, Ed Rusha, Douglas Huebler, Michael Asher, Bruce Nauman, James Welling, Raymond Pettibon, Vija Celmins, Bill Viola, Jeffrey Valance, Billy Al Bengston and more recently Sam Durant, Mark Grotjahnn, Tim Hawkinson, Sharon Lockhart, Walead Beshty, Larry Pittman, Mark Bradford, Elliot Hundley, Catherine Opie, Toba Khedoori and Sterling Ruby?
An impressive list that just gets longer and longer as more students graduate and young artists arrive in new galleries and experimental art centre (Red Cat, Lax><Art, The Mistake Room; museums such as The Hammer Museum, LACMA, MOCA, and the Broad Museum; and so many other independent exhibition spaces that are popping up like daisies).
And it is precisely this upcoming generation of artists that I would like you to discover. Social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – means that today everything happens at breakneck speed. I decided it was time to say ‘stop’ and to provide you with a snapshot which, if it does not cover the whole contemporary L.A. art scene, is however a means to discover its artists and the works of some of them, these artists who are all continuing to preserve the idiosyncrasy, generosity and diversity of which the City of Angels is so fond.”
René-Julien Praz, Curator
Read also the interview of René-Julien Praz, for be-Art magazine
VIEWING from November 4th to November 9th, 2015
@PIASA: 118 rue du faubourg Saint-Honoré 75008 Paris
ART TALK – November 3, 2015
with Blake Byrne, collector; Patrice Joly, editor at revue 02;
René-Julien Praz, curator;
Dan Levensen, Jason Yates et Robert Schwab, artistes.
CATALOGUE
Including an exclusive text by Travis Diehl – Writer, essayist, curator and video artist, he edits the artist-run arts journal «Prism of Reality» and his writing appears in many art magazines. Special Unpublished testimony by Jarl Mohn, CEO Nationale Public Radio and collector.
Edition 3/5 + 2 AP
11.5 × 14.5
David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
