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NYC Art Shows- Camille Henrot at Hauser & Wirth

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Collage, Conceptual Art, Drawing, Glasswork, Installation Art, Mixed Media, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture

Apr 102025

For Camille Henrot’s imaginative installation for A Number of Things at Hauser & Wirth, a variety of sculptures, including several from her Abacus series, are surrounded by paintings from her Dos and Don’ts series. There’s a playfulness to both, but something a bit darker too. Walking on the soft floor among the sculptures there is a feeling of childlike wonder, while at the same time, in combination with the paintings, you are reminded of the rules and restrictions that are imposed on us, starting when we are very young, and how they become more oppressive with age.

From the gallery’s press release-

Evoking children’s developmental tools, shoes, distorted graphs and counting devices, new large-scale bronze sculptures from the artist’s ‘Abacus’ series (2024)—presented alongside recent smaller-scaled works—address the friction between a nascent sense of imagination and society’s systems of signs. The exhibition will also feature vibrant new paintings from Henrot’s ongoing ‘Dos and Don’ts’ series.

Initiated in 2021, the ‘Dos and Don’ts’ series combines printing, painting and collage techniques where etiquette books become the palimpsest for play with color, gesture, texture and trompe l’oeil. The artworks will emerge from a flooring intervention—conceived and designed with Charlap Hyman & Herrero—that transforms the gallery into a site of sensory experimentation. Henrot’s exhibition vivaciously sets the stage for the arbitrary nature of human behavior to circulate freely between rule and exception.

As viewers enter the gallery, they will be greeted by a pack of dog sculptures tied to a pole, as if left unattended by their walker. Shaped from steel wool, aluminum sheets, carved wood, wax, chain and other unexpected materials, Henrot’s creatures speak to the ever-unfolding effects of human design and domestication. As an extension of Henrot’s ongoing interest in relationships of dependency, the dogs stand in as the ultimate image of attachment.

Henrot’s latest ‘Abacus’ sculptures unite the utilitarianism of the ancient calculating tool with the arches and spirals of a children’s bead maze—a toy popularized in the 1980s as a heuristic diversion in pediatric waiting rooms and nursery schools. Through these formal associations, an instinctive sense of play collides with the learned impulse to search out patterns and impose order. With their biomorphic contours, opaline patinas and quadruped or biped anatomies, these works seem charged with a lifeforce of their own. Hovering between pure abstraction and their multivalent referents, Henrot’s bronzes invite our unfettered, sensuous engagement, even as they allude to the symbolic systems that tyrannize our imaginations.

Behavioral conditioning is a central concern of Henrot’s ‘Dos and Don’ts’ series. These richly layered paintings consider the idea of ‘etiquette’ as it relates to society at large: its codes of conduct, laws and notions of authority, civility and conformity. The works feature collaged fragments of invoices from an embryology lab; a note conjugating the German verb ‘to be;’ dental X-rays; digital error messages; children’s school homework; and to-do lists, among other things. Together, they build on Henrot’s interest in making sense of the urge to organize and categorize information—a theme that has been prevalent in her practice since her groundbreaking film ‘Grosse Fatigue’ (2013). The ‘Dos and Don’ts’ series distorts its source material to reveal the constructed, performative nature of any social identity, while acknowledging the emotional security that behavioral mimicry and groupthink can provide.

As the exhibition’s almost childlike title suggests, ‘A Number of Things’ brings together a disparate but related group of works that collectively address the enormously difficult task that is living, learning and growing in society. With tenderness for the most banal traces of our existences, Henrot offers a meditation on the competing impulses to both integrate and resist the unquestioned structures of society in our everyday lives.

‘There’s a reason why, in English, the word ‘politics,’ ‘polite’ and ‘police’ all sound the same—they are all derived from the Greek word polis or city, the Latin equivalent is civitas, which also gives us ‘civility,’ ‘civic’ and a certain modern understanding of ‘civilization.’

—David Graeber, ‘The Dawn of Everything’ (2021)

In the video walkthrough with Henrot (below) she discusses many of the inspirations for the work.

This exhibition closes 4/12/25.

Mar 262025

Jennie C. Jones, “Fluid Red Tone (in the break)”, 2022, Architectural felt, acoustic panel, and acrylic on canvas (left) and Steve Wolfe, “Untitled (Bookends)”, 1990, Bronze, lacquer (bottom right)

Unrecorded Betsi-Nzaman artist, Fang peoples Male Reliquary Guardian Figure (Eyema Byeri), 19th Century Wood, metal, pigment (center sculpture), Andy Warhol, “Close Cover Before Striking”, 1962 Acrylic and collage on linen, (right) and Judy Linn “James Joyce on 23rd st.”, early 1970s, Archival pigment print (on window)

Ronny Quevedo, “body and soul (Reflection Eternal)”, 2022, Pattern paper, gold leaf, and metal leaf on muslin (left) and Christian Marclay and Steve Wolfe, “La Voix Humaine”, 1991, Wood console, oil and screenprint on aluminum (right)

Larry Wolhandler, “Bust of James Baldwin”, 1975, Bronze, and Rudolf Stingel, “Untitled”, 2016, Electroformed copper, plated nickel, stainless steel frame (right)

Medardo Rosso, “Rieuse”, 1890, Wax on plaster, and picture of Joan Didion

Ellen Gallagher “DeLuxe”, 2004–2005 Grid of 60 photogravure, etching, aquatint and drypoints with lithography, screenprint, embossing, tattoo-machine engraving; some with additions of plasticine, watercolor, pomade and toy eyeballs

Writer Hilton Als has brought together a wonderful collection of works exploring art and language for The Writing’s on the Wall: Language and Silence in the Visual Arts at Hill Art Foundation. Quotes from several authors are included alongside the art, adding another dimension to the show.

From the gallery-

This group exhibition presents artists whose work explores the relationships between communication and language. In the curatorial text, Als explains: “for this exhibition, I wanted to show what silence looked like—at least to me—and what words looked like to artists.”

“Writing and erasure have been important sources of inspiration for many of the artists in my family’s collection, including Christopher Wool, Rudolf Stingel, Vija Celmins, and Cy Twombly,” says J. Tomilson Hill, President of the Hill Art Foundation. “Hilton Als has identified a fascinating motif and introduced important loans to illustrate the rich history of these lines of inquiry into the present day.”

In his accompanying essay, Poetics of Silence, Als probes the power of visual art to skirt the written or spoken word. The works included convey “the sense we have when language isn’t working,” evoke “EKGs of rhythm followed by silence, or surrounded by it,” reveal “painting as language’s subtext,” illustrate “what we mean to say as opposed to what gets said,” and “find beauty in the tools that one uses to erase words—and then to make new ones.” He reflects on his own entry into the art world as an art history student at Columbia in the 1980s, and his efforts as a writer and curator to create a democratic “language of perception” that transcends traditional connoisseurship.

The Writing’s on the Wall encompasses a range of mediums, from video installation to printed zine. Artists in the exhibition include Ina Archer, Kevin Beasley, Jared Buckhiester, Vija Celmins, Sarah Charlesworth, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Fang: Betsi-Nzaman, Ellen Gallagher, Joel Gibb and Paul P., Rachel Harrison, Ray Johnson, G.B. Jones and Paul P., Jennie C. Jones, Christopher Knowles, Willem de Kooning, Sherrie Levine, Judy Linn, Christian Marclay, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Claes Oldenburg, Ronny Quevedo, Irving Penn, Umar Rashid, Medardo Rosso, David Salle, Rudolf Stingel, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Steve Wolfe, Larry Wolhandler, and Christopher Wool.

Als’ essay provides not only more information on the show and the art included, but also his own experience of learning about and experiencing art.

Below is a brief excerpt but it is well worth it to read the essay in its entirety.

Part of the experience I hope to evoke here draws a line between language, which is to say active contemplation, and being, which requires nothing more than your presence first and language second (or third). You know what being is. It happens to you all the time. You may be in a museum, or a public park, or sitting dully in your house, with “nothing” on your mind, and then there you are—a kind of walking phenomenology, language-free, but not feeling. In fact, you are suffused with feeling. Your feet are on the ground, and your body, released from the chatter of the everyday, is porous to the surrounding world with its various silences—a world where everything and nothing speaks to you. The clouds; some pictures on a white wall; a beautiful, hitherto-unknown sculpture reaching for eternity; that blank wall standing between you and the wonders of a garden that manages to grow right here in the middle of Manhattan—they all became part of your being, the self that is always on the verge of discovery, if only you can listen to its silences.

Silence says so much, if you listen. (From Marianne Moore’s 1924 poem “Silence”: “The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint.”) And since I have been a writer all my life, it’s a relief not to think in words sometimes, and to look at pictures, which do not so much deny verbalization but are without language, only the experience of here and now. Sometimes being simply means that we are somewhere, and we are porous to contemplation. When we think about visual culture or production, words aren’t the first things that come to mind. What does is the thing itself. And for this exhibition, I wanted to show what silence looked like—at least to me—and what words looked like to artists. The struggle to speak, to say, to reveal language or an attempt at language—communication—in a visual medium that has a complicated relationship to speech.

Als’ website includes his older writing ,but you can read more of his recent essays and reviews on The New Yorker’s website and he frequently posts on Instagram.

This exhibition closes 3/29/25.

Mar 172025

The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing by former New York magazine editor Adam Moss is a fascinating look at the creative processes of several famous artists. Each artist discusses specific works and gives the reader an inside look at how they came about.

The 43 artists included are visual artists, writers, musicians, editors, designers, and many other creative categories. Moss is also an artist and you can see that in his desire to both inform the reader, and to learn for himself, what makes these individuals tick.

Many of the names will be familiar, but these behind the scenes looks are incredibly enlightening. These discussions often also inspired, for me, a deeper dive. I found myself watching videos of Twyla Tharp‘s choreography, reading Guy Talese’s essay and Sheila Heti’s book, listening to Moses Sumney, watching Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, and so on, as I progressed through the book.

While some artists will appeal more than others depending on your interests, all of them had something interesting and valuable to say. This book was one of my favorites of 2024.

Throwback- Los Angeles Art Shows- Gustav Metzger at Hauser & Wirth

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Conceptual Art, Drawing, Installation Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, Los Angeles Art Shows, Los Angeles Events, Los Angeles Music, Mixed Media, Music, Musicians / Bands, Photographers / Photography, Sculptors / Sculpture, Video and Film

Feb 272025

“Liquid Crystal Environment” (1966)

Last year Hauser & Wirth presented several works by artist and activist Gustav Metzger for And Then Came the Environment at their downtown Los Angeles location. Metzger was an artist and an activist with strong concerns about environmental issues, ones that continue to this day. Works that address these issues are mixed with others that are explorations of science and technology including his use of liquid crystals before they became a common part of our technology, and the delightful energy of Dancing Tubes (videos of both below).

The press release provides more information on the exhibition and the artist’s history-

And Then Came the Environment presents a range of Metzger’s scientific works merging art and science from 1961 onward, highlighting his advocacy for environmental awareness and the possibilities for the transformation of society, as well as his latest experimental works, created in 2014. The exhibition title comes from Metzger’s groundbreaking 1992 essay Nature Demised wherein he proclaims an urgent need to redefine our understanding of nature in relation to the environment. Metzger explains that the politicized term ‘environment’ creates a disconnect from the natural world, manipulating public perception to obscure pollution and exploitation caused by wars and industrialization, and that it should be renamed Damaged Nature.

An early proponent of the ecology movement and an ardent activist, Gustav Metzger (1926–2017) was born in Nuremberg to Polish-Jewish parents, and fled Nazi Germany to England when he was 12 with his brother via the Kindertransport. While working as a gardener, he began his art studies in 1945 in war-embroiled Cambridge, a nexus for scientific experimentation and debate as the Atomic Age was dawning. By the late 1950s, Metzger was deeply involved in anti-nuclear protests and developed his manifestos on “auto-destructive” and “auto-creative” art. These powerful statements were aimed at “the integration of art with the advances of science and technology,” a synthesis that gained wide recognition in Europe in the 1960s through his exhibitions, lecture-demonstrations and writing.

Metzger’s quenchless curiosity about new materials and gadgets—from projectors and electronics to cholesteric liquid crystals and silicate minerals such as ‘mica’—led him to conduct experiments in and out of laboratories in collaboration with leading scientists in an effort to amplify the unpredictable beauty and uncertainty of materials in transformation: ‘the art of change, of movement, of growth.’ By the 1970s, increasingly concerned with ethical ramifications, Metzger became closely involved with the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science, raising awareness of ‘grotesque’ environmental degradation and social alienation and arguing for ‘old attitudes and new skills’ to bring science, technology, society and nature into harmony. He initiated itinerant projects to draw attention to the immense pollution caused by car emissions, a pursuit that gained momentum with his proposal for the first UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972 and was later partially realized in 2007 at the Sharjah Biennial.

The artworks on view in And Then Came the Environment reveal Metzger’s lifelong interest in drawing and gesture, presenting works on paper from the mid-1950s alongside models, installations and later, Light Drawings that underpin the artist’s desire for human interaction amidst the reliance on technology that continues to this day. Following his death, The Gustav Metzger Foundation was established to further Metzger’s work and carry on his legacy.

Exhibited for the first time in Los Angeles, works here include the earliest film documentation of Metzger’s bold chemical experiments on the South Bank in London (Auto-Destructive Art: The Activities of G. Metzger, directed by H. Liversidge, 1963); his first mechanized sculpture with Liquid Crystals—Earth from Space (1966)—and the stunning, large-scale projection, Liquid Crystal Environment (1966), one of the earliest public demonstrations of the material that makes Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs), now omnipresent in our computer, telephone and watch screens.

And Then Came the Environment also presents Dancing Tubes (1968), an early kinetic project Metzger developed in the Filtration Laboratory of the University College of Swansea; various iterations of his projects against car pollution including the model Earth Minus Environment (1992); and the Light Drawing series (2014), using a plotter machine, a technology he first used in 1970, with fiber-optic light directed by air or hand.

The exhibition will be complemented by a new short film created by artist Justin Richburg, who animated Childish Gambino’s 2018 hit Feels like Summer, which references climate change. Richburg’s piece was inspired by and responds to Metzger’s 1992 essay Damaged Nature. The film represents the first time Metzger’s ideas have been directly expressed through a new medium, thus reflecting his interests in ongoing transformation and his conviction that younger generations were the most essential, urgent audiences for his work. In 2012, five years before his death at the age of 90, Metzger wrote:

“The future of the world is what we are after. We start with the young and then when the young are twelve, fifteen, and then twenty-one, they can enter politics, and if they have got this initiation/introduction to key issues … it will make an enormous difference to the future of the world.”

Below are videos from two of the most engaging works- Dancing Tubes and Liquid Crystal Environment.

For Gustav Metzger’s Liquid Crystal Environment (1966/2024), five projectors each contain a single slide with liquid crystals that is projected through a heating and cooling system causing them to change form.

Also worth a read is Forbes’ article on the exhibition which provides additional background including Metzger’s influence on The Who’s Pete Townshend.

This exhibition was also part of The Getty’s PST ART: Art and Science Collide programming. On Saturday, 3/1, The Getty is hosting Open House at The Ebell in Los Angeles- “a free day-to-night exploration of science and art” that will include a pop-up art book fair from Printed Matter; panel discussions; a Doug Aitken multi-screen installation with a live performance by Icelandic musician Bjarki; a performance by Julianna Barwick, and more.

Los Angeles Art Shows- “Sensing the Future: Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.)” at The Getty

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Conceptual Art, Design, Drawing, Films, Installation Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, Mixed Media, Performance Art, Photographers / Photography, Public Art, Sound Art, Video and Film

Feb 212025

As part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, The Getty is highlighting the incredible work created by the engineers and artists that made up the group Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T). The exhibition focuses on the history of the group and two of its most ambitious projects- 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering (1966) and the Pepsi Pavilion from Expo ’70 in Japan.

From the museum-

In 1966, engineers Billy Klüver and Fred Waldhauer and artists Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman founded Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting and supporting collaborations between artists, engineers, and scientists. These partnerships brought disparate fields together, bridging the gap between culture and emerging technology. E.A.T.’s debut event, 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering (1966), integrated art, theatre, and engineering at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City, resulting in a technology-aided performance experience that proved to be a launchpad for artistic exploration. Their second major project, the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion at Expo ’70 in Osaka, Japan (1970), presented a multisensory environment featuring experiments with sound, light, lasers, a mirrored dome, and fog. Through their collaborations, E.A.T. artists and engineers came to believe that such team efforts could benefit society; subsequent multidisciplinary endeavors, such as Projects Outside Art (1970), addressed issues of housing, education, environmental sustainability, and communication.

About 9 Evenings–

In 1965, Swedish electrical engineer Billy Klüver and American artist Robert Rauschenberg gathered 10 avant-garde artists and 30 Bell Labs engineers to participate in a collaborative, multidisciplinary project combining new technologies with theatre, dance, and music. The event,9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, took place at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York, from October 13-22, 1966. More than 10,000 people attended performances by John Cage, Lucinda Childs, Oyvind Fahlström, Alex Hay, Deborah Hay, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Rauschenberg, David Tudor and Robert Whitman. These performances incorporated technological equipment such as photocells, doppler sonar, remote controls, infrared cameras, and transistors. In addition, 9 Evenings engineers created the Theatre Electronic Environmental Modular, a flexible, wireless, networked control system, and the Proportional Control System (PCS), which used photocells to adjust light and sound levels. The event led to the founding of Experiments in Art and Technology the following month.

Below are images and objects from two of the nine evenings, Open Score and Physical Things–

Performance description of “Open Score” by Robert Rauschenberg

About Open Score–

Open Score began with a tennis match between professional player Mimi Kanarek and painter Frank Stella. Engineer William Kaminski wired their rackets with transmitters that caused every strike of the ball to emit a loud sound and extinguish an overhead light. The game continued until the Armory was completely dark. At that point, a cast of 300 volunteers walked onto the court and performed a series of loosely choreographed movements while infrared cameras projected their images onto large screens. Rauschenberg described the action as “the conflict of not being able to see an event that is taking place right in front of one except through a reproduction,” an idea that resonates in today’s world of social media, streaming, and smartphones. For the second performance, Rauschenberg added a third section in which he carried dancer Simone Forti around the Armory in a burlap bag while she sang an Italian ballad.

About Steve Paxton and Dick Wolff’s Physical Things–

For 9 Evenings, Paxton created an enormous, inflated sculpture using Polyethylene and box fans and invited visitors to walk through the structure at their own pace, confronting different environments and performances along the way. After climbing through a 100-foot inflated tower, participants emerged into an enclosed area with wire loops suspended above their heads. Using modified transistor radios, they could listen to an array of sounds, including animal noises and sports commentary. One’s location underneath the sound loops determined which part of the score was audible, allowing people to choose where to linger and what to listen to.

One of the group’s most ambitious projects was for the Pepsi Pavilion (pictured above).

From the museum-

In 1970, the Pepsi-Cola Corporation commissioned E.A.T. to design a pavilion for Expo ’70 in Osaka, Japan. Artists Robert Whitman, Robert Breer, David Tudor, and Forrest Myers made early contributions to the design of the pavilion; eventually the design team included 20 artists and 50 engineers and scientists.

Outside the pavilion, a water-vapor cloud sculpture by the artist Fujiko Nakaya covered the white, faceted dome. On the plaza, seven of Breer’s Floats, six-foot-high dome-shaped sculptures, glided in slow motion while emitting sounds.

Visitors entered the pavilion through a tunnel and descended a staircase into a clamshell-shaped room lit by moving patterns of laser light. On the far end, another staircase led up into the Mirror Dome, a 90-foot diameter, 210-degree spherical mirror made of aluminized Mylar. Within the Mirror Dome, visitors’ reflected images appeared to float upside down above their heads.

You can find more images and further documentation here.

This exhibition closes 2/23/25.

Feb 212025

Hillary Mushkin, “Groundwater”, 2024, Four-channel video installation, wall drawing, sound and “The River and the Grid”, 2024 Artist’s book: ink, watercolor, graphite, and glue on paper

Woven work by Sarah Rosalena

“Source”, 2023 by Lez Batz (Sandra de la Loza and Jess Gudiel)- Mixed media installation including seventy felt bat masks, baleen whale cardboard puppet, graphic mural and single- channel video

Currently on view at the Armory Center for the Arts is From Ground Up: Nurturing Diversity in Hostile Environments. For the exhibition, part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, the artists use a variety of materials, cultural practices, and traditions to explore aspects of our changing environment.

From the gallery-

What can seeds tell us about the future? Seeds and the plants that grow from them have provided us with food, clothing, shelter, and medicine for millennia. For just as long, humans have used sciences, technologies, myths, and art to peer into an imagined future. As we stare out toward our own future, one threatened by climate change and complicated by social unrest, the From the Ground Up: Nurturing Diversity in Hostile Environments exhibition looks to the seed—such as those seeds that lie at the bottom of the forest floor waiting for the cyclical fire season that promotes new growth and diversity to sprout—for inspiration and guidance on how to navigate current and coming hostile environments.

From the Ground Up presents works by 16 contemporary artists and artist teams who explore diverse technologies, histories of contested spaces, and traditional understandings of nature as they imagine alternative, sustainable futures. Organized for the Armory by curator Irene Georgia Tsatsos, the exhibition bridges familiar distinctions between art and science while exploring practices and traditions that predate contemporary understandings of those disciplines. In this exhibition, artworks, knowledge traditions, and histories converge in space and across time.

Artists in the exhibition- Charmaine Bee, Nikesha Breeze, Carl Cheng, Olivia Chumacero, Beatriz Cortez, Mercedes Dorame, Aroussiak Gabrielian, iris yirei hu, Lez Batz (Sandra de la Loza and Jess Gudiel), Malaqatel Ija, Semillas Viajeras, Seed Travels, Hillary Mushkin, Vick Quezada, Sarah Rosalena, Enid Baxter Ryce, Cielo Saucedo, Marcus Zúñiga

Below are a few additional selections and information on the work from the gallery-

Nikesha Breeze, “Stages of Tectonic Blackness: Blackdom”, 2021, Dual-channel video with sound

Nikesha Breeze (they/them) is a direct descendant of Blackdom, a homesteading community founded by thirteen African Americans near Roswell, New Mexico in 1903 that existed until about 1930. This video portrays a site-specific, collaborative dance ritual that honors the landscape and grieves the transgressions against Black and Indigenous communities at Blackdom.

Enid Baxter Ryce, “Shed (Mapping the Devil’s Half Acre)”, 2024, Mixed media, including hand-printed silk, dried plants, hand-printed cotton, antique tobacco sticks, cherry wood, cedar wood, glass, botanical inks, papers, crates

Enid Baxter Ryce with Luis Camara, “Devil’s Half Acre Tarot”, 2024, Hand-processed botanical pigments on paper

Dried plants such as indigo and woad, handmade books and maps, tarot cards and runes, and glass jars of plant-based pigments are among many tools of early scientific exploration and pre-scientific divination. Enid Baxter Ryce (she/her) has assembled these elements of medieval science into a contemporary witch’s office, adorned with fabrics painted with inks and dyes made from plants she grew from seed.

Aroussiak Gabrielian, “Future Kin”, 2024, Soil, video, sound, ceramics

In Future Kin, Aroussiak Gabriellian (she/her) connects a composting ritual to the life cycles of humans, the biome in our digestive tracts, and the bacterial, fungal, and animal life that emerges from decomposing organic matter. Undulating hands gently caress composted soil, suggesting human engagement, empathy, and awareness of ecological interconnectedness.

iris yirei hu, “mud song dream sequence”, 2024, Video and rammed earth; animation by Shoop Rozario

iris virei hu (she/her) uses diverse media to share her journeys with all living beings, whom she understands to be inextricably linked. Her practice is rooted in “collaborative optimism,” in which trauma can inform healing, solidarity, creativity, and liberating futures for folks who are Indigenous, Black, and people of color.

Olivia Chumacero, “Dispersing Time”, 2024, Plant pigments, ink, organic acrylic, burlap, muslin, manzanita branches, feathers, Cahuilla acorn harvest song

Indigenous cosmology recognizes trees as human relatives. Olivia Chumacero (Rarámuri, she/her) offers a portrait of an oak downed by wind and rain, yet alive with a lush canopy and deep roots. She compares the tree’s resilience to that of Indigenous peoples, whose lines of existence have been disrupted yet not destroyed. Following this exhibition, the piece – which is an offering to seeds – will be buried in the Sequoyah National Forest.

This exhibition closes Sunday, 2/23/25. The gallery is open Fridays 2-6 PM Saturdays and Sundays 1-5 PM.

Feb 202025

Large painting on the right- Bettina Brendel, “Particles or Waves?”, 1969, acrylic on canvas

Center sculpture by Claire Falkenstein- “Point as a Set #10, c.1962, copper

Palm Springs Art Museum is currently showing Particles and Waves: Southern California Abstraction and Science, 1945-1990 a selection of abstract work created by Southern California artists influenced by that era’s scientific ideas and breakthroughs. These explorations are divided into sections focused on optical science, mathematics, color in motion, and space age abstraction. The exhibition also includes several experimental films created during this period.

From the museum-

Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, scientists at institutions near Los Angeles including Mount Wilson Observatory, the California Institute for Technology, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, generated groundbreaking experimental research in astronomy and particle physics. During and after World War II, the region remained at the forefront of scientific inquiry in theoretical physics and its applications within aerospace engineering, industrial manufacturing, and communications technologies. Between 1945 and 1990, many artists in Los Angeles produced visually abstract artworks while closely engaging with scientific ideas, mathematical theories, and materials or processes derived from physics and engineering.

The exhibition unites several generations of artists working in diverse materials and styles to examine how subfields of scientific investigation inspired a range of non-figurative artworks by practitioners concerned with light, energy, motion, and time. By drawing interdisciplinary connections between the work of early abstractionists and contemporary practitioners, the exhibition considers abstract artwork from Southern California in a new way.

Below are a few selections along with information from the museum.

Claire Falkenstein, “Orbit the Earth”, 1963, Oil and metallic paint on nine canvas panels

Claire Falkenstein, “Orbit the Earth”, 1963, Oil and metallic paint on nine canvas panels

Through both abstract paintings and sculptures, Falkenstein explored subjects inspired by astrophysics. In Orbit the Earth, she conveys a sense of motion through patterns of curved points in metallic paint and sweeping lines that reveal traces of the painting’s black background. The artist referred to her small gestural marks as “moving points” and explored how arrangements of these painted forms could express types of motion and energy in the universe. In her hanging sculpture Sun represents a dynamic celestial form that shifts in appearance as viewers move around the work. The sculpture’s open, webbed structure creates a continuum between the work and its surrounding space, parallelling interconnections between the Sun and other cosmic phenomena in the solar system.

Helen Lundeberg, “Untitled (Sectioned Planet)”, 1969, Acrylic on canvas

Eva Slater, “Galaxy”, 1954, Oil on panel

Oskar W. Fischinger, “Space Abstraction No.3”, 1966, Oil on canvas

Oskar W. Fischinger, “Multi wave”, 1948, Oil on canvas

Hilaire Hiler, “Parabolic Orange to Leaf Green”, 1942, Oil on board

Dr. Frank J. Malina, “Mitosis”, 1974, Painted wood, painted plexiglas, metal, fluorescent tubes, motor

Inspired by the idea of enlivening artwork with electricity, Malina developed a range of kinetic paintings like Mitosis beginning in 1956. This work exemplifies the artist’s Lumidyne system of works where illuminated colors shift through cycles generated by an encased motor, rotating components, and electric light sources. A founder of Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1936 and a preeminent American specialist in rocketry, Malina turned to creating artwork in the early 1950s after relocating to France.

DeWain Valentine, “Vertical Section”, 1979, Laminated glass

DeWain Valentine, “Vertical Section”, 1979, Laminated glass (detail)

Bettina Brendel, “Prisms”, 1982, Acrylic on canvas

Miriam Schapiro, “Computer Series #3”, 1969, Acrylic on canvas

Bettina Brendel “A Numbered Universe”, 1966, Oil on canvas

In A Numbered Universe, Brendel painted the symbols of binary code within a grid drawn onto the canvas in pencil. The work’s composition is both structured and slightly irregular. The hand painted notations and off-kilter composition humanize the abstract technological language of computer code.

Lee Mullican, “Computer Joy”, 1987, TGA file 512 x 428 pixels

In Computer Joy, repeated and overlaid sections of lines and geometric forms produce an all-over field of pixelated patterns.
While teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1986, Mullican explored the artistic posibilities of new computer imaging technologies. The ability to readily duplicate digital shapes using the computer complemented his long-standing practice of applying repeated striations of pigment into patterned arrangements in paintings like Source from 1981.

Lee Mullican, “Source”, 1981, Oil on canvas

Lee Mullican, “Source”, 1981, Oil on canvas (detail)

James Turrell, “Afrum (White)”, 1966, projected light

In Afrum (White), a modified projector casts a rectangle of white light onto the corner of the otherwise darkened gallery, creating the illusion of a floating three-dimensional cube. The crisply defined area of light changes in appearance depending on how viewers move in the space. Through his precise manipulation of light within specific spatial environments, James Turrell creates opportunities for viewers to engage with nuanced processes of perceptual experience.

Man Ray, “Shakespearean Equation: King Lear”, 1948, Oil on canvas

While living in Hollywood in the late 1940s, Man Ray produced his Shakespearean Equations, a series of paintings depicting mathematical models that reference plays by William Shakespeare. King Lear highlights the aesthetic qualities of a particular form known in algebraic geometry as a Kummer surface with eight real double points. For the artist, the drips of paint on the mathematical form recalled the tears shed by King Lear after learning that his favorite daughter was killed, layering human emotion onto the geometric shape.

This exhibition, part of The Getty’s PST ART programming, closes Sunday, 2/24/25.

Delaware Art- Open Studios at The Delaware Contemporary

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Ceramic Art, Conceptual Art, Delaware, Digital Art, Drawing, Fiber Arts, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Photographers / Photography, Printmaking, Sculptors / Sculpture, Wilmington

Feb 062025

Lisa Marie Patzer’s studio

Detail from “Chromatic Landscapes” by Lisa Marie Patzer

Along with its exhibitions and programming, The Delaware Contemporary houses several artist studios. Several times a year the artists open their doors to the public. The images included in this post are from the December 2024 event.

The first images are from new media digital media artist Lisa Marie Patzer’s Chromatic Landscapes series.

From her website about the work-

Employing digital chroma-based processes, Patzer sorted, separated, and reconfigured images derived from more than one thousand 35mm slides. Originally captured by photographer Ben Kabakow during the mid-1950’s, the slides reflect his view of life in New York City and international travel. Lisa Marie Patzer’s treatment of this large archive emphasizes the role nostalgia and personal association play when interpreting another’s visual anthology. The result is a colorful set of vignettes and landscapes that are abstracted from the original context inviting the viewer in for playful association.

Below are selections from some of the other artists studios and from the walls surrounding them and their bios and quotes from the museum’s website.

Still life paintings by Jenna Lucente

Jenna Lucente is an artist and educator currently living in Delaware. She recently completed a public art commission that includes 28 glass windows for the above-ground Arthur Kill train station in Staten Island, New York. Commissioning agency: MTA Art and Design; glass fabrication by Franz Mayer of Munich.

Work by Ruth Ansel

Ruth Ansel creates paintings using egg tempera. “My egg tempera paintings are meditations in pigment and brushstroke.”

Sculptures by Jennifer Borders

Jennifer Borders is a visual artist whose sculpture and drawing is installation-based and often participatory. She uses history, personal family stories, and current events to prompt viewers into inquiry.

Painting by Caroline Chen

Caroline Chen paints primarily with oil on canvas. “Painting is personal. The slow act of seeing takes time and hands and grace. I’m striving to express simple truths before me, to paint the emotion as well as the subject itself.”

Work by Caroline Coolidge Brown

Woodblocks by Caroline Coolidge Brown

Caroline Coolidge Brown is a mixed-media printmaker and visual journaler who collects inspiration from her travels far and near. Her playful work combines traditional printmaking processes (etching, monotype, lino and wood block) with collage and paint. “Mixed media printmaking allows me to push expected boundaries of “what is a print?” or “what is a painting?” For me, it’s all about the layers – of color, shape and meaning.”

Paintings by John Breakey

John Breakey– “The familiar space above the horizon line provides conditions that empower my vision. The powerful brevity of Minimalism and the lasting voices of the Abstract Expressionists motivate me to treat the pure instance of looking out not as an act of passive observance but as a call to action.”

Paintings by Lauren E. Peters

Lauren E. Peters– Through self-portraits based on staged photographs, Peters explores the multifaceted nature of identity.

Work by Diane Hulse

Diane Hulse is an abstract, mixed media artist whose work includes painting, drawing, and objects. With a background in science and the fine arts, she explores internal and external landscapes, as found in the psychological terrain of self and the beauty of our embattled Earth. Intensely curious about almost everything, she studies nature, architecture, poetry, spiritualism, and psychology. Just as curiosity is a pillar of her art, so is imagination. A pink ocean or a monster perched on a beach ball are not farfetched for her. In fact, Hulse often pretends that she can miniaturize herself and walk through her paintings. She agrees with Picasso, who said that it is essential for artists to keep alive the child inside of all of us.

Tomorrow, 2/7/25, the studios will be open to the public as part of the monthly Art Loop Wilmington event. The museum will extend its hours to 8pm and there will be musical guests, food trucks, and a cash bar.

Los Angeles Art Shows- “Post Human” at Jeffrey Deitch

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Ceramic Art, Conceptual Art, Digital Art, Drawing, Fiber Arts, Glasswork, Installation Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Photographers / Photography, Sculptors / Sculpture, Video and Film

Jan 162025

Charles Ray “Family Romance”, 1993, and Ashley Bickerton “F.O.B.:Tied (White)”, 1993/2018

Charles Ray “Family Romance”, 1993

Maurizio Cattelan “WE”, 2010

Tishan Hsu, “mammal-screen-green-2”, 2024

Work by Josh Kline

“Untitled”, 2008-9, and “Two Breasts”, 1990, by Robert Gober

Mike Kelley, “Brown Star”, 1991 (left) and “The Judge”, 2018, by Jana Euler (painting on right)

Wanghechi Mutu, “One Cut”, 2018, (center sculpture); photographs by Cindy Sherman, 2010/2023

“Pep Talk”, 2024, by Cajsa von Zeipel and Jamian Juliano-Villani, “Women”, 2024, (painting on right)

Post Human, the current group exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch’s Los Angeles location, continues an artistic investigation of humanity that began with the 1992 exhibition of the same name. Some of the over forty artists (and even some of the works) were in the previous iteration, but now their work is placed alongside others made more recently. Seeing them together offers viewers a chance to contemplate the shifts and continuations in culture, technology, and what it means to be human.

From the gallery-

“Post Human was virtually a manifesto trumpeting a new art for a new breed of human,” wrote the art historian and curator Robert Rosenblum discussing the impact of the exhibition in the October 2004 issue of Artforum.

In 1992, Post Human, curated by Jeffrey Deitch, brought together the work of thirty-six young artists interested in technological advancement, social and aesthetic pluralism, and new frontiers of body and identity transformation. Through their art, these artists were exploring the same questioning of traditional notions of gender, sexuality and self-identity that was—and still is—taking place in the world at large. Capturing a developing social and scientific phenomenon, Post Human theorized a new approach to the construction of the self and interpretation of what defines being human. The exhibition set the agenda for the 1990s, and its influence on artists and philosophers led to a new field of academic study.

In her book Posthuman Feminism (2022), the philosopher and feminist theoretician Rosi Braidotti credits Deitch for capturing “the avant-garde spirit of the age by foregrounding the role of technology in blurring binary boundaries between subjects and objects, humans and non-humans.” She adds, “Post Human showed also that art assumed a much more central role as it merged with science, computerization and biotechnology in further re-shaping the human form and perfecting a flair for the artificial.”

The catalogue of the 1992 exhibition, with its visual essay and innovative design by the late Dan Friedman, also proved lasting relevance. Deitch’s influential essay predicted many of the scientific and sociological shifts that have since shaped our cultural and social environment, even the pandemic.

More than thirty years later, Post Human at Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, revisits the theme of the exhibition, bringing the discourse into the present. The show includes several of the key figures who participated in the 1992 exhibition in dialogue with some of the most interesting artists continuing the exploration of these themes today. In keeping with the social and technological trends that inspired it, the interest in figuration of the original artists and the younger generations presented in the show is conceptual rather than formal.

Much of the then-new figurative work was descriptive of the “real” world but cannot, in fact, be called “realistic” in the conventional sense. That is because so much of the “real” world the artists were reacting to had become artificial. With the concept of the real disintegrating through an acceptance of the multiplicity of reality models and the embrace of artificiality, Realism as it was once known was no longer possible. This new figurative art may have actually marked the end of Realism rather than its revival.

Fully integrated into our pop psychology, the term “posthuman” is now used in everyday conversations and has come to primarily identify with the trope of the cyborg. This exhibition, like the 1992 show, however, examines multiple declinations and aspects of the postmodern construction of personality and the engineering and transcendence of the human body. The artists in the exhibition embrace notions of plurality, metamorphosis and multi-beingness. Cyber-futuristic, surgically improved, commodified, stereotyped, and politicized, the “cultured body” lends itself to reflect on a variety of concerns that define our age.

Several works in the exhibition will embrace the biometrical aestheticization of the human body to address the decay paranoia, the social conflict over genetic engineering and the use of biotechnologies, and the conversation around the limits of “natural” life.” Artists have long engaged with the threats of biometric surveillance, the possibility of virtual reality overtaking our physical one, the accelerating real-time consumption of experience, and the automation of the workforce. As AI’s ability to fulfill our creative and specialized needs has reached mass fruition, artists are confronting the impact of what was once considered speculative science fiction, an everyday reality.

Post Human was first presented at FAE, Musée D’art Contemporain, Pully/Lausanne (June 14–September 13, 1992) and traveled to Castello di Rivoli—Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli/Turin (October 1–November 22, 1992), Deste Foundation, House of Cyprus, Athens (December 3, 1992–February 14, 1993), Deichtorhallen Hamburg (March 12–May 9, 1993), Israel Museum, Jerusalem (June 23–October 10, 1993). A number of the works shown in 1992-1993 are now in international museum collections. Matthew Barney’s REPRESSIA (decline) (1991) is now in the collection of LACMA, where it was on view in 2023. Posthumanism has since been the subject of countless books, movies and high-profile exhibitions.

Artists in the exhibition: Isabelle Albuquerque,  Matthew Barney , Ivana Bašić , Frank Benson,  Ashley Bickerton,  Maurizio Cattelan , Chris Cunningham , John Currin,  Alex Da Corte,  Olivia Erlanger , Jana Euler , Rachel Feinstein,  Urs Fischer,  Pippa Garner , Robert Gober , Hugh Hayden,  Damien Hirst , Tishan Hsu,  Pierre Huyghe,  Anne Imhof , Alex Israel,  Arthur Jafa,  Jamian Juliano-Villani , Mike Kelley,  Josh Kline,  Jeff Koons , Paul McCarthy , Sam McKinniss,  Mariko Mori , Takashi Murakami , Wangechi Mutu , Cady Noland,  Charles Ray , Cindy Sherman,  Kiki Smith , Hajime Sorayama,  Anna Uddenberg,  Cajsa von Zeipel , Jeff Wall , Jordan Wolfson, and  Anicka Yi

This show closes Saturday, 1/18/25.

Los Angeles Art Shows- “Giant Robot Biennale 5” at the Japanese American National Museum

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Drawing, Installation Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture

Jan 042025

Work by James Jean

Work by Luke Chueh

Work by Giorgiko, moniker of husband and wife duo Darren and Trisha Inouye. These works are an homage to Darren’s family as Japanese Americans that experienced the WWII era.

Work by Mike Shinoda

Work by Yoskay Yamamoto

Work by Yoskay Yamamoto

Giant Robot Biennale 5 at the Japanese American National Museum features artwork from Sean Chao, Felicia Chiao, Luke Chueh, Giorgiko, James Jean, Taylor Lee, Mike Shinoda, Rain Szeto, and Yoskay Yamamoto.

From the museum about the exhibition and Giant Robot–

Giant Robot launched in 1994 as a hand-assembled zine in Los Angeles and grew into a staple of Asian American alternative pop culture. Since 2007, JANM has partnered with Eric Nakamura, founder of Giant Robot, to produce the biennale that is dedicated to showcasing the diverse and creative works brought together by the Giant Robot ethos.

This year marks Giant Robot’s thirtieth anniversary. While the zine and magazine are no longer published, its legacy and influence are indelible parts of our culture. The shop and gallery continue to thrive in Sawtelle’s Japantown and reflect the independent spirit of its origins. Giant Robot continues to be a highly influential brand encompassing many aspects of Asian and Asian American popular culture. These galleries contain a cross section of Giant Robot’s stalwart artists, emerging talents, and friends.

The video below from PBS Artbound is a great documentary about the Giant Robot project.

This exhibition closes Sunday, 1/5/25. On the same day the museum is free and hosting the 2025 Oshogatsu Family Festival- Year of the Snake event which will include cultural performances, crafts and other activities.

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Los Angeles Art Shows- “Sensing the Future: Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.)” at The Getty

California Art Shows- “From the Ground Up: Nurturing Diversity in Hostile Environments” at Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena

California Art Shows- “Particles and Waves: Southern California Abstraction and Science, 1945-1990” at Palm Springs Art Museum

Delaware Art- Open Studios at The Delaware Contemporary

Los Angeles Art Shows- “Post Human” at Jeffrey Deitch

Los Angeles Art Shows- “Giant Robot Biennale 5” at the Japanese American National Museum