Dennis Hollingsworth

ab?strac?tion

Today I talked to Nancy Meyer, Exhibition Coordinator for Michael Kohn Gallery (the big news: this is my gallery here in Los Angeles, Michael and I shook hands last May, my first show will open next Spring) and she described her thoughts in putting together the group show "ab?strac?tion" that will open this Saturday. The intention was to open up this idea/word, abstraction, something we artworlders talk about all the time but the idea has become hardened nut, few really can claim to know what it really means. It is interesting as a side note that there is a perception that the fashion in collecting has begun a swing away from representation (the eyes roll into the sockets... yea, yea... I know) and as the pendulum makes an approach towards its antipode, it would behoove us to break the nut up a bit and see what is in it.

(And speaking of nuts --nut brown for all you knuckleheads--, my friend Mario Correa, "the king of brown" has a painting up front and center.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ab?strac?tion
Curated by Nancy Meyer

Kathryn Andrews, Dan Bayles, Sarah Braman, Matt Connors, Mario Correa,
Matthew Higgs, Shana Lutker, Rebecca Morris, Maeghan Reid, and Lesley Vance

September 15 ? October 13, 2007
Reception for the artists September 15, 6 ? 8 p.m.

Michael Kohn Gallery is pleased to present ab?strac?tion, a group exhibition comprised of new work by emerging artists from Los Angeles and New York. Utilizing the language of abstraction, on view will be a wide range of paintings, sculptures and works on paper. From process-based works that employ the traditional methodologies of abstract painting and sculpture to more cross-disciplinary and conceptual approaches, the artists have also made work especially based on the literal meanings of the word ?abstraction.?

Dan Bayles depicts dystopic realities of the militarized American landscape. Originally an architectural proposal, his painting became a site-specific reinterpretation that is impossible to realize. Working in a similar vein, Maeghan Reid creates mixed media paintings of fantastical narratives and architectural structures that are culled from found materials and images. For his most recent series, Mario Correa is inspired by portraits from The Guinness Book of World Records. Like the obsessive participants, Correa?s methodical and gestural paintings are abstract interpretations of the human obsession to excel at even the most trivial of tasks. New York-based sculptor Sarah Braman juxtaposes different types of raw materials to resemble broken architecture. Matt Connors? suite of small-scale paintings, a collage by Rebecca Morris and a work by Kathryn Andrews are homages to modernism. Matthew Higgs? abstracted book cover brings attention to the composition, color and design, as well as typography and paper quality of the object. Shana Lutker, whose dreams often inform her projects, has created a new series of inkblot drawings for the exhibition and Lesley Vance presents a new painting that continues to explore representation and the different perspectives of plant life in the real world.

In its presentation, ab?strac?tion attempts to bring to light how abstraction is currently represented in contemporary art practice.

Darren Waterson has several works on paper up in the second space (very angular, different from the biological forms I've known in the past, it's as if he dialed his microscope down to a crystaline level of his appreciation for nature). I've followed his work over the years and I'm looking forward to meeting him Saturday.

Posted by Dennis at September 13, 2007 9:51 PM