Archive for 2007

A GREAT DELICACY, curated by Melissa Levin

Saturday, October 20th, 2007

A Great Delicacy, Curated by Melissa Levin

October 20 – December 1, 2007

Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to present A Great Delicacy, a group show featuring 5 New York based artists, curated by Melissa Levin. A great delicacy can be an indulgence, but is also a way (with which) to render and create. The artists in this show are making work about food, sex, waste spills in the ocean, and the ways we digest or filter our own consumption. And there is an awareness in the work of the way we consume, a great delicacy in the treatment of the concepts and the rendering whether through photography, painting, drawing or collage. Generally it is more and more possible to become disconnected from what we eat, with whom we make love, where our waste goes after it leaves our cars, homes, and bodies. Each of the artists represented in this show are attentive to these things, if not in awe of them.

Rebecca Veit and Kathryn Hillier’s still lives, from their series, The Never Wilting Flower Project, are beautiful and strange. Using food and objects shopped mostly at farmers and flea markets in both Paris and New York, the photographs direct your experience of these moments as they might never occur – like a pineapple painted gold and used for its odd body or a post-coital pomegranate torn apart and resting in front of a dense red curtain.

Michael Bilsborough’s drawings are simultaneously wild and controlled, sometimes erotic, and often grotesque. They are depictions of orgies inside perfectly constructed architecture and using perfect perspective. Figures might be repeated several times, performing different acts, often on one another. Devoid of sensuality, or voluptuous flesh, these scenes are anonymous but charged and are especially so in a world so saturated with generic sexual imagery focused on titillation and usually for sale. Ultimately, in Bilsborough’s work, there is a great conflation of the most attractive opposites, the Apollonian and the Dionysian.

This combination of the excessive and the restrained also appears in a different form in Gregory Parma Smith’s paintings. There is something very decadent in his renderings of generic things like strawberries or a pocketknife. It is as if he has gone deep inside of the thing (and of painting itself) and extracted the elements of its Platonic iteration. The subjects and surfaces of his paintings are therefore exquisite and pristine, but also luscious and very exciting.

McKendree Key’s collages are part of a series called Possibilities “based on the infinite number of possible scenarios taking place in the North-Pacific Gyre.” The North-Pacific Gyre, located between Asia and North America in the Pacific Ocean, has been described as “soupy with plastic”* because of the amount of waste it contains – mostly due to large spills from container ships. There are not images of the spills and in response, Key has created collaged waves filled with computer monitors, Nike shoes, umbrellas and traffic cones – a comment on the proliferation of needless and ignorant over-consumption. *From “Beach: Nike Shoes Wash Up”, by Janice Posada of The Daily Herald (Everett, Washington, 2001)

And Danica Phelps’ records of spending, earning and making love, from the series Integrating Sex into Everyday Life, are a detailed and obsessive daily documentation. These quantitative and qualitative accounts provide a more literal iteration of the intake and output of things in the world. This kind of record can appear detached but here it remains a highly personal account of daily struggles and triumphs

CHARLENE LIU: Before the Storm

Saturday, September 8th, 2007

Charlene Liu: Before the Storm

September 8 – October 13, 2007
Opening Reception: Saturday September 8th, 2007 6pm-9pm

From September 8 – October 13, Taylor De Cordoba will present Before the Storm, marking the Los Angeles debut of Charlene Liu.  In this exhibition of new works on paper and panel, the artist uses a combination of hand dyed paper, oil, ink and watercolor to create abstract landscapes. The gallery will host an opening reception for the artist on Saturday Sept. 8 from 6 – 9PM.

In Before the Storm, Liu depicts microcosms of nature. As allegories, they remind us that forces of nature are beyond our control.  She creates a world in flux; flowers turning to minerals, pebbles to flowers, plant to water, animal to plant. She evokes invented landscapes from the abstracted patterns of color, shape and light. There is stillness in the work, but also a tension that without warning, a spontaneous re-configuration could alter the landscape.

In Mad Bloom, she invites viewers to peer through the interior of a vibrantly hued plant. In Dewdrop, she creates a deconstructed portrait of a plant changing into a water-like state. Some pieces have a more ominous tone.  In Uneven Orbit, polka-dotted legs and arms float amidst a swell of flowers and an ambiguous natural force, as if caught.  The delicate and ephemeral in nature become harbingers of ensuing change and agents of chaos.  Liu’s landscapes serve as reminders of the unceasing potential for metamorphosis in the natural world.

The power and beauty of Liu’s work relies on her mastery of materials and her mixed media process. Liu “paints” with hand dyed, marbleized papers, which she collages alongside watercolor, oil and ink. The seamless integration of these techniques allows Liu to express the movement, cycles and processes found in nature.

Charlene Liu graduated with a MFA from Columbia University in 2003. Her works were recently exhibited in Virgil de Voldere Gallery in New York, Galleria Il Capricorno in Italy, and Andrea Rosen Gallery 2 in New York. The artist resides and works in New York City and Eugene, OR.

INTERCONSIDERATIONS: Joshua Aster / Melissa Manfull / Jill Newman

Saturday, June 30th, 2007

Interconsiderations: Josua Aster / Melissa Manfull / Jill Newman
Curated by Elise Barclay
June 30 – August 11, 2007

Humanity is moving deeper into crisis …a crisis brought about by cosmic evolution irrevocably intent upon completely transforming omnidisintegrated humanity from a complex of around-the-world, remotely-deployed-from- one-another, differently colored, differently credoed, differently cultured, differently communicating, and differently competing entities into a completely integrated, comprehensively interconsiderate, harmonious whole.

– R. Buckminster Fuller, from Critical Path

Taylor De Cordoba proudly presents, Interconsiderations: Joshua Aster / Melissa Manfull / Jill Newman, a group show of works on paper and paintings curated by Elise Barclay. The exhibition will run from June 30 – August 11 and the gallery will host a reception for the artists on Saturday June 30 from 6 – 9PM.

Written in 1981, Buckminster Fuller’s Critical Path presciently and boldly lays out the dangerous state of the world while optimistically proposing conditions under which all of humanity might thrive. Affirming the power of the individual vision over the blindness of the herd, Fuller appreciates the parts that could comprise a “harmonious whole.”

The art of Joshua Aster, Melissa Manfull and Jill Newman explores structures and physical space – the imagined, imposed and improvised. Despite their geometric inclinations these structures employ and even depend on accidents, coincidence, chance, spontaneity and imperfection. While each body of work stands on its own, the process by which the works and their content come into being seem models for the ideas set forth by Fuller, grand in scale and scope while remaining relatable, and within reach.

Aster creates luminous spaces within his works through his use of subtle layering of pigment and patterned brush strokes. The repeated patterning of marks suggests the structure of numerical codes, computer generated pixels, electronic displays and diagrammatic systems. Combined with of layers watercolor, sumi and acrylic ink, the works convey a sense of dissolution and consolidation.

Sites such as Salvation Mountain a few miles from Slab City in the low desert of Southern California, and the beleaguered South Central Farm in Los Angeles provide points of departure for Newman’s oil paintings and works on paper. The physical spaces created within these communities, often consisting of “homemade” or spontaneous structures made from recycled materials and sheer necessity, appear in Newman’s works as hallucinatory visions.

Manfull uses delicate lines of color which lead the eye into a dizzying architectonic web that simultaneously expands and collapses as the eye follows its impossible passages. The perfection of her draftsmanship suggests machine-generated patterns and reveals the fluidity of her approach. Her drawings become thought maps that evoke the organic and technological.

TIMOTHY HULL: Life is Real Only Then When I Am

Saturday, May 26th, 2007

Timothy Hull: Life is Real Only Then When I Am

May 26 – June 23, 2007

From May 26 thru June 23, Taylor De Cordoba will present Life is Real Only Then When I Am, a solo show by New York-based artist Timothy Hull. The exhibition consists of paintings, works on paper, a scent and audio, relating to the world surrounding the mystical thinker and orator, G.I. Gurdjieff (1877-1949). The gallery will host an opening reception for the artist on Saturday May 26th from 6 – 9PM.

Through a wide range of media, Hull explores the dynamics of the cult of personality, the plausibility of esoteric knowledge, notions of orientalism, charismatic icons, diagrams and mysticism. He uses Gurdjieff as a symbol for the incidence of new age gurus and the search for ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ vis-à-vis Eastern knowledge in early Twentieth Century Europe. The work evokes a particular era and feeling, creating new associations either linked to or wholly inconsequential to the subject matter. The title of the exhibition is taken from the title of Gurdjieff’s last book in the ‘All and Everything’ series.

Timothy Hull lives and works in New York City as well as on a family apple farm in Warwick, New York. Recent solo and group exhibitions in the past year include, Klaus Von Nichtssagend Gallery, Bellwether, ZieherSmith, Freight+Volume, CRG Gallery and Alona Kagan, all in New York City; BBS in Tokyo, Japan; and Bucheon Gallery in San Francisco. Hull was recently featured in issue 55 of Tokion Magazine.

MARK MANN: Last Resort

Saturday, April 21st, 2007

Mark Mann: Last Resort

April 21 – May 19, 2007

From April 21 to May 19, 2007, Taylor De Cordoba will present Last Resort, twelve cibachrome photographs by Mark Mann from his limited edition portfolio. Basing his images on Wish You Were Here postcards from the 1960s, Mann digitally alters the source material to create images that are at once creepy and familiar.  The gallery will host an opening reception for the artist on Saturday April 21 from 6 – 9PM.

The nuclear American family vacation provides the context for Mark Mann’s pictures, depicting intrepid suburbanites as they make their way onto the highways and byways of America.  In Deep End, a coterie of swimmers at a motel pool gathers along the line of demarcation between shallow and deeper water, but the sheer number of swimmers and the somewhat blurred imagery make for an unsettling rather than recreational tone.  An eerie sense of mystery is the predominant motif in Screen, where a clothed figure stands hesitantly in the chair as he gazes into a TV set.  In Mann’s fantasy world, the promise of fun and recreation is constantly being thwarted by something that is never shown but always suggested.

Mark Mann’s work is in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and numerous private collections.

KIMBERLY BROOKS: Mom’s Friends

Saturday, March 3rd, 2007

Kimberly Brooks: Mom’s Friends

March 3 – April 7, 2007

Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to present Mom’s Friends, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist Kimberly Brooks. The exhibition will run from March 3rd thru April 7th, 2007. The gallery will host an opening reception for the artist on Saturday March 3rd from 6pm-9pm.

In her first solo exhibition at Taylor De Cordoba, Kimberly Brooks explores issues of feminine identity, nostalgia, idolization and womanhood. She introduces the women she literally looked up to as a child, “Mom’s Friends.” The show will feature gouache studies and oil paintings depicting the women who helped to form her own identity while growing up in Marin County in the late 1970’s.

In the wake of the Sexual Revolution, the model of a modern woman was taking shape. Brooks paints sexy, confident and stylish women in their element: cooling their feet in the pool, waiting at the train station, contemplating amidst the woods of Big Sur and laughing at parties. She invokes the fashions of the time with her representations of luscious furs, bold patterns, oversize sunglasses and unique flea market finds. In the span of a few years, nearly all of these women in her mom’s circle of friends would find themselves divorced as a result infidelity, boredom and the need to establish their own identities. Brooks uses her own personal memories and photographs to re-create the harmonious and utopian moment just before it all came crashing down. The artist takes cues from traditional portraiture, fashion photography, 1970s Polaroids and today’s ubiquitous candid celebrity snapshots to create her modern style.

Kimberly Brooks’ work has been featured in numerous juried exhibitions organized by curators from the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art and California Institute of the Arts among others. Brooks earned her B.A. from UC Berkeley and trained in fine arts at Otis College of Design and UCLA.

Art LA 2007

Thursday, January 25th, 2007

Art LA

January 25th, 2007 – January 28th, 2007

Art LA The New Los Angeles International Contemporary Art Fair January 25 – 28, 2007 Santa Monica Civic Auditorium 1855 Main Street Santa Monica, CA 90401 Please visit us at Booth 37.

SASHA BEZZUBOV: Things Fall Apart

Saturday, January 20th, 2007

Sasha Bezzubov: Things Fall Apart

January 20 – February 17, 2007

Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to present Things Fall Apart, a solo exhibition by Brooklyn-based artist Sasha Bezzubov. The exhibition will run from January 20th thru February 17th, 2007. The gallery will host an opening reception for the artist on Saturday January 20th from 6pm-9pm.

This exhibition will include a selection of nine photographs from Things Fall Apart, a series of landscape photographs made in the aftermath of natural disasters. These mundane places are instantly transformed through the violent power of a climatic or terrestrial force, into dreamscapes of apocalyptic proportions. For a few days the world is glued to the images of the familiar turned upside down and made strange. Staggering numbers of dead and missing are reported. The property damage is calculated, the social and medical catastrophe is predicted, the increase of such disasters is mentioned. Soon the entire episode is forgotten in a sea of willful amnesia.

The aftermath of a natural catastrophe – ruined cities and settlements, wrecked homes and roads, scattered survivors – is how we imagine the end of time.

Things Fall Apart consists of five disasters – India after an earthquake, the Midwest after tornadoes, California after wildfires, Florida after hurricanes and Indonesia and Thailand after the tsunami. Arriving at each event after the fact allows Bezzubov to witness the destruction with a degree of distance. Using the form of landscape photography, a tradition born with industrial expansion, these photographs evidence nature’s force as it reclaims land subdued and ruled by a myopic civilization.

Sasha Bezzubov is the recipient of numerous awards and grants for his photographic works, including two Fulbright Scholarship Awards for his work in Vietnam and India. He earned his MFA from Yale University in 1997. His work is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and has appeared in Esquire Magazine, Newsweek, Details Magazine, The Village Voice and Blind Spot.