Originally published on: August 7, 2008

The artists in Environments are living in the here and now, responding to Global Warming, going green, and pollution with down-to-earth sincerity. Curated by Al Nodal, currently president of the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commissions, the exhibition emphasizes the role artists play as citizens and is part of the 18th Street Art Center’s Future of Nations Series.

Environments is ultimately about engagement: How can citizens actively and effectively engage environmental problems? The artists involved represent a confluence of international, socially active aesthetes. The multi-disciplinary team Los Animistas, 18th Street’s current artists-in-residence, explore the cultural relationship between humans and nature; Ala Plastica is an Argentina based organization that collaborates with scientists and environmentalists; Lauren Bon is best know for her Not a Cornfield project, in which she turned inner city brownfield into a fertile community cornfield; Natalie Jeremijenko runs a research lab out the art department at UC San Diego, studying landfills, pollutants and other environmentally pertinent phenomena. Each artist or collective in Environments is taking a different, aware approach to citizenship and the exhibition as a whole is a hopeful glimpse into what might happen if the boundaries between art and life continue to break down.

Wild man 2005 © Ron Mueck courtesy Anthony d’Offay, London

Resonant with the uncanny impression of human presence, Ron Mueck’s hyperreal sculptures provoke a queasy fascination in the viewer. Their porous, synthetic skins are painstakingly embedded with details like body hair, fingernails and sweat. However, their unnatural scale offsets the familiarity of the ordinary bodies on show—miniature or gigantic, they possess an otherworldliness that unsettles and enthralls. Simultaneously grand and vulgar, nestled somewhere between fine art and artisan traditions, Mueck’s sculptures have drawn on canonical art historical sources while echoing the ‘low’ history of wax’s all-too-real simulation of the human body.

This contradiction is reflected in Mueck’s background—the son of German toymakers in Australia, he crossed into contemporary art after a career in puppetry and special effects (he worked with Jim Henson on Sesame Street, the Muppet Show and Labyrinth) with the Charles Saatchi-commissioned Dead Dad, which was included in the influential exhibition Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection. An exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, is currently showing Dead Dad, other well-known works, and some new works on show for the first time.

Youth © Ron Mueck courtesy Anthony d’Offay, London

Of the new works, the tiny Youth, investigating a gash on his ribs with disbelief, recalls any number of art historical Doubting Thomases probing the wound that becomes a threshold between skepticism and faith, appropriate for a hyperreal work that blurs distinctions between reality and illusion.

The miniature Drift presents an almost cinematic slice of life that draws attention to the strangeness of the standard viewing format for art as well as the screen—the recumbent man floats vertically on a chlorine-blue wall, so we look across to him while looking down on him.

A plucked ostrich-sized chicken hangs by its feet in Still Life, Mueck’s only lifeless subject other than Dead Dad. Both of these works emphasize the already deathly aspect of the hyperreal sculpture, in which cold, motionless flesh always possesses morbid undertones. The work’s allusion to the still life or ‘nature morte’ tradition is made obvious through its title, while the reverse cruciform pose of the weighty, tragic chicken seems to parody the institutional worship of corpses in other contexts.

Ron Mueck at National Gallery of Victoria 22 January – 18 April 2010

L.A. Expanded: Notes from the West Coast
A weekly column by Catherine Wagley

Religion and art seem equally good at revealing people’s vulnerabilities, which is perhaps why the sacred often works so well as a subject for artists.

Nira Pereg, "Sabbath 2008," Still, 2008. One Channel High Definition Video with Sound, 7 min. 12 sec. loop, Edition of 7, 16:0 PAL 2 Ch Stereo. Courtesy Braverman Gallery, Tel-Aviv, Israel.

A month ago, I attended mass and was struck by how devout the acolyte looked, holding his brass candle-lighter and wearing his white robe. Then, following the service, I saw the same boy sans uniform, dressed in baggy jeans and impishly chasing girls through the parking lot. I did some cursory research after that, looking into how preteens came to be the church’s honorary lighters and snuffers of altar candles.

What I discovered wasn’t quite what I was looking for: the story of St. Tarcisius.

Tarcisius died at age 12, the victim of bad timing, bad laws, and misdirected passion. An acolyte in the early church, Tarcisius job probably didn’t differ much from today’s acolytes and altar boys: lighting candles, holding bibles, sitting and standing at the right times.

His problems began when a deacon came up missing (I don’t know whether said deacon fell victim to Roman centurions, or a common cold). No one could take the sacrament to the elderly and ill Christians, so Tarcisius hid the holy bread and wine under his coat– at this point, Christianity was against the law–and went out.

There’s some controversy over what happened next. Some say Tarcisius met two hostile Roman guards. Others say he met a group of boys, non-Christians his own age, some of them former playmates. I’m partial to this second version. In it, the boys asked Tarcisius to join their game (try as I might, I can’t picture them playing anything other than basketball), but he said “no,” maybe with a little too much self-importance (after all, he had Christ’s body and blood under his cloak). Feeling slighted, the boys began to tease  Tarcius, asking what he was hiding. Feeling bold and maybe even a little holier-than-thou, Tarcisius became stoically obstinate, like Joan of Arc joined with a little Paul Newman from Cool Hand Luke. One boy let slip that Tarcisius was Christian, unleashing a brutality that surprised Tarcisius’ assailants as much as it surprised him.

Kehinde Wiley, "Christian Martyr Tarcisius," 2008, oil on canvas; and the 1868 sculpture by Alexandre Falguiere French upon which it was based.

I thought of Tarcisius while at the Santa Monica Museum of Art (SMMOA) this weekend, watching Nira Pereg’s video Sabbath. While not at all about child brutality or premature martyrdom, Sabbath is about the self-importance that comes from having sacred responsibilities (or responsibilities somehow tied to something sacred) and it gives a pitch-perfect portrait of the sincerest kind of confidence, the kind that belongs only to those who believe in what they’re doing.

Set in orthodox Jerusalem neighborhoods, Pereg’s video depicts the ritualistic closing off of roads and thoroughfares in anticipation of the day of rest. Wobbly gates are dragged across streets, primarily by young men, and the grating of the metal upon the pavement is often the only sound. The video has the crisp, non-nonsense feel of a documentary.

In one scene, a teenager who has just positioned a final, unwieldy barrier across a relatively wide road urgently waves both hands, warning an approaching vehicle to stop; it won’t be let through. In another scene, a younger boy gets distracted mid-job and cluelessly stands in a merge lane until the honk of an oncoming car brings him back to attention.

Nira Pereg, "Sabbath 2008," Still, 2008. One Channel High Definition Video with Sound, 7 min. 12 sec. loop, Edition of 7, 16:0 PAL 2 Ch Stereo. Courtesy Braverman Gallery, Tel-Aviv, Israel.

The ritual of road-blocking seems like a rite of passage, and an empowering one. It makes you wonder if that endearing, confidence the young people in Sabbath display (there are older figures in Pereg’s work, too, but the young ones commanded most of my interest) could spill over into the other areas of their lives without coming off as self-righteous. But it also makes you painfully aware of the fact that road blocks can keep confidence contained.

Eric Ogden, untitled (penelope cruz), 2009

Currently on view at Hous Projects in New York is the exhibition Versus—a unique sort of survey featuring 18 seminal photographers of our time. Curated by Ruben Natal-San Miguel, whose work is also exhibited in the show, Versus pairs these emerging and established contemporary photographers with one another according to similarities—and striking contrasts—in subject matter, theme and aesthetics. The photographers explore ideas of ideal beauty, subjects of idolatry in America, relationship dynamics, juxtaposing stages of life and architectural and environmental moods. Some of the comparisons and contrasts between the paired photographs are more subtle, while other times the images seem to mirror one another. The visual motifs presented by the photographs on view are equally striking. Deep shadows conceal some scenes while others employ repetitive pattern to contrast with meek looking portrait sitters.

Jen Davis, untitled, 2005

The full roster of pairings includes: Mickalene Thomas VERSUS Nadine Rovner, Hank Willis Thomas VERSUS Cara Phillips, Jen Davis VERSUS Eric Ogden, Brian Ulrich VERSUS Alex Leme, Amy Elkins VERSUS Molly Landreth, Matthew Pillsbury VERSUS Kris Graves, Zoe Strauss VERSUS Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Phil Toledano VERSUS Elizabeth Fleming and Michael Wolf VERSUS Gina Levay. Selected work from Versus was also recently on view at Photo LA in Los Angeles, courtesy Hous Projects.

Phil Toledano, Looking at the Sunset, 2008

Bortolami Gallery in New York City is currently featuring works by London based artist Peter Peri.  Peri’s show, which includes drawings, sculptures, and paintings, revolves around three figurative themes:  head, seated man, and reclining woman.  Although Peri uses these themes in each medium, his execution in each material is startlingly different.  The level of obsession and detail in the fine drawings which are created through a congestion of graphite lines on unbleached paper hint at a larger interpretation.  Upon further investigation the viewer discovers tiny obscure writing, miniature cartoon-like doodles, and his charming “Odalisque” drawing is a mirror-image rendering of Jean Auguste-Dominique Ingres‘ painting with the same title.

The three sculptures in the show, however, have an element of precariousness about them.  Each is an engineered replica in steel of objects Peri originally composed using mundane objects from his home: rolls of masking tape, cassette boxes, chess sets, and calculators.  Unlike the drawings, there does not seem to be any secret code or arcane meaning in these sculptures.  The basic geometry of each of these objects serves as the most obvious choices for Peri’s figurative assemblages; circles become breasts on a reclining woman, thick rectangles serve as a man’s body topped by a circle for a head.

Peri’s paintings successfully combine both the obsessive mark-making in his drawings with the spontaneity of his sculptures.  Described as “skewed mappings of an unknown atmosphere” by the gallery, these gloomy canvases are broken up by razor-sharp line work and tonal highlight.  The background is full of haphazard drips and variations of grays, silvers and blacks, while the geometry of the lines call to mind the mathematical rigor of artists like Jack Tworkov and Sol LeWitt.

Peter Peri received his MA in Fine Art from the Chelsea College of Art in London and his BA in Design at Central St. Martins School of Art and Design.  His show at Bortolami Gallery in New York is open until February 20, 2010.

Universe Revolves ON (XVIII), Hema Upadhyay, Edition of 12, Etching, aquatint, open-bite and screenprint on machine made fabriano 100% cotton paper 71 x 92 (28" x 36¼”) © Hema Upadhyay/Singapore Tyler Print Institute

Hema Upadhyay creates works based primarily on photography and painting, and she resumed her foray in printmaking as a means of experimentation, after a decade’s hiatus. Her art practice revolves around issues of identity, dislocation, nostalgia and gender, often drawn from her family history of migration and her personal experience with the socio-economic inequalities present in Asia. The visceral impacts of these socio-political issues on the human condition are frequently represented through miniature and collaged bodies. In Universe Revolves ON (XVIII), cut-outs of flailing and falling bodies disrupt the intricate etchings of botanical tree forms shrouded in delicate silk-screened patterns, drawing attention to the attendant psychological and social upheaval and theme of human displacement arising from the rapid urbanization in Mumbai. Upadhyay completed her BFA (Painting) in 1995 and MFA in 1997 from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda, and is now based in Mumbai.

Break the Ice, Qiu Zhijie, Edition of 12, Etching and relief print, STPI handmade paper 107 x 81 (42¼" x 32”) © Qiu Zhijie/Singapore Tyler Print Institute

Qiu Zhijie is a Chinese contemporary artist and works with a diverse range of media including photography, video, calligraphy, painting, installation and performance, and combines writing and curatorial practice with his artistic explorations. In 2006, Qiu started the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge Project. Imbued with historical and national significance, as a symbol of modernity and resilience in China, Qiu excavates the meanings associated with the site by investigating the over 2,000 suicides occurring at the bridge since its completion in 1968. Break the Ice is emblematic of Qiu’s combination of traditional Chinese ink painting and Western-based lithography techniques, and the work reflects on the consequences of mammoth, industrial structures on a nation’s history and individuals’ personal lives. Qiu was born in Fujian, China and now lives and works in Beijing. He graduated from Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in printmaking.

The works of Upadhyay and Qiu are on view at All Editions: A STPI Survey Show (16 January – 20 February 2010) at Singapore Tyler Print Institute. The exhibition also features works by Ghada Amer/Reza Farkhondeh, Ashley Bickerton and Lin Tianmiao, from their residencies at the institute.

Drew Heitzler rephrases history in ways that seem both furtive and strangely revealing. In his most recent work, he culls characters, settings, and plots from the visual history of the still-young Los Angeles. Rearranging and re-imagining three films from the early 1960s, all of them productions in which the rebel spirit of Easy Rider seems to be slowly eating into the stylized melodrama of noir, and also gathering an expansive archive of still images from Hollywood of yesteryear, he’s created a narrative that  confuses the past in order, paradoxically, to clarify the hidden truths about  desire  and culture that lurk beneath it.

Heitzler, who participated in the 2008 Whitney Biennial, recently exhibited at LAX Art and Angstrom Gallery among, other venues. for Sailors, Mermaids, Mystics. for Kustomizers, Grinders, Fender-men. for Fools, Addicts, Woodworkers and Hustlers, his current exhibition at Blum & Poe Gallery, closes January 30th.

Drew Heiztler, "for Sailors, Mermaids, Mystics. for Kustomizers, Grinders, Fender-men. for Fools, Addicts, Woodworkers and Hustlers." Installation View. Courtesy Blum & Poe.

CW: Your current exhibition makes me think of remixes and mash-ups—art forms that are about rearranging someone else’s cultural product and telling a different story. What prompted you to re-edit historical film and images?

DH: Subway Sessions and TSOYW are two previous films I made and actually shot. The first on super-8, the second on 16mm (TSOYW was a collaboration with Amy Granat and was included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial). In both cases I relied heavily on the tropes of specific film genres. Subway Sessions used the aesthetics of 70’s surf films to tell the story of a certain time and place, specifically, Rockaway Beach New York just prior to September 11, 2001. TSOYW looked like a 70’s biker film and relied heavily on the tropes of that genre. So it wasn’t a big step to go from using the look of earlier film genres to actually using earlier films themselves. Also, I had read a book on documentary film making by Erik Barnouw that my wife Flora found for me in a thrift store. In the book, the Soviet cine-clubs were discussed. It seems that after the revolution it was impossible for Russian film makers to get film stock due to western boycotts. What they had in abundance were western news reel and even films that were being smuggled into Russia in effort to undermine the Revolution. The cine-clubs would re-edit these films and news reels in order to create new narratives that supported their cause. I liked this idea of re-ordering an existing cultural image to better fit your own perception of the world. It’s collage.

CW: How important is story-telling to you?

DH: Story telling is what I am interested in. I love those French paintings like The Oath of the Horatii or The Raft of the Medusa. They operate like movies. They tell stories which can exist at different allegorical levels.

CW: Each of the three films that make up for Sailors, Mermaids, Mystics. for Kustomizers, Grinders, Fender-men. for Fools, Addicts, Woodworkers and Hustlers. (Doubled ) were originally presented on their own, right? Why combine them?

DH: The combining of the films came out of a problem of exhibition. This show was originally scheduled to open at MOCA in May, 2009. Then it was postponed to September of that year and then postponed again to January of 2010 before it was eventually canceled all together. The result was that I had a long time to think about how these three films would be presented. I had always intended for them to come together as a trilogy, but as I kept messing around with ideas of how they would actually be presented in the gallery, they morphed into a triptych, becoming a whole new piece. What I discovered and enjoyed was that once the three individual narratives were doubled and superimposed over one another, they operated in a much more complex way. The individual narratives were still visible, but complicated by their interaction with one another. In other words, the lines of thought were confused, which seems to me much closer to the way we go through life. At least that seems to hold for me.

Drew Heitzler. Installation View. Courtesy Blum & Poe.

CW: The other day, you used the words “sticky stuff,” referring to the way the oil industry lurks underneath L.A. culture. I love those words and they’re definitely relevant to your work. How do you relate the historical, anthropological side of your project to its sticky, psychological underbelly?

DH: I think it has something to do with the problem of truth, or more accurately its impossibility. I came to Los Angeles with an idea of what I would find when I got here. It was the idea that had been presented to me, sold to me in a way. What I found was something completely different. History and anthropology work the same way. They present themselves as framing a truth while they are only presenting a perception (I was assistant to Fred Wilson for several years and I learned from him how important this idea is). However, the idea of truth is absolutely vital to our ability to exist as a society, this is common sense. Likewise, sublimation is absolutely necessary for the ego to exist within a society. There are rules to follow. Once again, the only way this sublimation works is to accept certain ideas, certain perceptions as true. But just like the oil that bubbles up into the sunny Los Angeles landscape, the sticky stuff that we sublimate, keep subterranean, or relegate to the subconscious can’t be kept at bay. It always bubbles up.

Drew Heitzler, "Untitled (Ladera Heights)," 2007. Installation View. Courtesy Blum & Poe.

CW: While the story you’re telling is ostensibly about the past, it seems really timely. As you developed this work, were you thinking of anything happening on today’s cultural landscape?

DH: Once again, I’m going to bring up The Oath of the Horatii (god, I love that painting). The painting is a depiction of a moment of Roman lore but this is not what the painting is about. It is a call to arms for a new Republic in France. This is the subtext. So while the historical anthropology that I am engaged in is ostensibly about historical power structures in Los Angeles, I believe that when the work is looked at closely, the relationships to our current cultural moment are clear.

CW: On a related note, I was reading Camille De Toledo’s Coming of Age at the End of History the other day. This passage, about a new breed of romanticism, reminded me of you: “We kept alive the idea that man was capable of acting upon History, but we abandoned the . . . heroism of the avante-gardes that imagined they could overturn it.” Thoughts?

DH: This goes back to the idea of truth that I addressed in a previous question. I feel that as we have observed how the successive avant-gardes were absorbed into the monolith of capital it became more difficult to take the idea of revolution seriously. One truth gets replaced by another truth to then be absorbed by the previous truth and none of them are true anyway.  I am quite certain that it is useless to try and overturn the dominant discourse as the result is merely a different dominant discourse. But what remains is agency. I feel that it is important as an artist to act upon the dominant discourse not with the intent of overturning it, but with the intent of revealing its contradictions; confusing it and so bringing it closer to a universal idea, which is as close to an idea of truth that I am willing to entertain.

Drew Heitzler. Installation View. Blum & Poe.