Hugh Brown and the exhibition ALLEGEDLY is featured in the Los Angeles Times article Art the Prompts a Smile, by Sharon Mizota, Sunday, August 15, 2010 View article
Hugh Brown Allegedly: New Chainsaw Works
July - August, 2010
Opening Reception: July 17, 2010, 6-9pm
C2 Gallery
Bergamot Station Arts Center
Hugh Brown first cut his teeth as a chainsaw collector and punk rock aficionado; an unlikely pairing that spawned a Grammy award-winning music-packaging design artist and an obsessive appropriation artist compelled to insert chainsaw references into brilliant forgeries of Ed Ruscha, Jackson Pollack, Ed Keinholz, John Baldessari and dozens more contemporary art heavy hitters.
While the images stand on their own, there is humor and wit lurking within each Allegedly creation for the true art insider to uncover. Take the Hiroshi Sugimoto piece entitled Vista Theater (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) - Brown rented out the theatre and used a large format camera and an extremely long exposure to capture the entire film on a single print, just as Sugimoto did in his photographs of old American movie palaces and drive-ins as an expression of time. Or the Alexander Calder wire sculpture depicting a chainsaw held up by a three-person pyramid entitled Three Acrobats, One Chainsaw – a nod to both Calder’s primary medium and his fascination with the circus.
Each piece is as unique as the story behind it. He studied Hans Namuth’s footage of Pollock’s wrist movements, bought the same brand of gouache as Henri Mattisse and used Bruce Nauman’s neon fabricator to spell out Was/Saw in place of the iconic Raw/War. Not only are the works so convincing that many mistook them for authentic pieces when shown last year at the California State University Fullerton Grand Central Art Center but the process by which they were fabricated is an artistic expression entirely unto itself.
A photographer, printmaker and assemblage artist for over 35 years, Brown has had seven solo shows and many group shows including two at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and three at the Triton Museum of Art. But Brown’s standout achievement is a second place finish in the “Design a Chair for Barbie” competition sponsored by Vitra Design Museum, Metropolis Magazine, Mattell and W – not because of the second place finish but because the entry caused a fist fight amongst the judges.
Never boring, always controversial and now for the first time – for sale.
Read the review in JUXTAPOZ Magazine by Greg Escalante read article
Current Exhibitions:
July 7, 2010 - August 14, 2010
Reception: Wednesday, July 7, 2010, 6 – 9 pm
ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY / E6
1632 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
Robert Berman / E6 Gallery is pleased to present MISSPELLED, an alphabet by Victor Reyes, handmade in California. The ambitious public art installation turned gallery exhibition explores the artists’ unique approach to graffiti, by dissecting individual letters and exploring the anatomy and architecture found in the symbols we use to communicate. Inspired by San Francisco’s streets, surfaces, and overall visual vibrancy, Reyes reinterprets the letters and presents them to us in a brilliant array of color and movement. These alphabets, recontextualized on various abandoned surfaces around the city, are not intended to provide answers, but to raise questions about how we interpret public spaces and the content assumed within.
The San Francisco Chronicle, June 24, 2010 - read article
photo courtesy Christopher Felver
Dennis Hopper Works on Paper July - August, 2010
D5 Gallery
Bergamot Station Arts Center
“When I started, I was shooting everything around me, all the time. I was shooting reality but I liked the idea of shooting flat on, having no depth of field and in the process creating photographs that were similar to paintings. So I was a product of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. As a result, there are a lot of common objects in my photographs, everyday things I would come across that would become abstract if you isolated them. The abstract photography was really all that I was interested in at the time and I did more of that than probably anything else.” - Dennis Hopper
ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY is pleased to present works by Dennis Hopper.
From 1988 to 1989, Hopper chose his favorite images amongst his vast library of photographs taken in the 1960s to produce a very limited edition of signed silkscreen prints in gold and silver monotone on archival paper and unique screenprints on aluminum - many of which are published by Taschen in the book, Dennis Hopper: Photographs 1961-1967.
This exhibition features roughly half of the 18 selected shots documenting Los Angeles and New York City street scenes.
September 11 - October 9, 2010
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 11, 2010, 6-9pm
“Let's blame this excess on an American dream. Let's blame the success of an American dream.” – Love and Rockets
ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY presents In Broad Daylight, an exhibition of new, large-scale scratchboards by DAVID TRULLI.
The work offers a contemplation on the concept of America formed in the 20th century and that concept’s relevance in the modern world.
In his cityscapes framed by empty office interiors, Trulli infuses each piece with an uneasy sense of anticipation – as if something momentous is just out of view. According to Trulli, “For years we have all had the feeling that something big is about to happen, and indeed many things have. Wars, economic collapse, political polarization and more have all occurred right out in the open, in broad daylight. Still, we stand dormant as we wait for the undefined event.”
In Broad Daylight marks the first time Trulli has presented images exclusively set in daylight, without losing the noir feeling for which his work is known.
David Trulli works in scratchboard: a white clay-coated board, covered with black ink. Fine knives are used to delicately scrape away the ink, creating the image. A former cinematographer, Trulli compares working in scratchboard to lighting a film set: “it starts out black and you add light.”
David Trulli was born in New York and currently lives and works in Hollywood.
Recent Press:
Robert Berman is interviewed in conjunction with the Banksy murals in downtown Los Angeles
in conjunction with the U.S. Film Premiere of "Exit Through the Gift Shop" April 2010
Eye Candy A Junk Food Artist Collective
C2 Gallery
July 1-7, 2010
Opening Reception:
Thursday, July 1, 7-10pm
Robert Berman Gallery/ Junk Food Clothing present “Eye Candy,” a group exhibition from the in house artists at Junk Food Clothing.
Junk Food as a brand captures the essence of American pop-culture on clothing; this first collective is a way for the artists to express themselves creatively on canvas, through sculptures and other mixed media.
Los Angeles based apparel brand, Junk Food Clothing, started in 1998 with the idea of creating the perfect t shirt. The brand has since evolved into an international sensation, selling in top retailers across the globe and over 4,500 stores worldwide.
The Pornification of Everything, 2009, Oil on wood, 99 x 80 inches
Cameron Gray It's all Downhill from Here
March 20, 2010- June 2010
Reception: Saturday, March 20, 2010, 6:00 – 8:00pm
E6 Gallery, San Francisco E61632 market street, san francisco, ca 94102
Robert Berman / E6 Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Los Angeles artist Cameron Gray. Respected art critic Peter Frank declares, “Cameron Gray has become a master of a kind of collage whose formal roots are in century-old trick technology but whose spiritual sources are in surrealism and pop art." Like Photomosaics, Gray's paintings exist on two visual levels. Each painting is made up of a large number of smaller paintings on 3" x 4" wood tiles. Visually, things are not what they seem. As you look closer the larger image breaks down to reveal the smaller paintings that transform a simple portrait into numerous separate cells, which have their unique properties that differ from one another. For instance, The Pornification of Everything, is a portrait of Mona Lisa made from 900 paintings of hardcore pornography and Can't See the Forest is an 8' x 15' painting of a forest made from 2,200 paintings depicting traffic, factories, urbanity and violence.
Behind Gray's art is his work with digital, network manufacturing. His work begins as digital studies, which are divided into hundreds of small pieces and then outsourced, to be painted, by other artists, colleagues and Facebook friends. By breaking the painting down into a grid of pixels and outsourcing the work, Gray builds a virtual factory by way of the Internet. The smaller images used are thematic and play a vital role in the depiction of the larger image. This modern approach is used to create what appears to be a traditional oil painting.
Frank expresses, “If there is a political or even social message in this, it is the viewer’s, not the artist’s. Then again, the artist is asking the viewer to zoom in and zoom out in order to “read” pictures in, and out of, other pictures. The multi-leveling of perception in this case is itself a statement about – or, perhaps, demonstration of – how we perceive the world. That is, we understand contemporary life and its newly digitized landscape as a sum of pixels that comprise some sort of whole – albeit a whole that is itself unstable and threatens to fall apart into its components every time we walk outside, talk with one another, or even boot up and log on. As such, Cameron Gray’s assemblages are the faces of our present reality. They are not the faces we see in the mirror, but the faces we see on one another – and on our many screens. They are animations made from many, many stills.” Or as Gray puts it, "At times the act of viewing itself becomes very physical or like a strange dance. The viewer must walk forward, then backward or lean in very close to see the work. I want the viewing experience to be visual, physical and conceptual all at once."
Long Before Pluto, 2010, Chromogenic Print, 30 x 60 inches
Eliza French & Jeff Charbonneau P L A Y G R O U N D
April 3 - May 5, 2010
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 3, 2010, 7-9 pm
The exhibition is in conjunction with MOPLA
C2 Gallery
Robert Berman Gallery is pleased to present Playground, the second solo exhibition of photographs by Los Angeles based collaborating photographers Jeff Charbonneau & Eliza French on view April 3, 2010 through May 5, 2010. A reception for the artists will be held Saturday, April 3, 2010 from 7-9p.m. in conjunction with MOPLA.
As the artists’ first foray into the world of living geometry, the photographs of Playground play with primary shapes and their literal and symbolic relationship to human subjects and the natural world. In these highly-designed panoramic pictures, Charbonneau and French stray away from the emotionally driven narrative that characterized their previous series, Massillon, to create visual poetry through experiments with proportion, distance, and repetition.
Each picture begins with the artists’ intervention into a found landscape or surface through the decisive placement of objects, such as large monochromatic spheres. From there, a scenario is performed which transforms the shapes into effigies of mystery, devotion, and superstition. Fanciful female characters return in Playground, but their diminutive figures are set upon sweeping and stark landscapes as if in a play-space one might comfortably reach into and rearrange on a whim. The spheres to which their attention is often transfixed become reminders of the planetary system which envelops all of us and perhaps, the eternal desire to render it in a familiar plane.
Jeff Charbonneau and Eliza French have been working together since 2004, when a mutual interest in the photographic medium brought them together. Their performance-based images are created through a partnership from conception to finish and have been featured in art fairs both internationally and stateside. They are currently included in a major traveling exhibition of photographs titled The Art of Caring: A Look at Life Through Photography. This exhibition, curated by Dr. Cynthia Goodman opened at the New Orleans museum of art in 2009 and is accompanied by a monograph. Both artists live and work in Los Angeles.
JEFF CHARBONNEAU & ELIZA FRENCH at Robert Berman Gallery
Having established a strong identity based on goth-romantic figure-in-landscape imagery, Jeff Charbonneau and Eliza French loosen the spirit somewhat with a downright playful theme and an even more playful approach to it. In the photographs of "Playground," Charbonneau & French continue to concentrate on young women as protagonists in a dream world —a cheap trick, one might protest, but in fact a way of transcending a nagging trope by exploiting it with almost businesslike matter-of-facture. Setting any other kind of figure —old ladies, say, or babies —in these fields and gardens and plazas would invoke a more specific reading; the young women most easily become the viewer's ciphers, and their interactions with so many white weather balloons becomes at once a stylized ballet and a universalized metaphor for dreamy transport and the freshness (and perhaps even innocence) available through the imagination. Not the artists' imagination, which of course drives (and thus determines the subjective framework of) the entire series, but our imagination, which the project seeks to incite. The concurrences of figures and balloons, mirroring one another in their sun-reflecting whiteness, invite interpretation less through their ravishing clarity —the initial optical lure —than through their genial incongruity. Something is happening here, however gently and slowly, keeping one's curiosity piqued.
—Peter Frank
Charles Brittin
Vintage Photographs
Selected by Jeff Charbonneau & Eliza French in conjunction with the exhibition PLAYGROUND
April 3 - May 5, 2010
C2 Gallery
Robert Graham, Untitled, circa 1960, Charcoal on paper,
Signed on recto, 22 x 18.5 in.
ANOTHER NUDE SHOW
April 3 - 30, 2010
D5 Gallery
A Group exhibition exploring the imagery of the nude form including works by
Robert Graham, Ruth Bernhard, Horst P. Horst,Man Ray, Joel Peter Witkin, Francesco Scavullo, Chin-Chin Wu, Sante D'Orazio, Raymond Pettibon, The Mac, John Altoon, Ben Talbert, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Frederick Wight, William Tunberg, Ralph Goings, Stephen Verona, John Colao, Ron English, Manuel Ocampo, Jorg Dubin, Ellwood T. Risk, Britt Ehringer, Eliza French & Jeff Charbonneau, Robert Sean Coons, Dennis Mukai, David Trulli, Greg Gibbs, Andrew George, Vic Huber, Rafael Serrano, Jon Cournoyer, Sally Mann, Jock Sturges, Marc Fichou, Ken Aronson, Brett Aronson, Steven Teitelbaum, Randal Haworth, Tiphaine Popesco, Eric Schwartz, Christina Lissmann, David Ellingsen, Bill Durgin, Hana Jakrlova, Toby Burrows,Bill Phelps, Gail Greenfield Randall, Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, Edouard Chimot, Max Turner, Emil Jean Kosta Jr., Mel Ramos, Alejandro Gehry, Thomas Ruff, Nobuyoshi Araki, Tracy Nakayama, Tracey Emin, Vanessa Beecroft, Tom Wesselmann, John Valadez, Frank Romero, Claudia Kunin, Grace Oh and many more.
In conjunction with the MOPLA Month of Photography Awards & XTO Image Awards
Some (Old School) South Coast Guys
A Group Show of Vintage works and 3-Dimensional Creations from artists Peter Alexander, Robert Graham, Wallace Berman, Russ Tamblyn, Ken Price, Ed Moses, Billy Al Bengston, Ben Talbert, Dennis Hopper, Larry Bell, Ed Ruscha, Eric Orr, Joe Goode, Ed Keinholz, Craig Kauffman, Laddie John Dill, Sam Francis, John Altoon, Fred Eversley, Norton Wisdom, Bill Tunberg and others.
C2 Gallery
March 2010
Ed Ruscha, Cheese Oval, From Various Cheeses Series, 1976, 2-color lithograph printed on aluminum, Numbered A.P. IX, From an edition of 39, Printed by Gemini Gel, Signed and numbered on verso, 14.75 x 20.25 in.
Larry Bell, Untitled, 1979, Aluminum vapor drawing on paper,
Signed and dated in pencil on recto, 39 x 27 in.
30th Anniversary Exhibition, Part II
Group exhibition of selected works from previous exhibitions and artist inventories
D5 Gallery
November 14, 2009 - April 2010
Ben Talbert, The Queen of Hearts, 1964, oil on canvas, 67 x 65.5 inches
Ben Talbert Luck and Love Revisited
Curated by Hal Glicksman
Gallery C2
January - February, 2010
Opening Reception: January 16, 7-9pm
The Robert Berman Gallery is pleased to present a selection of Ben Talbert’s paintings, drawings and assemblages from the 1960’s. Luck and Love Revisited is curated by Talbert’s close friend and well know curator, Hal Glicksman.
Ben Talbert was an accomplished painter and sculptor, who was part of the original circle of beat and alternative Venice artist’s from the 1960’s. Not only was he friends with all of the people from the seminal group, in particular Wallace Berman and Ed Kienholz, but was also exhibited in a major show with both of them at the Pasadena Art Museum as well as a solo show curated by Walter Hopps. Talbert’s assemblages are still well known and were recently in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and at the Santa Monica Museum of Art.
In the late 60’s Talbert painted large Pop paintings of pornographic playing cards using the American Flag as the background. This work was shown in a group exhibition in 1972 at the David Stuart Gallery in Los Angeles that was closed down by police as obscene. His friends organized a secret exhibited called Luck and Love for two days at the Mermaid Tavern in Topanga, California. Other than this renegade show, his paintings and drawings have never been shown.
When he died in 1974, the Women’s movement was in full swing. Glicksman, an advocate of Talbert’s, concluded that Talbert’s work needed to be stored away for a long time to find a new audience. Even by today’s liberal standards, the work is very tough. This is Ben Talbert’s first solo exhibition since 1973.
Please join us at a reception for the show on Saturday January 16, 2009 from 7 pm to 9 pm.
E6 Gallery, San Francisco
January - February, 2010
Artist Reception: Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010
Moses Nornberg is a recent graduate from the MFA program at California College of the Arts in San Francisco and one of the 2009 ARTADIA Award winners in the Bay area.
The Right Light
work by Darren Le Gallo and Jon Cournoyer
Live Painting/Video Performance and Exhibition
with guest artists Nathan Spoor, Chandler Wood and more
Thursday, December 17th, 7-11pm
C2 gallery
Alejandro Gehry Curated by Katherine Bell
November 14 to December 5, 2009 EXTENDED THRU DEC 15TH, 2009
Gallery C2
Robert Berman Gallery is pleased to present For Play, a solo exhibition featuring the work of Los Angeles based artist Alejandro Gehry. For Play will be on view November 14 through December 5, 2009.
Alejandro Gehry, son of prominent architect Frank Gehry, grew up in southern California and has a half-Latin upbringing. This Latin influence is evident in his art consisting of vivid, hot colored paintings and erotic drawings that make an immediate sexual impact. Sensuality and sexuality are two parallels that play a hand in Gehry’s art, often displayed with twisted body shapes and expressive lines. Exciting and graphic, Gehry’s work celebrates the spirit of sexual liberation.
Gehry is known for his expressive pop-influenced paintings and for focusing not only on the human form, but also on human sexuality. His drawings consist of figures engaged in sexual poses, exaggerated gestures, startling color combinations, and jagged contour lines, all pushing boundaries and confronting social taboos. This radical form of emotional intensity allows Gehry, as an artist, to be free of any societal constraints.
Through Gehry’s edgy forms and existential explorations of the human condition, he can be viewed as a modern day romantic hero to generations of young people raised on sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Alejandro expertly infuses his work with the passion and intensity of his Latin heritage, letting heat and excitement radiate to the viewer. His work breaks North American cultural norms, igniting subjects with unrestrained lust accentuated by bold colors and overlapping line images. The occasional juxtaposition of image over image highlights the contrasting opinions about sexual expression particularly relevant in Los Angeles today.
Alejandro Gehry graduated in 1998 with a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and presently resides and works in Venice, California.
Robert Berman Gallery Presents the First Collaborative Exhibit of The Mac and Retna Vagos y Reinas
Curated by Brett Aronson
September 26 to October 17, 2009 - EXTENDED
Gallery C2
Robert Berman Gallery is pleased to present Vagos y Reinas, an exhibition of selected works by artists and muralists Mac and Retna. Vagos y Reinas marks the first time these longtime collaborators have exhibited in a gallery together.
Mac and Retna are unlikely partners. Mac is a photorealist: His work in spray paint makes the medium dissolve into a sea of classical touches. Retna is all brush: He is known for his abstract embellishments and calligraphic font. Collaboration is a constant in graffiti, but from the first time that Mac and Retna worked together on a mural it was clear that each painter brought out the best in the other; that the precision of one balanced the looseness of the other. In the five years since, Mac and Retna have collaborated on more than 20 murals around the globe, producing some of the most memorable, monumental work in recent memory. Vagos y Reinas is their widely anticipated first collaborative gallery show.
Mac and Retna’s murals are points of neighborhood pride, and it has made them local heroes. They often get involved in the communities they paint in, speaking in schools or mentoring young artists. Their murals have also become local landmarks—so much so that their piece on La Brea and 3rd was included in a recent Los Angeles Times ad campaign featuring iconic people and places that represent the city.
Vagos y Reinas brings their outdoor work inside. The title of the show, which translates to “vagrants and queens,” references Mac and Retna’s street-infused styles and celestial depictions of women. On exhibit are large-scale pieces that represent some of their best work together. For example, with “Gracias a la Vida,” an 11-by-11-foot canvas, Mac and Retna exalt a photo of a beautiful woman into a divine being. It is a perfect example of their use of graffiti and fine art, combining spray paint with Alphonse Mucha’s whiplash curves, motifs pulled from Byzantine art, and a powerful image that recalls Gustav Klimt.
The exhibit also serves as a retrospective, showcasing individual work from each artist before and after they met, as well as brand new pieces that demonstrate their maturation. “I think that our development as individual artists has made our collaborative work that much stronger and more unique,” Mac explains. Mac will show his extremely technical photorealistic canvases, while Retna plans to create a floor-to-ceiling installation of his calligraphic font.
The exhibition coincides with the release of Alianza (Upper Playground/Gingko Press), a 96-page hardcover book that documents their partnership over the years. Vagos y Reinas is open to the public from September 26 to October 17, 2009, during normal gallery hours, Tuesday through Saturday, 12 to 6 p.m. View images from the exhibition
We have a Very Limited number of Albums now signed by Raymond Pettibon! $100
NEW 12" VINYL!
$25.00
The Niche Makers are a new collective revolving around the words and inspiration of internationally acclaimed artist Raymond Pettibon. An icon of contemporary art, Pettibon has exhibited at MOCA, SFMOMA, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art and his work is in the permanent collections of galleries and museums throughout the world. His early artistic roots lie in music, specifically in the Los Angeles punk rock scene, both designing artwork and performing along with brother Greg Ginn in Black Flag as well as designing artwork for other bands such as The Minutemen, SST Records' stable, Foo Fighters, and Sonic Youth among others. He has continually created music over the last twenty years under various band names and collaborated with the likes of Mike Watt, Firehose, and Unknown Instructors.
The band consists of the principal members above and frequently has special guests which partake in awkward performances and investigatory recording sessions. The compositions are choreographed to the endless pages of Pettibon's lyrics, either vocalized by himself or other Niche Makers, and are held together with a sound based on early New Orleans jazz and campfire spirituals. Members of the Niche Makers are simultaneously both seasoned and up and coming musicians in Los Angeles, taking part in other projects such as Old War Shirt, the Slings, and the Hootenanny All-Stars.
Opening Exhibition of our new San Francisco Gallery
Julius Shulman Early Photographs from the Bay Area
Andrew GeorgeLight Leaks
Gallery and Exhibition opens Saturday, April 18, 2009
In conjunction with the Craig Krull Gallery
E61632 market street, san francisco, ca 94102 Julius Shulman, San Francisco Bay Bridge under construction,
1934, recent gelatin silver print
Andrew George, (Light Leaks)Toronto, 2003, C-print, ed of 12, 48 x 30 in
Robert Berman/E6 Gallery will mark its premiere exhibition in San Francisco with a 2-person show featuring photographs by legendary architectural photographer Julius Shulman and his protégé, Andrew George.
Shulman’s featured work includes 12 b&w images of architecture, design and locations mostly never before exhibited, taken in the mid-1930s during the time Shulman studied at Berkeley and resided in San Francisco. George will exhibit Light Leaks, 16 large-scale photographs that convey the simple yet profound ways light moves in quiet, interior spaces.
George, mentored during the last 25 years by Shulman, will share Berman’s gallery walls with his teacher for this historical exhibit. “With George in his late 30s and Shulman in his late 90s,” gallery owner Robert Berman comments, “the upcoming exhibit provides a unique perspective and interchange of both one of the world’s greatest architectural photographers, Julius Shulman, and his student, Andrew George. That George is a protégé of Shulman’s is immediately apparent. The photographs of each complement one another in their beauty and simplicity. Shulman’s iconic exteriors offset George’s transcendent interior moments caught in time”
Shulman’s early photographs of the Bay Area provide a historical pastiche of a place that Shulman would revisit throughout his career and a window into the development of the greatest architectural photographer of the 20th-century. Shulman, whose photographs have been featured in books by Rizzoli, Taschen, and Nazraeli Press, has said of George’s work that, “he has responded to an innate mastery of seeing, [and] thereby launched me into a sea of perception heretofore unexperienced! A unique impact for one with over six decades of photographic endeavors.”
Comprised of images taken in locations all over the world, Andrew George’s Light Leaks unveil large bursts of raw color and glowing light. The photographs capture illuminations that are both fleeting but entrancing, and each of the 4 x 3 foot prints engages viewers with a dynamic energy and an intense field of natural color.
featuring Raymond Pettibon, Daniel Johnston, Ron English, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo,
and Gibby Haynes
Curated by Jon Cournoyer
February 28 - March 21, 2009
Galleries D5 and C2
The Exhibition
The Los Angeles Times calls the exhibition "an indie dream lineup"
Robert Berman Gallery is pleased to present the group exhibition Rock, Paper, Scissor on view February 28 – March 21, 2009. The show features noteworthy artists who freely use, base imagery on, thrive, and excel in both the mediums of visual art and music. The artists taking part in the show are Raymond Pettibon, Daniel Johnston, Ron English, Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers and Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth.
This exhibition highlights these artists who in both the mediums of music and art have created a memorable and historical body of work and continue to do so. Born from outsider roots stemming from Los Angeles, New York and Texas, they blurred the boundaries of aural and visual expressions creating what would become a hallmark of material from the period of the 1980’s-1990’s, eventually being absorbed by both the mainstream public and art industries. It’s influences today are countless.
On exhibit are paintings, drawings, collages, hand-painted installation by Lee Ranaldo, a grand-scale wall mural by Raymond Pettibon and vitrines of vintage ephemerea and lyric sheets by Pettibon and Daniel Johnston/ Also a large collection or rare and early Daniel Johnston works, many of which have never been publicly exhibited, are also on view from the collection of Don Goede, co-author along with Tarssa Yazdan of the definitive book on the artist “Hi, How Are You?”. These works will be published in the next edition of this book as well.
A catalogue is available for purchase $50.00 + shipping
HUNTING AND GAMING Vanessa Prager and Kathy Grayson
January 24 - February 14, 2009
C2 Gallery Opening Reception: Saturday, January 24, 2009, 7 - 10pm
Hosted by Erika Christensen and Jeff Vespa Sponsored by:
Robert Berman Gallery is pleased to present Hunting and Gaming: an exhibition of paintings by Kathy Grayson & Vanessa Prager. On view January 24 through February 14, 2009.
'Hunting and Gaming' explores the nature of sinister play. Vanessa Prager paints starkly lit scenes of surrealistic moments in daily life; untangling holiday decorations, playing with old toys, driving or chatting. But her odd theatrical arrangements suggest something creepy going on behind the innocent façade. Kathy Grayson explores various digital degradations whether with old family photographs re-imagined through early video gaming and green screen effects, with video game "death screens" or with quasi-abstract explosions of distorted video information. Memory and technology infect and distort each other in her uncanny panel paintings.
Vanessa Prager lives and works in Los Feliz. At just 24 years old, this ambitious, self-taught artist has five years of exhibitions under her belt in alternative venues and galleries throughout Los Angeles, as well as notable magazine collaborations, and a long list of eminent collectors.
Kathy Grayson has lived and worked in New York after graduating from Dartmouth College in 2002. She has recently exhibited work at Colette in Paris, at O.H.W.O.W. in Miami, at Park Life in San Francisco, and at Kim Light gallery in Los Angeles. Recent articles on her work have appeared in Dazed and Confused, i-D and Tokion magazine. Her work is in the collection of Microsoft.
Shawn Barber, Christian Clayton, Rob Clayton, Bob Dob,
Shepard Fairey, Frank Kozik, Tara McPherson, Alex Pardee,
David Trulli, Mark Dean Veca, Oliver Vernon
Artwork is for sale.
Portion of proceeds donated to Art Matters.
www.rebelartshow.com
30th Anniversary Exhibition, Part 1 Group exhibition of selected photography and photo based works featuring:
Alex Prager, Jeff Charbonneau & Eliza French, Andres Serrano, Rafael Serrano, Man Ray, William Wegman, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Dennis Hopper, Edmund Teske, Shirin Neshat, Christopher Felver, E.T. Risk, Harry Bowers, Lauren Marsolier, Marc Fichou, John Colao, Marla Rutherford, Dietrich Wegner, Cameron Gray, Gerald Slota, Chin-Chin Wu, Hana Jakralova D5 Gallery
January 24 - February 5, 2009
Andrew Foster Deep Thoughts
November 15 - ongoing
C2 Gallery
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 15, 7:00-9:00pm
Robert Berman Gallery is pleased to announce “Deep Thoughts”, an exhibition of new work by Los Angeles based artist Andrew Foster. Deep Thoughts displays the artist's current leaning towards a traditional mode of creating 'picturesque' works on canvas. Foster considers his new paintings an exploration of nostalgia and an attempt, in the words of Pierre Bonnard, "to escape the monotony of life."
Though light and whimsy in tone, Foster maintains his sardonic sense of humor. He employs a romanticized palette referencing Rococo and Impressionism with themes that revolve around overtly joyous, day dreaming girls who frolic and lounge in idealistic landscapes. Following the tradition that a young painter should copy from the work of past masters, there is an instant and romantic familiarity deeply rooted in each painting. Many of Foster's works are constructed with derivative subjects, themes, and compositions from 19th and early 20th century paintings coupled with ingenuous scenarios. Resurrecting a state of adolescence, boundless yet tumultuous, we are prompted to escape. He weaves in and out of reality but remains distant from surrealism’s visual tricks, obscurities, and cluttered imagery. Foster defines memory, familiarity, history, and paint as the vehicle for his process.
Andrew Foster received his BFA in 2004 from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. Foster's work has been exhibited in galleries such as Earl McGrath Gallery, (West Hollywood), Jonathan LeVine Gallery (NY), Merry Karnowsky Gallery (LA), George Billis Gallery (LA), and included in ARTNOW Fair (Basel, Miami) and Red Dot Fair (NY) among others. In past years, curators Mark Murphy and Brad Benedict have included Foster's works in their exhibits.
View works from this exhibition
Tyson Grumm Anthropomorphism 01
November 15 - December 6, 2008
D5 Gallery
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 15, 5:00-7:00pm
The Robert Berman Gallery is pleased to present a new collection of paintings by Tyson Grumm entitled Anthropomorphism 01. Viewing an exhibition by Tyson Grumm is momentarily entering a fantastical world of unique characters, wild animals, nostalgic objects and textural environments created entirely in the mind of the artist. These well-rendered, contemporary Surrealist works are freeze-frame glimpes of these elements humorously and mysteriously orchestratred inside de Chirico-esque landscapes and architectural surroundings. Exploring these works reveals a story that is only partially told, enabling the viewer to contribute their own unique perceptions to the completion of each of Grumm’s works.
As the artist states, "The stories being told in each painting are created without preconceived planning. I add each element until I see a story. I enjoy forming the story, or parable, step-by-step with found imagery, animals interacting with humans and whatever grabs my eye. Often I keep in mind an overall theme, which in this case is parables told around the nooks, crannies, and niches of walls. This basic theme gives me focus, and a starting point, and from there, the story evolves itself. The characters, animals, and people that fall into these niches are created with a variety of intellectual range, and sometime seem to know what’s going on a lot more than you, or even me, the creator. I find this irony critical to the statements they seem to be making."
The artist not only renders objects such as maps, antique scientific instruments and books that he has collected throughout his life into the scenes but also chooses the actual frames that company the paintings. Hand-collected, reworked and carefully chosen, the frames help to enhance the personality and meaning of the paintings, the end result being not just paintings alone but objects of splendor, wonder, and amusement.
This is Tyson Grumm’s 3rd solo exhibition at the Robert Berman Gallery. His exhibitions, which consistently sell out, have also shown in San Francisco, Oregon, Washington and Internationally as well. The artist was recently the recipient of the 2008 PONCHO IFA Artistic Merit Award.
C H A NG E A M E RI C A A Group Exhibition
October 4 extended through November 8, 2008
D5 Gallery
Opening Reception: Saturday, Oct 4, 2008, 3 - 5 pm
The Robert Berman Gallery has designated our D5 gallery at Bergamot Station Arts Center in Santa Monica, California, for an exhibit entitled "Change America." This collection of political art explores the momentum for renewed hope and the promise of America, emphasizing the theme of change. It also is an indictment against the arrogance of power and overt corruption by an administration that has weakened the Constitution and threatened Democracy.
The power of art is compelling. It challenges people to think and to act at important times. This is such a time, to effect change that America so desperately needs.
On view will be works by Banksy, Richard Serra, Andy Warhol, Raymond Pettibon, Robert Rauschenberg, Ron English, Shepard Fairy, Jim Shaw, Robbie Conal, Dietrich Wegner, Gomez Bueno, Britt Ehringer, Robert Indiana, Kerr+Malley, Arnold Mesches, Antony Micallef, David Trulli, Daniel Martinez, RJ Berman, J Colao, Michele Pred, Ellwood T. Risk, Cameron Gray, Bill Barminski, Vanessa Prager & others
"Vote Obama" graces the cover of the November 2008 issue of THE Magazine:
As of this writing the stock market is down, no up, no down again . . . oh, forget it.
Lots of uncertainty is in the air; although Barack Obama is ahead in the polls, and the election is less than one week and many commercials away, you never, ever know. People are nervous about the economy, nervous about the future, just nervous about everything.
Take a trip back to 1972. People were nervous then, too. Nervous about the Vietnam War, nervous about Palestinian terrorists that killed Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, and, just like today, Americans were nervous about the presidential election. You had Nixon lovers and Nixon haters, McGovern lovers and haters-sound familiar? But, unlike today, back in 1972 the public school system was still exceptional, medical coverage was affordable, and your home was somewhere you lived, not just an investment.
Our cover image is based on Andy Warhol's Vote McGovern from 1972. Robert Berman came up with the idea, and enlisted artist John Colao to bring the concept to life. Berman says, "Andy Warhol's Nixon poster was the first time that I know of where an image of the opposition, an obvious anti-hero, had been used on a political poster. This was Warhol's only blatant political endorsement to my knowledge, using irony by portraying a face that people disliked-it would be the last thing you would want on your wall. The obvious choice for our poster would be McCain of course, but what we want to portray here through the Bush image is that McCain is just more of the same."
Through art-be it painting, song, dance, film, or a multitude of other mediums-the artist informs, engages, enrages, entertains, uplifts, and, hopefully, makes folks think. People may not always like the result, but what's important is that the artist gets to create and the audience gets to think for themselves. You can't please everybody. As Bob Dylan, one of the great artists of our time, once said, "You're nobody if you don't get booed sometime."
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Laurie Rosenthal, Editor-in-Chief lrosenthal@themagla.com
Artillery Magazine: Change America exhibition video Video by Steve Cioffi
Alex Steinweiss: Creator of the Album Cover Original album covers, paintings and collages
by Alex Steinweiss
And special tribute by selected artists.
Co-Curated by Kevin Reagan and Greg Escalante January 19 - February 23, 2008
Before Alex Steinweiss invented the album cover
in 1938, at the age of 23, all albums came in
plain brown wrappers. Steinweiss's idea to create
a package that had something visual on the outside
to lure the consumer was a huge success.
*view selected STEINWEISS images from the exhibition
An exhibition featuring the work of select members of the notorious
Seventh Letter (T7L) graffiti collective. Within the Seventh Letter collective is an elite crew known as Angels Will Rise (AWR), who have established themselves as L.A.’s most influential modern
muralists.
The show will consist of a floor-to-ceiling mural installation constructed by AWR members:
Pusher, Zeser, Krush, Rime, Saber, Revok, Retna, Reyes, Skrew, Sever and Ewok.
Curated by Brett Aronson
WeAreTheSuperlativeConspiracy March 1 – March 15th, 2008
ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY is pleased to announce a group
show curated by Alex Prager with artists from
WeAreTheSuperlativeConspiracy (WeSC).
M.S. Garvey's Letters to the President with the Hootenanny All-Stars
Produced by Ice Hat Creative & The Robert Berman Gallery
Electric Lodge, Venice, CA
November 29, 30th and
December 1, 2, 6 - 9th, 2007
Green Curated by Mark Murphy November 17 - December 22, 2007
**View selected images and more information PHOTO MIAMI - Featuring the work of Alex Prager December 3 - 10, 2007 Marischa SlusarskiThe Bruise of Human Contact October 13- November 3, 2007
Cameron Gray Mise en Scene October 13- November 3, 2007
Eric Orr A Survey of Works September 8 - October 6, 2007
The Robert Berman Gallery is pleased to present a survey of works by artist Eric Orr (1939-1998). Part of the Southern California Light and Space movement of the 1960s-70s.
Alex Prager POLYESTER April 21 – May 12, 2007 Los Angeles based photographer Alex Prager uses a cinematic approach in her vivid, intriguing, still imagery. Stories unfold with each photograph that stimulate the senses and playful yet bizarre scenes are a balancing act between fantasy and reality.
Figment - Group Exhibition featuring works by Marie-Claire Bozant (seattle, wa) Jeff Charbonneau & Eliza French (los angeles, ca) Reeve Schumacher (miami, fl) Erika Somogyi (new york, ny),
Curated by Ashley Lauren Saks & Jon Cournoyer
Feb 17 - Mar 10, 2007
Paul Bob Velick - Fireworks, A Studio Fire Installed February 17 - March 10 , 2007
Daniel Kaufman - Encaustic Perceptions January 20 - February 10, 2007
2006
Koji Takei - New Works December 2 - January 15, 2006
(Berman/Turner Projects) Friendly Fire: Four from the East Curated by Jonathan Levine
October 14 - November 11, 2006
(Berman/Turner Projects) Ron English - New Works October 14- November 11, 2006
(Berman/Turner Projects) Robert Sean Coons - Deceptions September 9 - October 14, 2006
(Berman/Turner Projects) Don Sorenson - Retrospective
April 22 - May 20
(Berman/Turner Projects) Queen of the Night, Women under the Influence 1963-2006 Curated by Elk
April 21 - May 13 , 2006
(Berman/Turner Projects) Elizabeth Tinglof - Mersion March 11 - April 8, 2006
(Berman/Turner Projects)
2005
Tyson Grumm - New Paintings November 19 - December 17, 2005
(Berman/Turner Projects) Bill Barminski - About Face September 9 - October 4, 2005
(Berman/Turner Projects) Ellwood T. Risk - Loaded July 9 - August 9, 2005
(Berman/Turner Projects) Flow Curated by Peter Frank
July 23 - August 23, 2005
(Berman/Turner Projects)
Britt Ehringer - Baghdad Pizza Hut May 14 - June 14, 2005
(Berman/Turner Projects) Timothy Greenfield-Sanders - XXX: 30 Porn Star Portraits April 2 - May 8, 2005
(Berman/Turner Projects) Jorg Dubin - Out of Bounds February 5 - March 3, 2005
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