#klowden mann

Currently at Klowden Mann is Alexandra Wiesenfeld’s exhibition They found ritual and order but couldn’t see the real (year 3008), her fifth solo exhibition at the gallery.

From the press release-

The show features a series of large-scale oil paintings on canvas in which Wiesenfeld imagines a heightened future Earth–long after the climate has tipped–with few humans and very little evidence remaining of our time dominating the planet.  The works are non-narrative: abstracted landscapes formed in vivid colors, offering the state of mind and eye of a future on the other side of our current strategy of dominance at all costs, and its consequences…

Wiesenfeld’s new works are visual representations of a time past the context of the structures humanity has built, and the vast resources we have mined and violence we have justified to sustain them. In her statement, Wiesenfeld writes, “Painting these invented landscapes is as much about climate grief, escapism into a sci-fi world as an act of devotion to the beauty of the natural world, even if no longer viable for us. They are about the human need for myth-making when facing landscape alone.”

Wiesenfeld forms the paintings through layers of color without a referent; made from imagination and impulse, there are often many stories of imagery and tone under the final painting.  Several of the paintings include grids of colored dots that disappear and reappear on the surface, under and over forms that feel like rocks, flesh, plant life we have never seen. The dots often appear as a partially-formed system of analysis–visual schematics through which to understand land that is no longer familiar…

From the press release-

Klowden Mann is proud to present San-Diego-based artist Andrea Chung’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, … Only to meet nothing that wants you. The exhibition features large-scale cyanotype works depicting under-sea images of coral that have then been bleached with sugar crystals—a material woven throughout Chung’s practice for over a decade in reference to its relationship to colonialism in the Caribbean. The cyanotypes are placed in context with a brass chandelier that recalls designs from the 19th century; where crystals would hang, Chung has hung glass vials filled with sugar in various shades.

Chung’s practice often utilizes perishable and precious materials with strong underlying histories, forming relationships to pre-emancipation images of the Caribbean, touristic misrepresentations of people and place, the export or import of goods and materials, and the labor of the human body. Completing the quote by Nayyirah Waheed that Chung used as the title of her first solo museum exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in 2017, “You broke the ocean in half to be here,” the title of the exhibition at Klowden Mann answers with the second half of the phrase, “…Only to meet nothing that wants you.”

In the cyanotype works, coral bleaching becomes a metaphor for colonialism, and the expanding of the philosophy and impact of imperialism on colonial populations and cultures. The addition of sugar crystals to the already highly sensitive cyanotypes underlines Chung’s interest in creating work that defies the notion of artworks as static objects that are meant to remain unchanging and unyielding in the face of shifting environments and time; in a way that also reflects the constant uncontrolled and irresponsible effects of human actions on the environment, and on vulnerable populations. The works are intended to shift and change over the course of the exhibition, as the sugar embeds further in the cyanotype, falls, and expands. The works are linked to the environment in which they are placed in a way that Chung cannot predict and control—and along with the chandelier, ask the audience to consider who pays for the superficial opulence and beauty to which so many have become accustomed.

The work in this exhibition is really stunning, and the fact that it is work that is changing with time, makes seeing it feel even more special. Like so much of the beauty in the world, and especially in nature, you appreciate it, while wondering how long it will still be around to be seen.

Jamison Carter: Hallelujah Anyway

Jamison Carter SUNSPOT 2017 Wood, wood stain, wood glue, steel and hardware 74 by 74 by 63 inches

LOS ANGELES— Los Angeles-based artist Jamison Carter’s third solo exhibition Hallelujah Anywaywill be on view from May 19th through June 20th, 2018 at Klowden Mann. The exhibition will feature large-scale freestanding sculptural work formed from unfinished wood and cast resin, sculptural wall work…

LOS ANGELES—Los Angeles-based artist Megan Cotts’s second solo exhibition Proprius opens at Klowden Mann. The exhibition features a series of sculptural paintings made of linen stretched over wood, painted with pigment formed from tempera and ground glass. The monochrome and dualchrome works are presented as individual tiles, and in groupings that form larger works on the gallery walls. The…