Wendell Gladstone at Roberts & Tilton, Los Angeles
January 6 – February 3, 2007. Opening reception Saturday, January 6th, 6 – 8pm.
Roberts & Tilton is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new paintings by Los Angeles based artist Wendell Gladstone. Wendell Gladstone has routinely explored connections between painting and sculpture. In his latest body of work, however, he pares down his practice to a single two- dimensional plane. What was once a dialogue between two disparate mediums, is now a conversation between differing modes of painting. Synthetic constructs and hard edge painting with nods to Pointillism and Cubism coexist and interact. All of these elements are woven into a complex narrative that revolves around a group of NeoLuddites and their elaborate rituals.
A fully illustrated catalogue published by Roberts & Tilton, Kravets/Wehby and Artspace Witzenhausen with essay by Franklin Sirmans is available.
Berry McGee
Loft Installation in Project Room – extended to February 3, 2007
Roberts & Tilton is pleased to present the site- specific loft installation by San Francisco based artist Barry McGee.
McGee takes over the project space, transforming the room’s physical relationship with the visitor into an interactive viewing. A distinctive cluster of McGee’s various paintings, works on paper and urban objects can be accessed by ascending through the floor of the utilitarian structure to the lofted space above.
Working on the streets of San Francisco and signing his works with the tag, “Twist,” Barry McGee is considered to be one of the leading artistic figures in California youth subculture. The artist draws his force and inspiration from the contrast and tension that exists between the city center and the suburbs, between the wealthy districts and the slums. His visual language is at the same time eclectic, ephemeral, radical and above all heavily influenced by the daily realities of the city. McGee’s complex installations convey a sense of vitality and chaos, juxtaposed with a precarious nature and sense of alienation. Large scale wall murals, clusters of small framed drawings and snapshots, various tools and other street detritus make their way into his installations in an almost symphonic fashion. Intricate paintings are executed then rolled over with latex paint, echoing the “buffs” that cover graffiti in urban areas. Clusters of glass bottles hang in a corner with painted portraits of characters of the night. In recent years, McGee has exhibited his works internationally to great acclaim.
Upcoming at Roberts & Tilton
Thomas Kiesewetter
New Sculpture and Works on Paper
March 17 – April 14, 2007
Thomas Kiesewetter’s sculptures are abstract, but with the gait and torque of bodies in motion. While they continue the artist’s interest in assembling forms, here he has made them out of cardboard, which were then cast in bronze. As in his previous work in sheet metal, the pieces in this exhibition show the evidence of improvisational construction, resulting from folding, bending, and riveting cardboard. In bronze, Kiesewetter’s forms gain a new sense of volume, while keeping their lively color, achieved now through both traditional patinas and those mixed with pigments, including blue, green, and white.
Kiesewetter’s work features forms related to industry, construction, and the urban environment. At the same time, they have the animated angularity of animal and human movement. These are abstract forms that through their physicality and humor encourage an imaginative response. The sculptures in the exhibition, which have been produced in editions of three, bear a direct relation to the history of modernist sculpture, especially Cubist assemblages and Constructivist forms, and the work of Tatilin. In an ArtForum review, Nell McClister noted that like him, “…Kiesewetter humanizes the industrial while maintaining emphasis on the…nature of industry, and offers [an] updated model of the possibilities for a twenty-first century urban humanity under construction.”
Roberts & Tilton 6150 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90048, T 323.549.0223 F 323.549.0224