ArtInfo’s Southern California correspondent, Amra Brooks, offers an opinionated report on some of the most interesting exhibitions currently on view at galleries and museums in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Galleries:

Blum & Poe
Florian Maier-Aichen
Jan. 21-Feb. 25, 2006

This exhibition, organized in conjunction with 303 Gallery in New York, is the third by the German-born artist at Blum & Poe. Maier-Aichen uses both archaic forms of photography, such as an Albumen print, as well as modern digital and computer-based enhancement. His visions are familiar, yet idealized and brought into a different kind of focus, challenging our views of landscape and reality—creating images that feel almost like a memory or a dream. While the photographic image is often understood as a form of proof or evidence of the real, Maier-Aichen’s work challenges the trust we place on the medium by shaking our ground just a little bit, casting views that are both ominous and optimistic. He will have a solo exhibition at MoCA in Los Angeles in 2007.

Sister
Mary Weatherford
Jan. 14- Feb. 18, 2006

In this new body of work, Mary Weatherford creates paintings from drawings she made of a large rock formation on the Mailbu coast. As she recreates the images in her studio, each time she paints, different emotional and physical qualities are represented in the work as the original image gets farther away from the truth. Sometimes elements are left out, and at other times they are added, making each image a subjective interpretation of a California landscape. Similar to the ideas of the Impressionists, these paintings seem to express all the intricacies found in a moment.

Regen Projects
Stephen Balkenhol
Jan. 14- Feb. 18, 2006

Stephen Balkenhol exhibits new sculptures which are carved from a single piece of wood. The medium itself lends to spontaneity in the way his figures are rendered and shaped. The untreated wood is left to represent skin and its chiseled quality makes for surprisingly delicate features. As a student of Ulrich Ruckreim, Balkenhol has more in common with the German minimalist tradition than German expressionism. The works are minimally painted and their economy and flatness shares a style incommon with the paintings of Alex Katz. Wooden wall paintings and sculptures also accompany the figures, which are both generic andpersonal in their appearance.

QED
Ryan Trecartin
Jan. 28-March 11, 2007

“Discovered” on Friendster.com, Ryan Trecartin’s six-part installation is entitled I Smell Pregnant. Each of the six parts represent: the Neck (where one enters the gallery), Pregnancy, Domestic, Theater (where his video is screened), Home and Recreation. This collaborative effort was put together by Trecartin and his team who lost almost everything to Hurricane Katrina. In the Recreation area outdoors, there is a large kiddy pool where some of the moldy paintings rescued from their studio are set afloat. The show consists of many artworks, some handcrafted, while others are found, and explore ideas of rebirth and art production through a vast knowledge of popular culture and interest in experimental narrative. The video, entitled A Family Finds Entertainment, which has been selected for the 2006 Whitney Biennial,will be shown in an installed theater with couches and industrial carpeting.


Los Angeles Museums:

Santa Monica Museum of Art
Dark Places
Jan. 21-April 22, 2006
Curated by Joshua Decter
Installation Design by servo

This exhibition, whose title, Dark Places, seems to be appropriated from the James Ellroy book about the psychological impact of his mother’s murder, explores notions of noir and how they relate to personal memory, space, technology andarchitecture. A Los Angeles-based architectural collective called servo designed the exhibition. The huge apparatus constructed by servo stands like a giant alien model for a sci-fi film, and the works are shown on this sculpture itself, as it attempts to open up ideas of traditional narrative. The construction challenges formal ideas of installation and addresses the issue of how all the works in an exhibition can dialogue with each other rather than read in a linear way. Seventy-six artists were invited to create new works or have an old work recontextualized. Some of the artists included are: Vito Acconci, Franz Ackerman, MatthewBarney, Julie Becker, Sophie Calle, Sam Durant, Douglas Gordon,Christian Jancowski, Glenn Ligon, Alexis Rockman, Andres Serrano, Richard Prince, Wim Wenders and Charlie White.

Museum of Contemporary Art–Los Angeles
Painting in Tongues
Jan. 29 – April 17, 2006
Curated by Michael Darling

Painting in Tongues features the work of seven artists who are exploring new ideas in painting. It includes works by Anselm Reyle, Ivan Morely, Rodney McMillian, Lucy McKenzie, Mark Grotjahn, Gillian Carnegie and Kai Althoff. What is fascinating about this exhibition is that most of the artists included have a very diverse approach to how they incorporate the medium or ideas associated with painting. For most of the artists, there isn’t a single defining style that is easily recognized. This idea of approaching each work in a different way lends itself to the notion that each of these artists are deeply invested in the ideas of experimentation, showing that the artist has a vested interest in challenging their own ideas rather than settling.