October 12, 2008 
Los Angeles Roundup: A Report on Current Gallery/Museum ShowsBy Amra Brooks
Published: May 25, 2006
GALLERY SHOWS
Sharon Lockhardt The new exhibition at Blum & Poe titled “Pine Flat Portrait Studio” is one element of a project that artist Sharon Lockhart has been working on for more than three years. Lockhart immersed herself in a small town in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, where she made the 138-minute film Pine Flat, which consists of 12, 10-minute shots of children living in the town. While spending time there, Lockhart also created an old-fashioned portrait studio and invited local children to come and have their pictures taken. That series is being shown in the gallery, along with a recording, “Stuff I Like,” made by one of the boys she photographed. For the Pine Flat Portrait Studio series, Lockhart followed the 19th-century tradition of the town portrait photographer and transformed a barn in the center of the community into a photo studio where the children could have their pictures taken at any time. In the photographs, the children appear aware of the camera and take the opportunity to perform. Each portrait is shot in natural light against a simple black background, which intensifies the details of their gestures and clothing by throwing them into high relief while simultaneously implying a degree of standardization that echoes August Sander’s classificatory studies of German society in the early 20th century. However, by scaling the photographs so that the children are all the same height, Lockhart disrupts this logic in favor of a more personal and theatrical viewing. In contrast to the photographs, in the film the children seem to be blissfully unaware of the viewer’s presence. The film portrays the town’s children as they engage in activities such as reading, hunting, and wrestling in stunningly beautiful natural settings. The first half of the film focuses on six portraits of individual children, while the second features six portraits of children in groups that explore the expansiveness of social interactions. These images evoke a range of art historical references, from the genre scenes of Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin to nineteenth-century American landscape paintings. The film achieves an intimate documentation of the children’s lives by creating a space in which the dividing line between artist and subject is softened and interpersonal exchanges are illuminated in new ways. Simultaneous exhibitions of Lockhart’s photographs are on view at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York and The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. -------------------------
Chris Johanson In his new exhibition, “I Can Feel It (Co-Exist In Modern Death): Alright Yeah!” at the Jack Hanley Gallery, Portland-based artist Chris Johanson has created a multi-media installation that continues a narrative he has been working on for several years. Originally inspired by American political subcultures, Johanson collaborated with artists Kal Spelletich and Jo Jackson to create this new show, which examines concepts of art making and daily modern life. In addition to the site-specific installation that incorporates sculpture, paintings and light, he has also included abstract paintings on recycled wood and drawings on paper. Johanson said in a statement, “The abstract paintings serve as an outside stimulus, and supporting roles for the internal point stimulus, with the idea of understanding abstraction in order to better understand realism in life.” Taking form as an ongoing examination that relates to, in the artist's words, a “universal life force with specific examples from earth,” the work serves as a daily meditation on notions of inner peace, individual desires and release from what he calls the “psychological negative war.” The works operate visually as a way of coming to terms with, as he puts it, “the abstract, figurative and geometric contemporary issues of life.” |
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