7 Jan 2012 to 11 Feb 2012
Tuesday - Saturday 11 am - 6 pm and by appointment
Reception: Saturday, January 7, 6 - 8 pm
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects
6006 West Washington Blvd
Culver City
CA 90232
Los Angeles, CA
California
North America
T: +1 310.837-2117
F: +1 310.837-2148
M:
W: www.vielmetter.com
INGRID CALAME "From the LA River to Lackawanna" January 7 - February 11, 2012
January 7 - February 11, 2012 Reception: Saturday, January 7, 6 - 8 pm
In the context of Pacific Standard Time, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is pleased to present Ingrid Calame's first solo exhibition in Los Angeles in 10 years. On view will be a series of new color pencil drawings and a 50 foot long ephemeral wall drawing on the wall of the gallery. Ingrid Calame has been tracing marks from streets and sidewalks since 1997. Using a consistent one to one scale, she documents more accurately than a photograph while translating with a precise and subjective pencil line the profuse information on the ground in front of her. The resulting forms are both abstract and representational in their translation from the real world to document. In her most recent work, the complex compositions or the constellations they are based on have given way to extremely large and complex tracings redrawn alone.
The centerpiece of the exhibition is LA River at Clearwater Street, 2006-2008 Variation #2, a 14' high x 50' long wall drawing made with pigment transferred directly onto the wall. Calame uses the Renaissance technique of pouncing in which she pushes pigment through a pricked paper template onto the wall of the gallery. Traditionally used as a preliminary stage for executing a painting or fresco onto a wall, Calame stops there at the bones of her image. The colorful form on the wall is a tracing of a 20' x 50' graffiti tag palimpsest that she traced in the LA River from 2006 to 2008, translating its multiple colors, layers, and transformations over time into one intricate closed shape.
In the additional drawings on Mylar, tracings from the floor of a steel company and from an abandoned wading pool in Buffalo, NY (ArcelorMittal Steel shipping buildings in Lackawanna, Perry Street Projects wading pool) have been traced separately or in a constellation with tracings from the LA River. The chosen tracings juxtapose the intent of long lasting marks with their gradual breaking down over time, strictly focusing on an accurate documentation of this deterioration. The resulting drawings surprise in how effortlessly they conjure up the ephemeral beauty of a brief moment within this ever-changing process.
Ingrid Calame's work has been exhibited internationally. Recently the subject of a midcareer retrospective at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland, she has had solo museum exhibitions at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; the Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA; the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN; Kunstverein Hannover, Germany; Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH; and solo gallery exhibitions at James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY; Frith Street Gallery, London, England; Galerie Schmidt Maczollek, Cologne, Germany; Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich, Switzerland and Deitch Projects, New York, NY. Group exhibitions include the Tate St. Ives, Cornwall, England; Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; The Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland; San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany; Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO; Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany; Kasseler Kunstverein, Kassel, Germany; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY and the Drawing Center, New York, NY.
RAFFI KALENDERIAN "Currents, Undercurrents, and Maneuvers"
January 7 - February 11, 2012 Reception: Saturday, January 7, 6 - 8 pm
In Galleries 3 and 4, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new paintings and drawings by Raffi Kalenderian in the context of Pacific Standard Time.
Working both from life and from photographs, Kalenderian features his friends in a series of intricate portraits. His paintings and drawings convey both an intimate moment between artist and sitter and a dreamlike detachment that places his subjects in a peculiar equilibrium between reality and illusion. Sometimes, the same character appears numerous times in an image, as a strange shadow figure, a somewhat less tangible Doppelgaenger whose co-existence seems dependent on their counterpart. These flat, less two-dimensional secondary figures load the portraits up with a psychological meta-reality, a dreamlike level of consciousness that seems to exist beside or underneath the visible world. In his own words, the artist describes his work as "portraits done from life" in which "the social aspect is incredibly meaningful to me. Technology can be isolating, so sitting with a friend for a few hours and observing them, talking, is a great way to slow things down. And the time frame forces me to look and work fast, to use observation as a springboard for invention. Plaid shirts provide the opportunity for distortion and abstraction. A pattern in the sofa takes over, spills into the foreground. Plants everywhere. The drawing becomes, among other things, a record of this time together, a record of existence. Often, the decisions I have to make rapidly in the live setting lead to painting and drawing moments that are more exciting than anything I could have done alone."
Raffi Kalenderian graduated with a BFA from UCLA in 2004. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Galerie Peter Kilchman, Zurich, Switzerland, at the Black Dragon Society, Los Angeles and in group exhibitions at the University Art Museum, Long Beach; Kunstmuseum St Gallen, St Gallen, Switzerland; Eleven Rivington, New York, NY; and at Kantor/Feuer Gallery, Los Angeles. This is his first exhibition at the gallery.
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is located at 6006 Washington Blvd in Culver City, 1 block west of La Cienega at Sentney Avenue, on the south side of the street. Gallery parking is available across the street from the gallery off of Sentney Avenue. Gallery Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11 am - 6 pm and by appointment.
