|
CUE Art Foundation: Ron Linden. Curated by Peter Plagens | Phranc. Curated by Ann Magnuson - 6 Dec 2007 to 26 Jan 2008 Current Exhibition |
||||
|
Ron Linden
Nona, 2007 Acrylic on canvas, 24" x 20" |
|||
|
||||
|
||||
|
Ron Linden Curated by PeterPlagens Artist's Statement workmanlike & plain centric shapes considered geometries stingy palette shared doubt sense of humor Curator's Statement The strength of Ron Linden's art is that it doesn't go down smoothly. Just when you think you've got it pegged generationally (the post-Minimalist boys), morphologically (abstract painting) and temperamentally (glowering 1970's standoffishness), it starts to squirm loose in your head. Linden is not interested in cordoning off previously unclaimed "is-it-is-or-is-it-ain't-art" territory and stamping it as his own. His work is painting, and pretty much abstract, but, like the oil-change drippings on a mechanic's cardboard dropcloth, Rorschach-like references seep into it. Where the kind of art that Marcia Tucker, with a hint of derision, used to call "MAA art" (major, ambitious, abstract) made a big deal out of being big and-it hoped-profound, Linden's work is physically modest, "sneaky-pretty," and almost sentimental in a late-industrial kind of way. Linden was born and raised in Chicago, schooled at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and given tenure as a young art professor by Bradley University, Peoria, IL. But once he scored a leave and headed to Los Angeles, CA for what was supposed to be a summer and a semester, he never looked back. A couple of teaching gigs did come along, but for twenty years he made his living in Southern California as a "scenic artist" in the television and movie business-building sets, rolling vast, shiny colored dance floors and making sure the game-show host had a secure place to stand. In addition to learning how to stay calm in the midst of other people going crazy under the deadlines of preparing silly, expensive shows for broadcast, Linden picked up a whole bag of scenic artists' tricks and turned them into his own painterly vernacular. At first, he rode his BMW motorcycle to the studios in Burbank, CA from nearby Pasadena. Then he rode from just south of downtown Los Angeles in the flower market district. His swan-song commute in the scenic trades was from twenty miles farther south, San Pedro-"Peedro" to locals. Linden's still a local there. He teaches at a working-class community college, which suits his Situationist-left politics just fine. Politics lie at the base of Linden's artistic pyramid. But his prickly, contentious takes on bloviating warmongers, our "socialism-for-the-rich-free-enterprise-for-the-poor" way of running this society and a phosphorescently rotten commercial culture don't show up as self-righteous bumper stickers in his paintings. Instead, they've been morphed into a quietly angry abstraction that rather thumbs its nose at social ugliness instead of shouting at it. The layer above that base is composed of Linden's awareness of other art, different art. He's not one of those painters who has turned the wagons in a circle. Little bits of video, dance, performance and text float, deliberately half-hidden, in an emulsion of ongoing influence. Finally, at the top, is a poetic sensibility that Linden tries to flout rather than flaunt. If the work is going to mean anything, Linden has insisted by example for thirty years or more-if it's going to say anything about the problems of timely versus timeless, esoteric versus populist, and artistic hope versus cultural despair-it'll have to do it on its esthetic own, with no convenient props of symbolism. Ron Linden is a significant painter because he resists convenience and, sometimes, even himself. But integrity will out. In the end, Linden makes the difficulty of making the difficult look easy look easy. Artist's Bio Ron Linden gave up a tenured university teaching position in the Midwest in 1972 (he received an MFA in painting from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign seven years earlier) to live and work in Los Angeles. Although he did teach as a visiting artist at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles; the San Francisco Art Institute; Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA; University of California, Irvine, CA and elsewhere, Linden supported himself over the years as a union scenic artist in Los Angeles film and television studios. He was one of the first artists (along with Bruce Nauman, Richard Jackson, Peter Plagens, Karen Carson and others) to establish a practice in Pasadena's "Old Town," and later pioneered studios in downtown Los Angeles' Flower Market district and in the port district of San Pedro. For the past seven years Linden has taught and run a gallery program at Los Angeles Harbor College, Wilmington, CA, a community college with a largely working-class and minority student population. He has also been instrumental in San Pedro's recently rising art scene, directing and curating exhibitions for the Warschaw Gallery. Although Linden's abstract painting utilizes, in unexpected and subtle ways, techniques acquired in his three decades working in the scenic industry, its deeper base is his ongoing interest in the philosophical conundrums of modern art, particularly as investigated by the Situationists in the 1970's. But his art remains very much "art," with centric shapes and forms, a predominantly gray palette that rarely warms beyond rust and ochre, and a journeyman's approach to drawing and paint application. Working with mixed materials, Linden's layered compositions strike an odd but convincing sense of balance and solidity. Through his activities as an artist, teacher, curator and gallery director, Linden has achieved grassroots recognition among other artists. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Jancar Gallery, Los Angeles, CA and the short-lived Storage Gallery, Santa Monica, CA and participated in group exhibitions at the Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA; the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA and the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA. The exhibition at CUE Art Foundation marks Linden's first solo exhibition in New York. Phranc Curated by Ann Magnuson Artist's Statement Cardboard and craft paper what a delicious medium. From the time I sat in my first refrigerator box submarine I knew the cardboard sea was for me. I have been creating objects, food, toys, advertisements, shoes and underwear out of "found" cardboard for many years. In 1991, inspired after eating a perfect slice of yellow cake, I started making three-dimensional pieces. I never planned on learning to sew (in fact I failed sewing in school three times). Never thought I'd want to, need to until I had a vision of sewing cardboard! I imagined cardboard clothes not glued but SEWN. I had long ago inherited my Nana's sewing machine, but hadn't a clue as to how to use it. Upon request, a friend taught me how to thread the machine, wind the bobbin and straight stitch. What you see today is my recent history. I roll out craft paper and paint yards and yards until I have created a "bolt" of "fabric." I then cut the pattern and sew! What you see today is mostly my recent history. I've included some glued cardboard pieces, which chart my evolution. I now share with you my "unseamly" passion; Phranc of California. Curator's Statement Things. We love things. We need things. Things tell us who we are. Things make us happy. Phranc makes things. Things that help us see things for the things they really are. People have tried to describe these things. Joseph Campbell talked about masks, Jean Baudrillard of simulacra, Plato about the shadows on the cave wall. Labels. Phranc has a label. "Phranc of California" celebrates the good life - sun, surf, ice cream sandwiches and an endless summer full of fun, fun, fun til Daddy takes the T-bird away. In Phranc's Cardboard Cobbler's Workshop new identities can be forged, old archetypes resurrected. Troy Donahue packs the picnic basket; Sandra Dee wears the combat boots. But mostly gender takes a backseat in a spiffy little GTO fueled by modern myths and driven by desire. And because it's a bicoastal, bipartisan dream-come-true Phranc introduces... The New York Collection! An elegant assemblage of baubles, bangles and bright, shiny designer chocolates, these bite-size bits of luxury porn translate into enduring swank for the ages. The ancient Egyptians buried their kings with their things. So did the Maya. The Vikings put their kings and things (along with a virgin or two) on a boat and burned it all. Some modern Chinese have adapted the traditional funeral practice of burning paper money to include the incineration of elaborately crafted objects made from paper and cardboard. Paper clothing, paper cars, paper houses, paper iPods... Facsimiles of things that the deceased enjoyed in his or her lifetime. Things they loved. Things they needed. Things that defined them as people. People who mattered. People who had things. We want things. We like things. Things are the life jackets we use to rescue ourselves from oblivion. Artist's Bio For more than 25 years, Phranc has described herself as "the All-American Jewish Lesbian Folksinger." She has recorded five collections of music including Folksinger (1985, Rhino Records); I Enjoy Being a Girl (1989, Island Records); Positively Phranc (1991, Island Records); Goofyfoot (1995, Kill Rock Stars) and Milkman (2000, Phancy Records). As a visual artist she has adopted the moniker "The Cardboard Cobbler." As a teenager she attended The Feminist Studio Workshop at The Woman's Building in Los Angeles, CA, where she focused on songwriting and silk-screening. In the late 1970's she was a member of Nervous Gender and Catholic Discipline in the Los Angeles punk rock scene. She has toured internationally with many acclaimed and notorious artists such as The Knitters, The Smiths, The Pogues and Morrissey. Both her music and visual work employ humor to raise consciousness, trigger response, stimulate memories and provoke discussion. Phranc is a former artist-in-residence at the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, CA. As the recipient of the 2007 C.O.L.A. Fellowship she is currently writing songs about Los Angeles that will debut in Spring of 2008. She works in Santa Monica, CA where she resides with her partner and two children. The exhibition at CUE Art Foundation marks Phranc's first solo show in New York. |
||||
re-title.com
International contemporary art
SIGN UP FOR NEWSLETTERS
SIGN UP for ARTIST MEMBERSHIP
SIGN UP for GALLERY MEMBERSHIP
Click on the map to search the directory