Using reclaimed cotton fabric, starch, and the task of
ironing artist Mung Lar Lam is doing ongoing performances at the Craft
and Folk Art Museum to create an ever changing installation from ironed, creased
and folded fabric. Part performance, part drawing with fold and heat mark her
work asks questions about finding beauty and value in ephemeral acts of
domesticity as well as the poser of cumulative acts of labor (such as making
art). To 8/10. www.cafam.org/current.html
Contemporary Indian art at two Culver City venues makes up Contradictions
and Complexities. The concept of the “wild woman” who defies easy description
runs through this exhibition of six female artists whose work combines
references to traditional Indian culture and present-day global concerns. At:
d.e.n. Contemporary and Western Project. To 8/2 www.dencontemporaryart.com and www.westernproject.com.
The complex, playful sculptures of Kristen Morgin are
made from unfired clay and painted with acrylic, ink and marker and include
likenesses of toys, books, comics and other objects from her own personal
history. They are a fragile, crumbling collection with references to childhood
and America’s commercialized past while being amazing pieces of clay mimicry. At Marc Selwyn Fine Art. To 8/16. http://www.marcselwynfineart.com/expos/expo.htm
Ceramicist Elsa Rady continues to investigate new
materials and the abstracted vessel forms with her Caryatids at Craig Krull
Gallery. Vaguely architectural, the female suggestive shapes combine plexiglass
discs and lathe-turned poplar in lithe, entirely non-functional vessel forms.
Also showing are the slightly wistful, Romantic photographs by Jennifer
Gough-Cooper that focus on Rodin’s sculptures housed in the Musee Rodin in Paris. To 8/23. www.artnet.com/ckrull.html
Gillian Wearing’s explores self-identity in the
artifice and reality of public perception with smarmy, professionally
airbrushed paintings she had made of non-professional models who responded to
her solicitation on the internet. Interviews with the men and women who responded
to her call for pin-up wannabes along with the retouched photographs that
resulted from the shoots are included with the paintings. At Regen Projects. To
8/23. www.regenprojects.com.
In the Eye of the Beholder at Louis Stern presents works
on paper by Denice Bartels, Jennifer Celio, Mary Mallman and
Elizabeth Patterson. To 8/23. www.louissternfinearts.com
Asymmetric Equality is a multimedia installation exploring
stories hidden in plain sight by Haegue Yang’s at REDCAT. It’s a
manifestation of an unspoken narrative about private and public intersections,
inspired by this Korean woman artist’s visits to Los Angeles and by her
interest in the emotional geography of colonialism. To 8/24. www.redcat.org.
Lora Schlesinger Gallery features Michelle Wiener’s
Pining in the Attic that centers on the idea of a woman trying to
self-analyze the once trendy idea of her own ‘hysteria’. Using references to
Hitchcock’s films and text from 19th and 20th century
literature the work examines the complicated effort to tell truth from text.
8/9 to 8/30. www.loraschlesinger.com/exhibitions.html
There are only seven women among the eighteen artists
showing in The American Lifescape at dba256 gallery/winebar in Pomona. Each presents their own angle on the subject of the contemporary American culture
and its landscape. To 9/6. www.dba256.com
Looky See: A Summer Show is a packed group exhibit with
28 artists, 13 of them dynamite women who draw, cut, film, pin, perforate,
perform and journal. Curated by Otis College gallery director Meg Linton
and intern Nina Laurinolli the selections were made from dozens of
studio and gallery visits as well as reviews of artist’s materials over a one
year period. Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design. To 9/13. www.otis.edu/benmaltzgallery.
The recent large-scale tableaux photographs based on Greek
and Roman history and mythology by conceptual artist Eleanor Antin are
at the San Diego Museum of Art. To 11/2. http://www.sdmart.org/exhibitions.html
Weaving together video imagery
gathered in her Chilean homeland with footage of body movement and nature, Marsia
Alexander-Clark’s video installation Tapestries turns cropped and
repeating photographic imagery into changing electronic patterns and haunting
movement at the Armory in Pasadena. 9/20 to 11/16. www.armoryarts.org/gallery/gallery.html
